💪🏼CALF INJURIES: PROTECT THEN OVERLOAD 💥
Did you know the calf muscle is actually made up of THREE different muscles? 🤯
When managing calf injuries, here's what you should do:
1️⃣ Initially bias the uninjured muscle/s by protecting and slightly offloading the injured area while continuing to load the remainder of the calf.
2️⃣ As rehab progresses, bias the injured component to increase its strength and capacity.
🏋️♀️Exercise options to bias different calf components:
To bias the Medial calf (and offload the lateral calf):
🎯Calf raises with toes turned outwards
🎯Calf raises with 1st MT off the edge of a step/weight plate
🎯Pulses with 1st MT offloaded
To bias the Lateral calf (and offload the medial calf):
🎯Calf raises with toes turned inwards
🎯Calf raises with 4-5th toes off the edge of a step/weight plate
🎯Pulses with 4-5th toes offloaded
For Gastrocs injuries, early exercises to offload here would include seated calf raise variations.
🔑Remember, protect first, then overload 💪🏼
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#calfinjury #calves #rehabilitation #strengthtraining #chiro #sportschiro #physiotherapy #sportsphysio #physicaltherapy #podiatry #osteopathy #calfexercises #runninginjury #oldmancalf
📚Reference
Nunes JP, Costa BDV, Kassiano W, Kunevaliki G, Castro-E-Souza P, Rodacki ALF, Fortes LS, Cyrino ES. Different Foot Positioning During Calf Training to Induce Portion-Specific Gastrocnemius Muscle Hypertrophy. J Strength Cond Res. 2020 Aug;34(8):2347-2351.
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