April was a bad month for me.
At the end of March I took a couple of weeks off because of a niggling calf injury. After the two weeks rest I did a two mile run with no problems and followed this up with a three miler a couple of days later. I didn’t have any pain during either runs, but a couple of days after the last run I realized that the calf hadn’t healed properly. Continue reading
I did my first run in over two weeks on Wednesday. I originally planned to run on Tuesday but I still had a slight niggling pain in my calf so gave myself another 24hrs rest.
The run went well, no pain and an added bonus of running in decent weather. No rain, wind, sleet or snow to contend with, the sun even made an appearance. I did two miles, I don’t know the time, my Garmin cut out after 1.5 miles. The main focus of the run was to see if the injury had cleared up so I wasn’t bothered too much.
Before the run I made sure I warmed-up enough and gave my calf muscles/shins five minutes on the foam roller. I also added in some ankle rotations and free squats for good measure. Once I got home I did my cool down routine followed by some stretching. I finished off the session with more foam rolling.
Later that night I did some more home physio with my old favourite, the frozen water bottle.
It may be time to invest in some compression socks?
This weeks Sunday stretch is for the calf and ankle from SparkPeople.com. Continue reading
I did have a video taken from Runner’s World which now seems to have disappeared!
The video can be found here, http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7120,s6-238-267–13796-0,00.html
I spent yesterday gently stretching and icing my sore leg. It worked because the tightness had gone and I was able to walk around with no problems, there was still some slight tightness at the back of my knee though. Massaging the area helped but I needed something to give a deeper massage, I don’t have a foam roller so a DIY approach was needed!
I was able to test drive roll the frozen water bottle today on my leg and it worked a treat! The combination of the ice and the rolling action really seemed to loosen the muscle. I used it on the full length of both my legs and the soles of my feet. I followed this with some more gentle stretching.
A gentle walk of about 5 km went ok, so if I feel up to it I’ll do a gentle run on Thursday.
I’ve saved the best till last, a picture of my knee and roller in action. Enjoy!
Image via Wikipedia
I’ve realised that I need to stretch more, after a run my calf muscles seem a little tight. So after every run I now do the upper calf stretch and hold it for around 30 seconds on each leg.
I needed more, so a quick search on Google found the Runner’s World guide to stretching for runners. Hopefully incorporating these in every workout should do the trick. I’ll keep you posted!
