Donny said:
Thats Awsome news. Like Beads said, we can make it through Origin without him and give him an extra couple of weeks just to be sure.
Does anyone know much about this type of injury.....I dont. Maybe its an injury that needs you to get our there and do some running around to strenghen it, hope so anyway.
Raw Boned Youngster can explain a lot. He's recovering from it now.
The achilles tendon is the strongest tendon in the human body - and it needs to be. The stress that the calf muscle exerts on it to invert your foot and push off while running and walking is intense.
The issue, I understand, is in building up the strength and flexibility in your calf muscle post-injury. It's been immobile for a long time, so the muscle has wasted and tightened. This weak and tight muscle is likely to rip the achilles tendon apart again.
So Hodges would no doubt have spent the last X weeks doing painfully boring calf stretching and strengthening exercises. That he's been given the go ahead to run is a good sign, but it'd be slow running, no sudden change of direction, no sudden acceleration. That will contribute to the recovery of the calf muscle.
He'd also be doing a lot of work on foot strength to ensure there's enough support there and limit sideways movement of the ankle. So lots of balancing work.
Given his reputation for being a poor trainer and bored with rehab exercises, I can imagine the last couple of months has been incredibly difficult for him.
