The first time I felt pain in my Achilles was about a month after I started training Wushu at the Song Jiang Wushu School in China. I had no idea how much running we’d be doing. Every morning began with a 5K run, followed by jumps and sprints. It felt like I had signed up for track and field, not martial arts.
At first, it wasn’t a big deal—just a bit of discomfort when I pressed on the tendon with my fingers. So the solution was simple: I just didn’t touch it.
Eventually, my Achilles adapted to training four hours a day, seven days a week—probably because I was young and well-fed.
After two years of Wushu, I suddenly felt like i was too skinny, so I added weight training to my routine. And surprisingly it seemed to make my tendons stronger even though I put on weight pretty quickly. No pain at all. I focused on slow controlled movements, and I started cutting back on running some days. Everything improved—I felt stronger, jumped higher, and ran faster.
My sprint times improved quickly, and I got hooked. Short-distance running became a hobby.
Four years later, I left China and began my military service in Austria. My 100m times were decent (at least by Austrian standards), so I started training for national events while still practicing Wushu and lifting weights twice a week.
My role in the military was ParSchütze (heavy anti-tank unit), which meant carrying a 16kg launcher, a rifle, and a 30kg backpack—all day, in snow, and wearing shitty austrian military boots.
But I refused to stop training. I still aimed to run 100m in 10.50 and practice Wushu daily. I’d wake up at 4:30 a.m. to work out before everyone else. Sometimes our commanders would spring a surprise alarm exercise at 5, but I was already out running, jumping around like a ballerina and stressing my achilles tendon.
Eventually, I developed plantar fasciitis. The military thought I was faking it to avoid duty—after all, they saw me training every morning and I never complained. So they put me on Diclofenac, and that was it.
But once I stopped the medication, the pain came back—worse than before. My sprint times dropped, dropped again, and then dropped some more.
I learned to work around the pain with carefully crafted warm-ups and regular massage, which allowed me to return to almost full volume. Almost—because just two weeks before my service ended, I injured my shoulder. A nerve injury that would take 10 months to heal.
I used the downtime to write a book and start this website. Ten months later, my shoulder had healed—but the plantar fasciitis had shifted into my Achilles.
I returned to my usual training routine but
I returned to my usual training routine, but still had to do my special warm-ups and messages. At least I would never use Diclofenac or painkillers again.
Over the next few years, there were ups and downs with my Achilles tendon. Sometimes it bothered me, sometimes it didn’t. Looking back, I now think another contributing factor was sitting. I’d train like a beast in the morning, and then—without cooling down properly—sit at my computer for hours without standing up. The issue, of course, was poor blood flow and waste products from the workout staying trapped in the legs.
Dehydration was likely another major factor—and possibly CO₂ exposure. My office was tiny, with the windows shut all day. I now know that high CO₂ levels can lead to systemic inflammation due to carbonic acid buildup in the blood. While it may not affect the Achilles tendon directly, it could still contribute.
Years later, a friend (an amateur sprinter) talked me into joining a track meet. I did four races in one day—100m, 200m, and a 400m relay.
The next morning, I couldn’t walk. My Achilles tendons felt like stones. It took a full week before I could walk normally again.
That was the turning point. I finally decided to start physical therapy—20 years later.
First, I went to a massage therapist who used aggressive massages - the kind where you can hear people scream from across the building. It helped a little, but anytime I ramped up intensity, the pain returned.
He also recommended ice baths (20 minutes, knees down), which only ended up damaging some veins in my calves.
Eventually, I saw a trauma specialist who ordered an ultrasound. Luckily the tendon structure was fine, but there was inflammation and fluid buildup. He thought the issue came from the veins and referred me to a vein specialist—no exercises, no rehab, just sent me to a vascular specialist.
The vein specialist said it wasn’t serious enough to have any impact, but I might consider vein later on.
While searching YouTube for Achilles rehab exercises, I found a service called Treat My Achilles, which focuses exclusively on Achilles tendon issues.
(Just to be clear, this isn’t a sponsored post.)
But this was finally a step in the right direction.
You book a Zoom session with a physiotherapist, they run you through a few assessments, and then give you a rehab plan. I’ll share some of the exercises later on.
The root of my problem was simple: overtraining. I always pushed harder than everyone else and never gave my Achilles a real break.
Every morning, I ran, jumped, and sprinted. At noon, it was Wushu, weight training, or gymnastics. I was doing 10–12 calf workouts per week. Honestly, it’s a miracle I didn’t rupture the tendon.
The worst part? Doing plyometric training to failure—but I had turned it into a lifestyle.
In China, everything was pushed to failure. And that works if you're trying to forge a soldier for an emperor—but I had turned it into a lifestyle.
The first step was waiting until the pain was manageable, then doing just three rehab sessions per week. The exercises were simple, with no weights. You can't imagine how lazy and bored I felt.
After two months, I slowly added load, then started jogging:
5 × 1 minute → 6 × 1 minute → 7 × 1 minute… up to 20 minutes.
It took about four months. I checked in with my physio every 2–3 weeks.
The trick: Physical therapy replaces your workout—it’s not in addition to it.
Even now, a year later, I don’t train calves 12 times a week. I do 5. Running is one workout. Physio is another. Weight training is the third. And the last two are wushu and gymnastics.
Scaling back was the hardest part. But while rehabbing, I also researched what else might support healing. Here’s a quick summary what helped (you can ask ChatGPT to explain any of these further):
It took me 20 years to figure this out—but in just six months, I finally started healing.
