# Why did surgery to move where the tendons attach to bones to improve strength fail **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306 "2014-08-23T17:53:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/1 "2014-08-23T17:53:55Z")
I’ve heard the soviets, when they were trying to gain an advantage in olympic strength events had a surgery they performed on athletes where the tendon was disconnected from the bone, then moved to a different area further down the bone to change the amount of force needed to move an appendage. Like in this photo [![](http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/upload/a2412686.jpg) ](http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/upload/a2412686.jpg) It says the bicep tendon attaches to the forearm bone at about 3cm from the elbow, maybe the soviets would move the tendon to 4 or 5cm (as a guess) down the bone so the muscle would be able to move heavier weights. This therapy supposedly failed, does anyone know anything about it or why it failed? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/2 "2014-08-23T18:15:00Z")
As a first guess, maybe a surgical re-attachment of a tendon is never as strong as a natural attachment? ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/3 "2014-08-23T18:32:30Z")
I don’t think that’s it, ligament reconstruction in Tommy John surgery ends up being as strong or stronger than it was initially. Perhaps the healed tendon wasn’t as strong with the “wrong” attachment point though. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/4 "2014-08-24T15:47:02Z")
And maybe their understanding of the biomechanics was not as good as they thought it was. Lety’s face it, if another attachement had, overall, more strength advantage per unit muscle _in vivo_, evolution would likely have selected for it. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/5 "2014-08-24T16:02:50Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And maybe their understanding of the biomechanics was not as good as they thought it was. > > Lety’s face it, if another attachement had, overall, more strength advantage per unit muscle _in vivo_, evolution would likely have selected for it. To be clear from the outset because I’m afraid of how my question will sound, I am not even in the slightest an anti-evolutionist. What you said seems out of keeping with what I often read, which is that one shouldn’t use the theory of evolution to predict what kind of animals should end up evolving or not. For one thing, I thought, what’s optimal may not be clear to us at all (because of confounding factors we’re not aware of for one thing), and for another thing, what’s optimal isn’t what’s selected for anyway. Do I have this wrong? Or am I wrong to think what you said runs afoul of this? ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/6 "2014-08-24T16:09:30Z")
Yes, just take the spine and its curvature. It isn’t really optimal for our upright stance, but that’s where we are. There are lots of “imperfect” things about the human body-it’s an ad-hoc bunch of compromises on the way to an organism that overall could compete well and reproduce. Physical strength is just one component of competitive advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/7 "2014-08-24T16:35:15Z")
I realize the Soviets might not have had the health & happiness of their athletes in mind, but speaking as someone who’s had a tenodesis performed, I will state that (back in the 70’s, when I had it done) it does hurt like a sumbitch and takes a long time to recover from. I still don’t have full range of motion in my shoulder, and I’ve been studying karate for years. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/8 "2014-08-24T18:20:05Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > To be clear from the outset because I’m afraid of how my question will sound, I am not even in the slightest an anti-evolutionist. > > What you said seems out of keeping with what I often read, which is that one shouldn’t use the theory of evolution to predict what kind of animals should end up evolving or not. For one thing, I thought, what’s optimal may not be clear to us at all (because of confounding factors we’re not aware of for one thing), and for another thing, what’s optimal isn’t what’s selected for anyway. > > Do I have this wrong? Or am I wrong to think what you said runs afoul of this? Oh there may be things that are the result of legacy systems … but how far down a bone a tendon insertion is, a cm or so more one way or the other? That is simple variation. To me the default is to assume that evolution has likely done a pretty good job even if we don’t get all the reasons why, and the burden of proof is upon those who think they could design it better. Maybe the question is why would anyone think it would work? ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/9 "2014-08-24T18:42:59Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Maybe the question is why would anyone think it would work? Assuming no medical complications (a huge assumption, and I suspect the REAL reason this surgery never caught on), you’d have much more mechanical advantage in that joint. This is the main reason apes are so strong for their size, compared to humans. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/10 "2014-08-24T18:46:53Z")
My guess isn’t a medical one, but rather that if you take an elite level athlete and deliberately put them through the tendon surgery and subsequent rehab, it’ll be a LONG time before they’re back to where they were, even assuming they recover faster because they’re younger and healthier than the average person, and because they’re probably more motivated. Plus, if the tendon surgery changes their athletic technique, they have to relearn all that AFTER the rehab, and they may never be as good with the surgery and modified technique as they were before. I’m guessing the benefits of having slightly better mechanical advantage weren’t worth the time and trouble penalties. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/11 "2014-08-24T18:47:54Z")
