Name: Top Tips for Insertional Achilles Tendinopathy
Uploaded: 2025-06-26T15:35:08.000Z
Duration: 4 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi guys, this video is specifically about insertional Achilles tendinopathy, so where you get the tendinopathy where the Achilles tendon attaches into the heel.

I'll give you some tips about that and why you can't treat it the same as a mid-portion Achilles tendinopathy.

So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Marijke, I'm one of the physios from www.treatmyachilles.com where you can get online physiotherapy assessment as well as treatment of your Achilles injuries.

Have a look at the description of this video if you want a link to our website.

Brilliant, so insertional Achilles tendinopathy, what is it?

It's basically if you feel your heel bone, it's when you have the tendinopathy where the tendon attaches onto the heel bone there.

Now it's significant to distinguish the two types because the other type is when you've got the mid-portion where you can feel it kind of in this bit of the tendon or sometimes a little bit higher up, because the treatment for the two is very different.

The insertional type is usually caused by too much compression because in that area where the Achilles tendon attaches to the heel bone, it's very easy for that tendon to compress against that bone too much and so compression is a big part of the disease process or the injury process there.

Now if you go and do heel raises over the side of a step like they always advocate and we advocate as well for mid-portion Achilles tendons, you're going to make your insertional tendinopathy so much worse because guess what happens when your foot drops over the side of that step?

As it drops, your foot goes into dorsiflexion and can you imagine, so that drops, can you see how that's going to compress that tendon even more over the bone?

You cannot do your exercises for insertional Achilles tendinopathy at the beginning stages over the side of a step.

Yes, fine, eventually we want to get there, but that's quite a long way off.

So usually starting with things to floor level or even identifying if I get my patients to do it with shoes on, that they don't get into any position where it compresses that tendon, that makes a big difference and often doing isometrics rather than where there's movement can be useful as well.

One of the nicest things you can do for your tendon, especially if it's acutely flared up and painful, is to not walk around barefoot and not to walk around in flat shoes.

If you can put your into a comfortable shoe, so one that doesn't press directly on that spot, but that has a bit of a heel, like regular trainers, most of them has about a 12 degree heel, or you can place some heel inserts, don't just put it in the one, put it in the other one as well, otherwise you'll be wonky, that can just lift you up.

Even quite severe heel inserts, sometimes if it's a really flared up one, that can make a massive difference because it just takes the strain off the tissue and allows it to calm down.

Of course, as you recover, we want to bring the foot into a position where it's happy to take the load in flat on the floor, but at the beginning stages, it's really useful to just lift it up a bit that we can desensitize the tissue and allow it to recover.

If you've got an insertional Achilles tendinopathy, avoid calf stretches because it's the same thing as doing a heel raise over the side of the step, avoid heel raises over the side of the step at the beginning stages, later on in your rehab that has to be added in, and initially for the first few weeks, see if you can get yourself into shoes with a bit of a heel.

If you prefer flat shoes, see if you can get some cheap old heel raises off the internet and just stick them in there for a while to allow it to recover and you can take them out again.

So let me know if you've got any questions.

If you need more help with the injury, you're welcome to consult one of us via video call.

The link to the website is in the description of this video.