The solution for both the active or less active person with tight calves is to increase the strength & length of your calf muscles. 30 minutes of cardio and 2 sessions of weight training we might feel tight calves often.Īt these times our calf muscles (the two main ones called soleus and gastrocnemius) are being used close to their maximum just living our lives. A load that is much higher than the recent baseline.įor those of us who are less active and struggling to reach our recommended physical activity levels each week. The first training session of the season. For strong active people feeling tight calves will usually happen after a big increase in calf loading. Think about when you do feel tight calves. Your calf muscles will feel tight if they are overused, or used close to their capacity. What’s the solution for our tight muscles? (Hint again, it’s still calf raises) So by now we are coming around to the idea that spending long periods of time stretching out our calves might feel good in the short term but could actually be bad for us. You’re pulling and pulling the muscle longer which can then inhibit performance particularly if the physical activity you’re about to undertake is a power, speed or plyometric (bouncy) type activity. You see that longer calf actually comes at the expense of some damage to the sinews that make up the calf muscle unit. (Spoiler alert – it’s my favourite exercise the calf raise).īut this short term effect is not particularly good for us, especially if we are warming up for physical activity. But it will go straight back to it’s shorter and tighter length if you don’t do the extra step we’ll get to shortly. The short term feeling of a longer calf is actually that, for a very short period of time (as in hours) your calf muscle will appear to be a little bit longer. Wait, didn’t you just say calf stretching doesn’t work? For most of us that good feeling is a combination of the belief that we are helping – a sort of placebo effect – and also a short term increase in the overall length of our calves. When you stretch your calves that good feeling that you get is still a good feeling. Well, it’s not quite naught, as two things are happening. Calf stretching will not fix tight calves.Īll those hours you have spent thinking (and feeling) at the time that you’re stretching out and loosening up your tight calf muscles and it’s all for naught. So what about that dip from the peaks of 2004? Was 2004 the year that we learned that stretching our calves and deep V-neck tee shirts on men were not good ideas? Why is the calf stretch falling out of favour? Source: Google NgramĪn interesting side note was that just after world war one the calf stretch was first documented in writing although it never gained any traction and slipped out of use by 1924. Calf stretching built up a cult like following through the 1990’s into the 2000’s since just after we all lost our minds over the Y2K bug, we’re also losing our passion for the calf stretch. As you can see from the graph below, calf stretching really only gained steam in the 1970s. The calf stretch just feels like it’s part of being human.īut the idea of a calf stretch is still a reasonably new phenomenon. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen joggers warming up in the park one leg stretched out behind the other. And calf stretching inherently feels like the right answer. Or you might feel tight after a big walk. It might be in the morning when you first get up and step out of bed. Hands up, who here has been told to stretch your calf muscles? Everyone? And who here actually does it every single day? Right, almost no-one. 4, 2023.Does calf stretching even help fix tight calves? Our podiatrists and physiotherapists are to explain as well as solve your tight calf issues. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lower extremity peripheral artery disease: Contemporary epidemiology, management gaps, and future directions: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. In: Bradley and Daroff's Neurology in Clinical Practice. Myalgia as a symptom at hospital admission by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection is associated with persistent musculoskeletal pain as long-term post-COVID sequelae: A case-control study.
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