The effects of grip proximity on perceived local in vitro tendon strain.

In vitro tensile loadings were performed on a series of sequentially-shortened canine tendon specimens which had been instrumented with mercury strain gages. The purpose of the experiments was to determine the tendon length necessary to ensure that the perceived local strain was effectively independent of the gripping configuration. The results showed that the mercury strain gage outputs exhibited statistically significant departures from initial (long tendon) values only when the tendons were shortened to lengths of less than about eight diameter multiples.