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Rather than seek professional advice, I thought I'd seek the hive mind experience on stretches for tight calves.
Never been into stretching, but have very tight calves from cycling/running and sitting position at work doesn't help.
Any simple advice on stretches to alleviate this?
As always, it's a bit late - I have a long run planned in a week, so wanted them looser by then, but don't want to overdo it...
Thanks in advance!
Usual wall leans... sorts me out.
Also, watch your hydration. Seems to be an issue for everything.
Hard ball. Sofa. Put ball on low table and lay calf on top. Google trigger points (eg where your muscles will release if you apply pressure. ).
Repeat daily or every other day for a while. Also stretch but you might not get a good stretch without releasing the right muscles first. I do this slot and had removed my tightness and painful points. You can buy specific trigger point tools, Amazon etc.
Same can be applied to all muscles as your thighs and will likely also have lots of tight spots.
Do your hamstrings first.
Wall leans as above - heel on floor, toe as high up the skirtingboard as you can, lean in.
I think this is what I was told to sit on the floor, extend leg and then put towel over the top of your foot and pull back towards you.
It was either calves or hamstrings!
Stand on a step with ball of foot on edge. Drop heels and hold, as the stretch goes on, try to slowly lower your heels.
Thanks for the advice so far.
I have tried the old lean on wall with one foot back which seems to feel good afterwards but tightens up again...
Same with standing on edge of a step.
How often/long should I do it for?
Have used a golf ball on my trapezius before to good effect, might have to dig that out for my calves.
Had not thought of hammies as well.
I'm sure they are tight too
Woof. Downward dog.
You could try a foam roller after exercise too.
A couple of running pals use a calf stretching board. They are adjustable, fold flat but come in about £35
Or toes on a step and drop your heels whilst standing straight, then the usual against the wall as above
Hold stretch for 10-15sec. Ease into it bit by bit don’t go full stretch from cold. Try a few different stretches and repeat 3 times. Repeat after an hour or so and carry on doing it depending on how much it hurts or how stiff your calves are.
If the pain / tightness is a regular thing due to the high level of exercise maybe look into a foam roller. I found it really helped keep me loose when I was doing a lot of running.
When I was getting repeated calf injuries I saw a physio and they gave me some stretching exercises to do. There were two generic stretches which you could vary the actual stretching action around to exercise different areas of the muscles and tendons; the straight legged one that targets the hamstrings and upper calf, so however you want to do it and depending wether you bend at the hip or pulled your foot up depended on wether you stretched the hamstring or upper calf. Key here is to keep your hips square with your body and try not to extend your shoulders, you're bending at the hips not extending your arm length with your shoulders...that's cheating.
The second targeted the lower calf and achilles and involved keeping the knee bent and pushing the ball of your foot against an edge, like a step - this is also good for ankle flexibility. Again you can swivel your foot around the ball to stretch different areas; the inner, central and outer areas of the lower calf and achilles tendons.
It worked for me along side some self massage techniques to address my repetitive injuries and I've continued with the stretching to get more flexability - I've been getting lower back pain recently which I suspect is hamstring tightness rather than a back issue, so focussing a bit more on that now I've sorted my calves. I try to do ten minutes or so a day even if I've not done any exercise. If I'm watching something on TV sometimes I'll sit on the floor and do some stretching while I'm watching TV (makes good use of idle time), I'll certainly do ten mins of stretching after exercise most times.
I used a foam roller (or even better a kettle bell handle) to address muscle knots which also helped address the injuries I was getting, but now I've un-knotted my calves I tend not to use the roller much now, just for the odd time for exploratory purposes to make sure no more knots are developing. But if you're knot free and do effective stretching after exercise then you should, in theory, remain knot free.
And don't forget to do the opposite muscles...so I do thigh stretches and glute stretches to try to keep things even. Plenty of stuff on YouTube on it - and also just have a go...you can often find ways to stretch areas that feel like they need it just by finding a position that puts the area in tension and working in that position - like for example I find if I'm sat on the edge of a seat and bend over and twist at the hip so my hand extends past the opposing ankle it really stretches out the area of the back that's giving me some bother at the moment, so I'm doing that to stretch out that area so don't just limit yourself to the usual conventional stretching movements.