Calf Stretches to Change Your Life

Calf Stretches Are Great For Prevention Of Lower Leg Injuries.

I wished I’d taken my own advice a few months ago. I was with Nancy and our youngest son, Tim, just getting into Tae Kwon Do training at our local sports complex. One of the instructors set up a race up and down the hall, and being competitive I went for it and on my last sprint to the finish – Bang! My right calf screamed with pain and my training was finished for the night. Six weeks following physio treatments and my own rehab exercises, I was back in action – but all of the pain and hobbling could have been avoided if I’d properly warmed up and stretched my calf muscles before I started mad sprints up and down the hall – maybe one day I will learn!

Experience has also taught me that knee or ankle injuries respond well when I add calf stretching to an exercise program. We use our calves daily when we walk, run or jump, and its easy to take for granted that they will just go on doing their job.

These activities shorten them especially if wearing high heels is thrown in the mix, so that’s why it’s important to stretch them regularly.

Even exercises like the squat, which works the upper thighs and lower back mainly and is not directly related to walking or running, will benefit from calf stretching exercises, because to perform the squat safely and properly you need to keep your heels on the floor and get your thighs comfortably parallel to the floor. If your calves are tight you won’t be able to do that.

The Gastrocnemius And The Soleus Make Up The Calf Muscle

The Gastrocnemius is the big fleshy muscle at the back of the leg below the knee.

If you happen to sit beside an alien next time you are on a bus while you drive through a park, and the alien asks you why people are trying to push the trees over you can impress your new found friend by telling them that’s one of a number of effective stretching exercises and is how humans perform a standing gastrocnemius stretch after they run, so it doesn’t get tight.

Here Is How You Perform A Standing Gastrocnemius Stretch :

1. Stand with your arms and hands stretched out in front of you at shoulder height.
2. Facing an immoveable object like a tree trunk, place your hands against the object and the toes of one foot up against its base.
3. Stretch the other leg out behind you, foot facing forward and try to plant you heel down. Keep the back leg straight and the knee of the front leg bent. You should feel a gentle pull in the outstretched leg. Hold the stretch for 30seconds. Change legs.

The Soleus Muscle

The soleus muscle if you were to imagine the layers of an onion would be the layer that sits underneath the gastrocnemius. The soleus can only be seen around the edges of the calf. While the gastrocnemius both flexes and extends the heel of the foot the soleus’ sole job (no pun intended) is to flex the foot.

One of the easiest calf stretching exercises you can perform to stretch the soleus muscle is the Standing Soleus Stretch.

Performing The Standing Soleus Calf Stretch:

1.Stay in the same position you were in the standing gastrocnemius stretch but slide you back leg in slightly and bend both knees.

2.This time, keep both heels firmly planted on the ground.

PNF Stretching

If you prefer to relax on the floor while stretching and are looking for another way of performing calf stretching exercises and have a partner to help you out you can perform a PNF stretch for the calves.

PNF stretching effectively tricks the body into overriding its flexibility limitations thereby allowing you to achieve greater flexibility in much shorter periods of time than you would be able to using ordinary static stretches such as the above.

Here Is How You Perform A Supine (Lying On Your Back) PNF Calf Stretch:

1. You guessed it – lie on the floor on your back with both legs outstretched.
2. Bend one knee keeping your foot firmly planted on the floor.
3. Lift your other leg straight into the air and at right angles or as close as you can make it to the floor.
4. Flex the heel of the lifted leg as if you were walking on the ceiling.
5. Get your partner to stand facing you and grasp the back of your upraised heel with one hand and press down gently, but firmly on the sole of your foot with the other hand.They press for 5 seconds while you allow your foot to yield to the pressure.
6. Now Push against their resistance for 15 seconds.
7. Resume relaxing the foot and allowing your partner to press firmly then resist again.

Perform 6 cycles of this. Each cycle you should notice you can stretch further without a great deal more effort.

If you don’t have partner to assist you use a towel, resistive band or belt wrapped over the heel and centre of your foot to provide the resistance.

How Often Should You Perform PNF Stretches?

Perform PNF stretching no more than 3 times per week.

Use PNF stretching only up to a third of the total time you allow for flexibility work. This is a fairly advanced form of stretching. Abuse PNF stretching and you can easily over stretch your muscle and cause injury. Use it in moderation and make beneficial rapid flexibility gains.

Calf stretching exercises don’t take long to do and are really worth performing as part of your stretching routine, to prevent injury to the soft tissues of the lower legs and improve your exercise performance, especially if you do a lot of walking, running, or jumping.

So – don’t be like me and ignore stretching your calves and find yourself in great pain and hobbling around for weeks – happy stretching and a pain free life!