That there may all be nothing new to us here, but hopefully this next point is.  Your calf complex muscle will absorb an internal force of up to 8x your body weight….on every step you take when running!  Your gastrocnemius will usually absorb 4-6x body weight whilst the soleus is usually between 6-8x bodyweight. Now, consider that when you run you ideally should be taking 180 steps per minute, when you cover a distance of 5km in roughly 25 minutes (for example), your accumulative load internally through the soleus muscle will be 4,500 steps.  If you weigh around 80kg then your total load over the duration of this run is 2,880,000kg.  Now, remember this is an internal load but the point is that the sport of running or the act of running places quite a large demand on the muscle structures (and we are only talking of one muscle here, there are many more that get loaded in similar ways throughout the body!).

Obviously the numbers here are not literally as black and white as they sound.  Whilst the accumulative load is high, we must also recognise and accept that our bodies are designed to withstand these loads, but only to a certain extent.  Which is why we can explain that our friend John doesn’t get injured but Mary always does.  It is simply the fact that we are all made different and all have different natural capacities based on a wide range of variables.

But one simple intervention that I regularly emphasise with all of my patients is the act of getting stronger.  A famous saying exists in the healthcare world which is ‘you can’t go wrong with getting strong’.  Whilst this can always be debated, it does have a certain element of truth and another mantra we have in the healthcare world is ‘do no harm’.  So assuming that each person is healthy and well (bar an injury) then ‘getting strong’ shouldn’t be a bad thing.

But how do we make the calf’s stronger I hear people ask.  Well, a recent study in 2019 actually showed that standard calf raises with toes pointing forwards had lower impact and effects compared to toes pointing inwards or outwards.  This has always shaped my practice anyway and it is good to have the research now which proves this theory.  By adjusting the toes slightly you can maximise gains on certain parts of the calf muscle and begin to isolate the areas that you find get injured the most.

So if you are a runner and suffer from chronic calf issues then starting a calf strengthening programme with specific focus on the angles of the foot may actually be a great way to reduce those injury incidences and have you train for longer.

If you would like to find out more about how to stay injury free in running then contact us now and we can arrange an assessment to analyse your current status and what we can do to improve it and take you to the next level.