Today’s podcast guest is Jake Tuura. Jake is a strength coach, educator, and tendon rehabilitation specialist best known for developing the Jumpers Knee Protocol. He has helped thousands of athletes and clinicians improve tendon health, return to sport, and build more resilient performance through evidence-informed, practical training methods.
In this episode, Jake explores the principles that underpin resilient tendons and long-term athletic durability. The conversation covers key differences between Achilles and patellar tendon rehabilitation, how loading strategies should be adapted to each, and why avoiding dramatic peaks and valleys in training is essential for keeping tendons healthy. Jake also discusses the often-overlooked role of bone health and bone loading in performance, along with practical concepts coaches and athletes can use to build more robust, resilient lower limbs.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Vert Trainer
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Jake Tuura’s New Book:
https://jaketuura.gumroad.com/l/tendonbook
The Just Fly Performance Podcast is dedicated to all aspects of athletic performance training, with an emphasis on speed and power development. Featured on the show are coaches and experts in the spectrum of sport performance, ranging from strength and conditioning, to track and field, to sport psychology. Hosted by Joel Smith, the Just Fly Performance Podcast brings you some of the best information on modern athletic performance available.
In this episode, Jake explores the principles that underpin resilient tendons and long-term athletic durability. The conversation covers key differences between Achilles and patellar tendon rehabilitation, how loading strategies should be adapted to each, and why avoiding dramatic peaks and valleys in training is essential for keeping tendons healthy.
Jake also discusses the often-overlooked role of bone health and bone loading in performance, along with practical concepts coaches and athletes can use to build more robust, resilient lower limbs.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Vert Trainer
View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)
Topics
1:54 – Avoiding Rehab Errors
5:03 – One-Set Training
8:12 – Expectations With Age
11:45 – Training Motivation
17:10 – Softball Hamstring Injuries
22:04 – Learning Graded Exposure
24:42 – Muscle, Tendon, and Bone
29:36 – The Bone Factor
31:38 – Tendon Coordination
33:00 – Keep Plan B Close
36:33 – Bone as the Limiter
38:23 – Childhood Builds the Base
41:28 – Plyos, Sport, and Stiffness
48:43 – Bones, Carbs, and RED-S
54:09 – Rotation and Load Sharing
58:27 – Sharing Load Around Pain
1:00:21 – Patellar vs. Achilles Loading
1:04:43 – Achilles Rehab Options
1:16:44 – Isometrics, Pump Work, and Stiffness
1:19:08 – Heavy Achilles Loading
1:22:24 – Setting Up Achilles Work
1:27:07 – Memes and Tendon Education
1:29:49 – Jake’s New Tendon Book
Jake Tuura Quotes
“Really one of the big things with tendon rehab is the peaks and valleys, the too much, too soon, the too little for too long. You want to avoid these training errors.”
“I just would do a set that’s stimulating and then I would move on to the next thing. So, yeah, it worked well and I’m just going to keep going back to the one set of 20, 15, 10.”
“You used to be athletic and now you want to still act like you’re athletic. Your muscle and tendon are not ready for this, but your nervous system has stuck around and your nervous system is ready for it. And that’s kind of a dangerous combination.”
“Unless you’re in the track and field domain, I think that’s where I’ve learned a lot of that graded exposure progressing loads. If you’re just a team sport person, you’re not going to even be aware that that’s a thing because you just know, I’m just going to go 100. I’m going to go from zero to 100.”
“If you look at the muscle, the muscle is going to get adaptation from plyometrics, from heavy lifting, from light lifting. It’s going to adapt to all of that. When we go to tendon, heavy lifting is going to be a pretty big adaptive stimulus because you’re getting a lot of strain. And then plyometrics, you’re still getting an adaptive stimulus.”
“When you go to the bone level, I put that plyometrics are the real bone stimulus because it’s straining the bone. It’s bending the bones when you do something with the plyometric. Heavy lifting is going to be some sort of stimulus as well. And then light lifting is not going to be really doing much to the bone.”
“One of the most important is keeping plan B as close to plan A as possible. Plan A is you normally training, normally competing. Plan B is you got a tendon issue and now we’re doing rehab. But I think plan B should look very similar to plan A. The main reason is if you stray so far away from plan A, it’s very hard to get back there.”
“If you do graded exposure, you keep plan B close to plan A. You’re taking care of the muscle, the tendon and the bone, keeping all of them receiving some sort of stimuli so that you don’t have this really fall off.”
“The tendon is mostly built in that time frame and the bone is the same, but the muscle is something that you can always be adapting significantly.”
“I can do isometrics for six months and I guarantee you I will not be ready to go dunk. My tendon will probably still hurt, so I need to keep some dose of that really high impact activity in.”
“If we’re talking about pain decrease or feeling better, you could just do whatever you want. If isometrics make you feel better, go and do those. If getting a pump makes you feel better, go and do that. Because pain is so complex, there’s a million ways that we can impact pain.”
“You always want the tendon to be stiffer because it’s a safer tendon and it’s a tendon that gives you more energy when you want to get something out of it.”
About Jake Tuura
Jake Tuura is a performance coach, educator, and one of the leading voices in tendon rehabilitation and athletic durability. Through his work with the Jumpers Knee Protocol, he has helped thousands of athletes and clinicians better understand the principles of tendon loading, pain management, and return-to-sport training. Jake combines practical coaching experience with a deep understanding of current research, making complex rehabilitation concepts accessible and immediately applicable for athletes, therapists, and strength coaches alike.
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