# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/21 "2014-08-25T00:35:10Z")
My WAG is that the system was not built to lift more weight and so something like a failure in the joint or bone would occur. ---
**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 25, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/22 "2014-08-25T00:40:42Z")
> [@Ornery\_Bob](#): > > _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. Any reason to believe that such is the case? Or is that “probably” just something you are guessing at? My vote is that if that was true it “probably” would be something that would be easy find in some news report or in the literature … ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/23 "2014-08-25T00:42:18Z")
Just a guess based on a lot of time spent with people with cerebral palsy, their lack of control often results in muscles or ligament or tendon pairs that don’t match in size (usually length) the way they should, and they end up with joints that are tight, and limit their range of motion. The old way of fixing it used to be to cut slits in the short side to let it lengthen, then do lots of therapy to build it up (think about taking a thick rubber band, and making alternating tiny snips on each side, so it will stretch more, but won’t be as strong). Now, the same thing is done non-surgically, with Botox injections. Anyway, maybe the surgery produced unbalanced tendon pairs that made joints tight, or made muscle pairs unmatched, so that it was actually harder to use the limb. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/24 "2014-08-25T01:08:40Z")
Based on my own experience with tendon reattachment surgery, it takes a LONG time to heal and rehab the injury. In my case, I had a uncomplicated complete tear of my patellar tendon on Jan 4th, had surgery on Jan 5th to reattach it, and was in a total immobilizer for 3 more weeks. Starting at that point, I could do some pretty mild PT, which ramped up over time, until the first week or so of June, when I was doing full squats and knee bends and had full ROM back. That doesn’t mean that I was in full athletic shape, but that I was good enough to not need physical therapy anymore. It still doesn’t feel “right”, and I still run kind of goofy, although most of that’s practice and getting used to the new feel. And I’m a 41 year old couch potato- I can’t imagine taking a elite athlete and putting them through all that just on the off chance that everything worked BETTER than before. Chances are, it’ll be worse. ---
**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 25, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/25 "2014-08-25T03:17:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > … 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. Well you are not changing the muscle structure. Sorry if that sounds pedantic but it is important. You are changing where the muscle of a particular structure, attached to motor neurons firing in particular patterns due to brain derived control, attaches to the bone. The muscle _structure_ is built to function best at a different length than that one … But the other point is a bigger one: accepting for the sake of discussion that this could work (which again makes _no_ sense to me that it would) what exact event _is_ it that requires specific maximal peak strength in elbow flexion and only that very specific motion, that very limited task? Pretty much all Olympic lifting is a whole body affair, much more akin to throwing than to an isolated partial curl. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/26 "2014-08-25T04:10:52Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > 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. Yeah, and I think with our muscles have other apparent inefficiencies. For example, I recall being taught that where a nerve attaches to a muscle, there is something like a synapse, where an electrical potential causes the release of a chemical transmitter, which in turn causes an electric pulse which makes the muscle contract. And there is no apparent reason for doing this; all it does is make muscle tissue slightly slower at responding to impulses. disclaimer: As you may guess from my vague language, I studied this many years ago, and my recollection may not be so good. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306/27 "2014-08-25T05:42:40Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > 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. Heh. Now I’m getting a mental image of Ted Stryker and his “drinking problem.” 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-surgery-to-move-where-the-tendons-attach-to-bones-to-improve-strength-fail/696306.md?page=1)