2.1. Patients
fracture, patellar tendinopathy
Seventy patients diagnosed with patellar tendinopathy were recruited into this study at the Department of Orthopedics, University Hospital “Sveti Duh”, Zagreb, Croatia. Patients younger than 18 years, patients with history of previous injury or treatment (ligament, meniscus, fracture, etc.), and patients who declined to sign informed consent were excluded from this study. This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of University Hospital “Sveti Duh” (protocol code 012557, and by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Kinesiology protocol code: 6/2017, date of approval: 23 March 2017). After enrollment of the patients, written consent was obtained from all of the participants, and the patients were randomly divided into the following two groups: patients practicing on the standard board with 25° decline angle and patients practicing on the 17° decline angle. Each group consisted of 35 patients who were randomly allocated to the groups via the sealed envelope system [