Tendons and ligaments are very similar structures in the body. They are essential for movement, stability and bearing weight on the bones and muscles. Injuries to these structures can disable a joint or an entire part of the body, requiring months of rehabilitation and sometimes surgery. It is possible to strengthen these structures and reduce your risk of injury, but to a large extent you simply need to avoid placing undue stress on your ligaments and tendons.
Tendon and Ligament Difference
Tendons and ligaments have several things in common -- they both serve as connective tissues for the structures of your musculature and skeleton, and they help stabilize joints and muscles. Tendons are more elastic. They connect muscles to your bones and aid in contracting the muscles and performing work. Ligaments, by contrast, do not feature the same elasticity because their primary function is as stabilizing tissues that hold joints in place by tethering the bones to one another. Ligaments attach to the bone at both ends, while only one end of a tendon connects to the bone -- the other is fixed to a muscle.
Importance of Strength
Strength in these tissues allows them to support stress and weight with a decreased risk of injury. Tendons can be developed to become very powerful structures, but the combination of a muscle and a tendon is only as strong as the weaker of the two. Ligaments can be strengthened to reduce the risk of sprains in the joints, which occurs when the ligament becomes stretched or torn due to stress.
Exercise
Regular weight-bearing exercise can help strengthen your tendons and ligaments and reduce the risk of injury to these structures. Weightlifting is very beneficial, applying a great deal of stress to both the muscles and the tendons. Lifts that work your joints apply stress to the ligaments, which can trigger adaptive processes that strengthen the joint. Use a variety of weightlifting exercises to these tissues -- lift every other day, if possible. If weightlifting is not preferable or possible, you can use resistance tubing or body mass exercises to achieve a similar effect.
Considerations
Tendon strength often correlates to muscle strength, meaning that in order to achieve meaningful changes in the strength of your tendon, you also need to increase your muscle strength. Weight training and other forms of exercise can achieve this, but you should be aware that strengthening one without the other being affected is unlikely. Both tendons and ligaments benefit the most from exercise when they are warmed up -- consider using a warm-up routine prior to exercise and performing all your strengthening exercises in the same session. This will ensure that the muscles are warm for each lift, reducing the risk of injury.
