Blame it on the Calves

I love calves. I find myself drawn to them. Calves are amazing little things; even though they’re a rather small muscle group, they’re built to move your entire body weight explosively. When performing any sort of jump (especially when jumping rope), it’s your calves that actually propel you off the ground. Aside from being petite-powerhouse-muscles, calves are also crucial in our day-to-day, functional movements. Walking and stepping up stairs, two very common daily activities, engages the calves; and when getting up on your tip-toes to reach something, the calves work in isolation to lift your entire body weight. They also work as stabilizing agents in other compound lower body movements, such as squats and lunges. Despite their importance, calves tend to be overlooked in one very important arena: flexibility.

Hamstrings are, in this trainer’s opinion, the most over-stretched muscle. Granted, it is very important to stretch the hamstrings, but it’s also equally as important to stretch every other muscle group. Often times I see people doing three or four different hamstring stretches, then maybe one quad stretch, and that’s it! There are other muscles in your legs besides hamstrings and quadriceps… like wonderful calves! Recently, I stumbled across some information that diagnoses perceived hamstring inflexibility as actual calf inflexibly; or, in English, it might not be your hamstrings that are tight, it could be your calves.

You see, the posterior muscles of the leg are connected by one cohesive band of fascia, i.e. connective tissue. When you stretch a muscle, you are also stretching this connective tissue. Since the fascia is connected, tightness in one area prohibits flexibility in the other. Therefore, you can only achieve successful posterior flexibility, i.e. touching your toes, when both the calves and the hamstrings are flexible.

Now you might ask, “Oh Great Calf-Queen, how can I figure out if it is indeed my calves, and not my hamstrings, that are causing my tightness?” The Great Calf-Queen replies that it’s simple, really. Perform this self-test: before doing any kind of stretching, perform a sit and reach test and mark how far you can reach. Then, stretch your calves for 5-10 minutes (you might even want to try using a foam roller to massage the calf muscles). After stretching your calves, do the sit and reach test again and see if you can reach farther than before. If so, then it’s your calves causing your inflexibility and you need to stretch them more regularly. Don’t forget about those little guys down there, they’re important and they look phenomenal in heels.

Plyometrics are a great way to work calves (and the rest of your legs and glutes). Here's a silly workout video I made: