So welcome to Part 1 of a series of reels on #calf #muscle #injuries in #running based activities.
I just wanted to introduce the calf complex firstly, which is made up predominantly of the #gastrocnemius muscle, the #soleus muscle and the #achilles #tendon. There are other important muscles in that area such as the #tibialis muscles, #peroneal muscles, flexor hallucis longus and #plantaris in some people.
The gastrocnemius tends to be more associated with faster, more explosive actions and the soleus tends to be more associated with slower, more #endurance based activities, and often knowing how the injury happens can give big clues to #diagnosis as to which muscle.
Figure 1- Calf forces when running at different speeds- modified from Dorn et al., 2012.
Figure 2- MRI imaging of the calf complex- Prakash et al., 2018
I just wanted to share a couple of reasons why calf injuries are common, and why they can be challenging to manage:
- The forces through the soleus when even running slowly are 6-8+ x BW- see Figure 1. This is different from other muscle groups such as the hamstring, where the forces increase significantly as you run faster. So that return to run phase is extra challenging
- As imaging such as MRI, has improved, we are now also aware of the #intramuscular tendons that pass through the soleus (Figure 2) which are common sites of injury. Injuries around the tendon take longer to recover, but unless we MRI, we often don’t know
- Some people with the same injury seem to be “copers” and recover much quicker than others with the same injury- as to why this is, we don’t know exactly. The Prakash paper in Figure 3 demonstrates the big variance in return to running time.
Figure 3- Calf injury return to play times- Prakash et al., 2018
I will follow up with further posts about risk factors associated with calf injury, some ways we can #test and assess for those in clinic, some key considerations in #rehabilitation and future injury prevention. Keep your eyes peeled if you’ve had a calf injury or running is a key element of your sport #crossfit #hyrox.
To find out more about me, or to book appointments at my #Bath clinic @TeamBath, or Corsley Health clinic @CrossFitWarminster, please check out my website: adamkwasnickiphysiotherapy.com.
As always, this is not medical advice, if you have an injury or problem, please see an appropriately trained medical professional.
References:
Prakash A, et al. Br J Sports Med 2018;52:929–933. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2017-098362
Dorn, T.W., Schache, A.G. and Pandy, M.G., 2012. Muscular strategy shift in human running: dependence of running speed on hip and ankle muscle performance. Journal of Experimental Biology, 215(11), pp.1944-1956.
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