Monday, December 31, 2007

About Me

Sigfús Víkþörðson

I currently have two blogs, one devoted to "eccentric exercise" to treat chronic patellar tendinitis http://eccentric-exercises.blogspot.com/ and another highlights my Iceland photos http://iceland-photos.blogspot.com/

At the end of 2012, the eccentric exercise website completed its 5th year anniversary.  I developed patellar tendinitis in mid-2004. The tendinitis resulted from doing a lot of bicycling over a period of two weeks. The inflammation went away after some time, but I continued to have pain that lasted for several years. After trying everything from acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractors, pain drugs, lidoderm patches, ointments, etc... the only thing that significantly reduced my pain was "eccentric exercise." I learned about such exercise through reading medical journal articles. However, I had to develop a protocol that worked for me through trial-and-error.


By mid-2008, my knee was substantially better and it has since felt normal most of the time.  I typically have no pain cycling or running. In fact, in 2009 and again in 2010 I completed "century" cycling events in which I rode 100 miles in one day and had no symptoms of patellar tendinitis! I continue to stretch on a daily basis and now practice yoga. Several of my daily stretching exercises can be found elsewhere on this website. (While I recommend daily stretching, you should avoid yoga poses that aggravate symptoms if you suffer from patellar tendinopathy.

Below are photos of me doing variations of Crow and Side Crow yoga poses, non-stretching strengthening poses.


Crow Pose

Side Crow Pose

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all information on the Eccentric Exercise. Like you, I tried so many exercises, but your decline board idea worked the best for me. If you ever come to Canada, I would definitely buy you a few cups of coffee. You obviously understand much about Chronic Patellar Tendinitis.

FLEX-N-GO said...

Thank you for the video, I have passed on to so many people who have asked me about more information regarding Patellar Tendonitis. They have find me through Brian Patterson's video and Martin Koban's book. We manufacture slant boards. YOu can find us at FLEX-N-GO.com It is just awesome to be able to point people in the right direction. Someone posted on Brian's blog about your name. Before now I have just been passing the info along. So glad you are doing well. Kelly

Sigfús Víkþörðson said...

Kelly,
Thank you. Many people ask me where they can buy a slant board. Now, they have another resource.
Sigfus