Research

Mixed

Therapeutic exercise (mechanotherapy) promotes tissue repair and remodeling in tendon, muscle, cartilage, and bone by converting mechanical loads into cellular biochemical responses via mechanotransduction.

If you have a musculoskeletal injury, complete rest is often insufficient for optimal healing. Physical therapists prescribe specific types of loading (exercise) to trigger your body's natural repair processes. This involves converting mechanical stress into cellular signals that rebuild tissue structure.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Mechanotherapy was first defined in 1890 as 'the employment of mechanical means for the cure of disease'... We would update this to 'the employment of mechanotransduction for the stimulation of tissue repair and remodelling.'
K M Khan et al. · British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2009

Why this rating

The paper cites high-quality RCTs and systematic reviews (references 1-4, 40, 44, 45) supporting the clinical application, though it is a review article itself.

Source

Mechanotherapy: how physical therapists’ prescription of exercise promotes tissue repair

K M Khan et al. · British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2009

DOI 10.1136/bjsm.2008.054239

narrative_reviewCited 418×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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