What is the most important muscle in running?
Hey guys its JP and this is a question I have been getting recently, so I decided I will
make a video on my thoughts as well as how to train that muscle.
Now lets get into the video!
If I had to train one muscle group to help me run faster, what would it be?
If I kept this simple and straightforward, it would be the calf muscles!
When researchers, specifically Dorn and his colleagues, studied muscle activity when people
ran, this muscle group seemed to be responsible for producing the most force!
This might come off as surprising to many people as a lot of people get hung up on the
quads or glutes.
Well, if we look at the activity seen in this research, the gluteus maximus is responsible
for forces around 2-3x bodyweight, and the quads are at around 4.5-5x bodyweight.
This is a lot of force we are dealing with as you run; however, the calf region involves
even more forces.
Lets look at this region a bit more.
The two major muscles of the calf muscle complex are the gastrocnemius and the soleus.
The gastrocnemius can involve forces around 2-3x your bodyweight and the soleus has shown
to record forces around 6.5-8x your bodyweight, which is insane.
Now, I know EMG activity isn't everything and there is a lot more nuance involved when
looking at this kind of data, but if this region is involved with so much force when
you run, it might be a good idea to work on it!
So, now that we talked about that, lets talk about some of my favorite ways to target the
calf muscles.
The first one we will go over is the Creeper's Walk.
Shoutout to Chris Johnson for introducing this one to me.
This is a fun way to introduce loading to this region along with integrating single
leg balance and coordination.
How I instruct for this one is to basically try to pretend you are trying to sneak up
on someone with making as little sound as possible.
Now, the details do matter here, so lets talk about a few of them.
The bent knees here serve a purpose.
By doing so, this biases the soleus a bit more, which is the region that recorded the
most activity out of calf muscles, when running!
Another is not lifting the heel all the way up, but rather just 1-2 inches from the floor.
This typically puts the ankle in a position of 10-15 degrees of ankle dorsiflexion, which
is actually where peak force of the calf muscles has been shown as you run!
Now, lets move on to the next exercise, which is the Supported Single Leg Heel Raise.
This variation is a great way to challenge the calf muscles more than the traditional
heel raise.
Now, you might be saying, why don't I just challenge the calf muscle by just standing
on one leg and doing single leg heel raises.
Well, the cool thing about this one is that since one leg is front of you simply for support,
this makes the balance demands much less.
So instead of trying to keep steady as you typically would for the single leg heel raise,
you can focus on really working the calf region.
The last exercise we will go over here is elevated single leg bent knee heel raises!
This one is mostly just here for those who really like a challenge.
This can be a tough one to do, even with just body weight.
With the bent knee position, this variation biases more of the soleus.
And you will also notice that she has the ball of the foot on a 1-2 inch surface.
By doing so, this forces the ankle to go through more movement, which makes the calf region
work even harder.
Details I would think about here is to make sure you keep that knee stiff as you do the
movement and pretend like you are trying to hit your head on the ceiling.
This cue was meant to help prevent you from just simply rocking back and forth and cheating
the movement, which would not challenge the calf region as much.
And that is my thoughts on that question as well as some fun ways to challenge the calf
region!
I hope you found this video interesting!
I'd love to hear your thoughts as well as any questions you may have!
And as always, thank you for watching!