Thursday, October 3, 2013

Cure Your Calf Problems

If you are new to working out, and specifically doing HIIT on the treadmill, you may experience sore calves. I get asked often how to cure painful calves. Here is a crash course on how to cure those aches. 


Before you run make sure you are doing some active stretching... never do passive stretching before running. Good active stretching for your calves would be doing heel raises on a stair with your feet parallel, turned out, and turned in, to hit all three heads of the calf muscle. Also, do some "farmers walks," and heel walks. Use a  stretch band to point and flex your toes to activate the calf muscle. Another active stretch is to do "high knees" landing on the balls of your feet.

Concentrate on form when running. A lot of people get sore calves because they strike on their heels instead of balls of your feet. Try to concentrate on striking on the ball of your foot which will also help you with speed. Another idea is to make sure you are wearing good sneakers for HIIT training.

When you are finished running use a foam roller, or a trigger point ball, or even a golf ball to roll out your calves with as much pressure as you can handle. That gets the blood flowing to the belly of the muscle. Then its time to stretch. Use stretch bands to pull your toes back and stretch the calf and hold it for at least 30 seconds. Pull your toes in every angle because the calf has 3 heads to it. Most people forget to stretch all three ways. Rolling out your whole body and stretching with really help with recovery and relieve soreness. Breathe when you are stretching to help the oxygen flow to the muscles. Finally, if you are having pain in addition to soreness, ICE and then heat for 20 minutes each. Another idea is to wear compression socks or sleeves on your calves. They help with blood flow to the area.

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