Tendons and ligaments are known as connective tissue because their main job is to connect muscle to bone (tendon) or bone to bone (ligament). They are soft tissue and designed to be flexible to allow our bodies to move, but they have a secondary purpose and that is to protect our bones. They do this by being flexible and absorbing impacts, (if the cartilage is overwhelmed), thus “giving” under pressure. The connective tissue takes the injury allowing the cartilage and bone to remain unharmed or unbroken. This can result in jammed joints. A jammed joint is a strained tendon or a sprained ligament injury in a finger or toe.
This is what happened to Danny during his training class. A simple and low-grade impact to his foot resulted in multiple jammed toe joints. The contact point was between the 1st and 2nd toes of the right foot. The 2nd toe was pushed toward the outside of the foot (laterally) which resulted in it and 2 or more joints below the base of the toe (the metatarsophalangeal or MTP joint) being torqued in a zig-zag pattern. Causing some pretty gnarly bruising.
The illustration outlines the direction the bones were pushed at the time of impact. The photo shows the 2nd toe bent significantly to the right and the bruising and swelling that manifested within 2 post-injury. It felt as bad as it looked.
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