This article confirms my suspicion that as runners we need to:
- stretch the hips and front of the leg, especially from the knee up
- avoid stretching the back of the leg (i.e. hamstring and calves but excluding the glutes), or at least not go hard on these area
Why not stretch the calves?
A little bit of stretching might be OK, but I have found it’s easy to go overboard and cause injury by stretching the calves too much. Rolling seems OK. But again, gently.
The massage gun also feels good on the calves, at least the sides of them in the thinly-muscled areas.
Stretching the calves in the deep squat position (either by doing deep squats or just squatting down on purpose to stretch) is a good way to keep it within a safe range.
Holding a front squat is also a great isometric exercise for the tibialis anterior.
I’ve actually found isometrics to be a far better way to deal with calf niggles and pains: it gets rid of the pain and coupled with isotonic lifts (calf raises) it seems to help make the calves more injury resistant.
Because there is a riddle of stretching for runners.
You know you don’t want to too tight in places, but you can’t just become a yoga fiend. And it’s not just about doing the right stretches; it’s about avoiding the harmful ones.
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