The story I’ve heard is that the recipients of the surgery couldn’t function afterwards, to the point where they had to have someone feed them. The theory that came out of it is that the brain has a map of where all the muscles attach, and it wasn’t able to adapt to the new locations, so they were still trying to move based on their old attachment points. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/12 "2014-08-24T19:35:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And maybe their understanding of the biomechanics was not as good as they thought it was. > > Lety’s face it, if another attachement had, overall, more strength advantage per unit muscle _in vivo_, evolution would likely have selected for it. Increasing strength this way would decrease the speed at which you could move the joint. Presumably, some kind of useful balance was achieved. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/13 "2014-08-24T19:39:49Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And maybe their understanding of the biomechanics was not as good as they thought it was. > > Lety’s face it, if another attachement had, overall, more strength advantage per unit muscle _in vivo_, evolution would likely have selected for it. As said, that is the arrangement that apes have; evolution is perfectly capable of selecting for it, it just hasn’t in our case. It’s my understanding that our tendon attachment gives us less strength but more precision than apes. Perhaps that was the problem, the subjects were just clumsier after the operation. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/14 "2014-08-24T19:45:00Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > I don’t think that’s it, ligament reconstruction in Tommy John surgery ends up being as strong or stronger than it was initially. Perhaps the healed tendon wasn’t as strong with the “wrong” attachment point though. IIRC, Tommy John surgery doesn’t move the tendon or ligament anchor points on the bones. It strengthens the over all joint by ‘tying’ the bones together with a ligament from a different part of the body. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/15 "2014-08-24T19:51:46Z")
> [@get\_lives](#): > > Assuming no medical complications (a huge assumption, and I suspect the REAL reason this surgery never caught on), you’d have much more mechanical advantage in that joint. This is the main reason apes are so strong for their size, compared to humans. Care to back either of those claims up with more than WAGs? Certainly that’s not how [the experts](http://mentalindigestion.net/2009/04/03/760/)[explain](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/chimpanzees-humans-sizing-strength/story?id=16696826) the relative strength of great apes. The ape is built for power and not control. The issue is not where the muscle attaches but _how it is shaped and how it fires_. Shaped with different sorts of fibers, wider in cross sectional area, and that mass nearer the attachment point, and wired such that they fire all at once. Now training can get human muscles to do a better job of firing all at once than they do at start … that’s most of the initial gains in strength training … without having other muscles working against them … but only so far, and nowhere close to how an apes muscle fires. > [@](#): > > …Research suggests the difference in strength between the two lies in the muscle performance. > > In chimps, the muscle fibers closest to the bones – those deemed to be the source of strength of both chimps and humans – are much longer and more dense, so a chimp is able to generate more power using the same range of motion, Ross of the Lester Fisher Center said. > > Also, unlike humans, chimpanzees have less control over their muscles. … > [@](#): > > … As you take up the strain, know that the fine-tuned positioning and slow, steady building of muscle force you exert is due to the greater amount of grey matter that you posses in your spinal cord; motor neuron nerves cells that connect to muscle fibres and regulate muscle movement. The huge surplus of motor neurons you possess allows you to engage smaller portions of your muscles at any given time. A Chimpanzee, by comparison, has fewer motor neurons, thus each neuron triggers a greater number of muscle fibres, resulting in a greater proportion of muscle activation. … Looking I cannot find anything that demonstrates a significantly different point of attachment, let alone that such has anything to do with relative strength. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/16 "2014-08-24T20:03:19Z")
[More](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2009/02/how_strong_is_a_chimpanzee.html) on the differences between chimp and human muscles (and the notable lack of point of insertion as a factor). > [@](#): > > How did we get to be the weaklings of the primate order? Our overall body architecture makes a difference: Even though chimpanzees weigh less than humans, more of their mass is concentrated in their powerful arms. But a more important factor seems to be the structure of the muscles themselves. A chimpanzee’s skeletal muscle has longer fibers than the human equivalent and can generate twice the work output over a wider range of motion. In the past few years, geneticists have identified the loci for some of these anatomical differences. One gene, for example, called MYH16, contributes to the development of large jaw muscles in other apes. In humans, MYH16 has been deactivated. (Puny jaws have marked our lineage for as least 2 million years.) Many people have also lost another muscle-related gene called ACTN3. People with two working versions of this gene are overrepresented among elite sprinters while those with the nonworking version are overrepresented among endurance runners. Chimpanzees and all other nonhuman primates have only the working version; in other words, they’re on the powerful, “sprinter” end of the spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/17 "2014-08-24T20:04:14Z")
One specific advantage of our muscle arrangement over the rest of the apes is that we’re a lot better at throwing things. Put that on a tool-using chassis, and it’s clearly useful. But if you’ve got a human who’s specialized in one very limited task, maximizing the amount of force that can be exerted through a very specific motion, and that person never needs to be able to throw anything, one can see the potential advantages to changing the muscle structure. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/18 "2014-08-24T23:17:23Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > IIRC, Tommy John surgery doesn’t move the tendon or ligament anchor points on the bones. It strengthens the over all joint by ‘tying’ the bones together with a ligament from a different part of the body. Right, I’m not a doctor but that’s what I understand too. I was responding to Broomstick’s speculation that a re-attached tendon might never be as strong as the original, and I was offering TJS as evidence that surgical re-attachment in itself doesn’t imply a weaker bond. ---
**Author:** ![Ornery\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/da6949/32.png) [@Ornery\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ornery_Bob)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/19 "2014-08-24T23:54:05Z")
_Maybe the question is why would anyone think it would work?_ My vote would be from studying those who excel. In many cases there are recognized physiological differences between those who excel at a particular sport and those who do not and something like muscle attachments is probably a factor in some cases. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/20 "2014-08-25T00:22:40Z")
Or it could have been scientific faddism. Remember the Soviet Union, though technologically advanced, clung to Lysenkoism long after it was discredited elsewhere. Not that the West was ever immune from bad science/medicine, either. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306.md?page=2)