Why calves hurt while running

Is it on the outer lateral aspect? Is it on the inside, closer to the shin bone? Or is it maybe not even a calf injury at all? Is it something related to another area of the leg? A shin splint? The final step: Gauge the level of pain. A basic scale will do. Sit it on the ground, in front of you with the handle pointed up. Now you sit on the ground, with your legs extended in front of you, one of them resting on top of the handle.

Start with your lower calf on the handle, rolling laterally side to side. Add in some ankle circles in both directions. After a minute or so in this area, adjust the leg so that the middle of the calf is now resting on the kettlebell handle.

Repeat the rolling and circles. I saw my primary care, had an MRI, and had this diagnosis given. I went through the recommended period of rest, 6 weeks, and then began some stretching and strengthening for a few weeks, before I started doing some walking with interspersed light jogging.

I quickly re-injured it despite my attempts to be as gradual as possible. This cycle repeated for about a year and a half. I thought my running life was over. I changed to a new job and 2 of my new co-workers were triathletes, in my same age range, , and had suffered calf injuries in the past themselves.

Both swore that massage therapy had been the key to their recovery. A few months ago, I located a therapist near my residence and it has been absolutely amazing. I run miles per week now and just finished my first sprint distance duathlon. I still have some soreness, especially after the duathlon, but I go and see her and by the next day the difference is unbelievable.

I do focus a lot more on warmup, stretching, and strengthening of my calves as well. I try not to run 2 consecutive days, and take at least 2 days off per week. Cycling does not generally appear to aggravate the calf, so I do more cycling than I did in the past as well. Marc, I am recovering from my annual calf strain.

I am a particularly active triathlete and This time it occurred after a 10 mile run outdoors. I had been treadmill running for 2 months. I have a few theories, one being dehydration because I tend not to bring enough liquid to drink outdoors. Another is tight quads and hamstrings from allot of swimming and biking. Since everything is connected a tight hip can also translate into extra strain on your calf. I also stop getting a regular massage in the off season. I get deep tissue massage every 2 weeks..

Your running stride may be off, perhaps you need to shorten your stride. Have you ever counted strides? Minimum should be Count one leg for on a treadmill, should be Perhaps do on a stationary bike to warm up before each run.

Stretching after you run. After very long rides and runs I will sit in a cold tub of water filled with trays of ice for Flushes out the toxins and contracts any inflamed muscles. It has to be part of your regimen.

Hi Marc Welcome to what seems to be a pretty big club. I guess we are all a bit different. I have moved to more flexible, lower drop shoes and followed some of the strength and running technique prgrammes on this website. I had a lovely 8 month period with no calf issues at all follwing this. My calves have flared up again, but I seem to be able to control it and minimimse the damage a bit now. The advice above is also pretty sound I think.

Try a few things and see what recipe works for you. A couple things I found that helped me out. Increase in salt, I take salt tablets as I sweat a lot and when your low on salt you tend to cramp up. She was able to work them out it hurts like crazy at first. Hope that helps. I still have to watch it closely but did Ironman WI and made it through. Good Luck! Marc, today I goggled Running calf injuries and ran across your story.

I am 51 yo and have an almost identical story to yours. I was wondering if you have figured out anything that works for you? Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you. I was walking along a fairly level stretch having just skinned up alongside a piste.

Having been on this planet a fair time — I saw nothing wrong in packing just half-a-litre of water in my day pack. Warming up? When I got back to the UK I went to see the doc. Marc Frohock, Any luck?

In late I gave a kidney to my father and few months later saw the birth of my son. I decided to hang up the running shoes and track spikes and did. Jump to summer of and the Olympics and I caught the bug again. A good month or two went by with no issues.

Then out of no where during an easy 2 mile run I felt a little tightness in my outside right calf followed by a sharp pain like a nail being hammered so much that I was forced to slow down eventually to a walk. I took a couple days off and tried at it again with no luck. The pain would eventually move to the inside of the calf and stay soar for a day or so. I would rest months at a time, get back up and running and within weeks to a month or so it would come back.

Several courses of deep tissue massage can often help alongside warm-water hydrotherapy. Tight calf muscles are more often the result of inadequate stretching complicated by an underlying foot or gait abnormality. Whether you're looking to run faster, further, or just start to run in general, we have the best tips for you. Sign up and become a better runner today! Bryan dixon J. Gastrocnemius vs. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med.

Br J Sports Med. Sports Health. Page P. Int J Sports Phys Ther. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. ISRN Orthop. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. Hotta, K, et al. J Physiol. Macklin, K. The two best examples are speed work and hilly runs — both of these training sessions force you to run more on your toes, which will increase the load on the calf muscles.

For the same reason, changing your running style to running more on your mid foot or forefoot can cause trouble if you introduce it too quickly. Interestingly, a study of recreational runners have found that running less than 40km per week and being a member of an athletics club appears to protect you against calf injuries! One could argue that being a member of a club may give you access to better training advice, but the researchers did not investigate this further.

Introduce speed work, hills or changes in running style gradually to prevent calf pain and injury. However, I find that a lot of the runners I see in practice have never heard of or considered the heel-to-toe-drop offset when buying a new trainer.

Standard running shoes usually have a drop of around 12 degrees, but you can get 8, 6, 4 and 0 degrees as well. Minimalist shoes typically have a 0 degree heel-toe-drop your foot is essentially flat.

A flatter shoe will force most people to change their running style to run more on their toes. As mentioned in the section above, this will increase the load on the calf muscles. Your calves may become overworked and sore if you transition too quickly from a regular trainer to a flatter one. If you want to make a transition to flatter shoes, I would suggest that you:.

What is increased neural tension? Your nervous system is continuous from your brain to the tips of your toes and fingers. When you walk and move the nerves slide happily in their sheaths. Tight muscles or other structures can sometimes hold on to or press on the nerves and prevent them from sliding, causing increased neural tension and symptoms lower down in the limbs.