Tendon

A tendon (or sinew) is a tough band of fibrous connective tissue that usually connects muscle to bone and is capable of withstanding tension.

Tendons have been traditionally considered to simply be a mechanism by which muscles connect to bones, functioning simply to transmit forces. However, over the past two decades, much research has focused on the elastic properties of tendons and their ability to function as springs. This allows tendons to passively modulate forces during locomotion, providing additional stability with no active work. It also allows tendons to store and recover energy at high efficiency.