In this video, I'm going to demonstrate to you how to massage or foam roll your own calf muscles.
But first, I'll discuss cases when you shouldn't be foam rolling your calves,
where you can actually make your situation worse. And then, we're going to look at times when it's
useful or when it's most optimal to foam roll your calves, and I'll also discuss the best methods to
use. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Maryke. I'm one of the physiotherapists from
sports-injury-physio.com, where you can get online physiotherapy assistance via video call for any of
your injuries. So, have a look at the description of this video if you want the link to our website.
Why, in some cases, do you perhaps or should you perhaps not be foam rolling your calves? Now,
the first is if you've pulled the calf muscle. So, whenever you pull or tear or strain a calf muscle,
whatever you want to call it, you actually tear some of the fibres or the muscle cells, and that
area becomes tight and feels uncomfortable and stiff because of swelling and bleeding in that
area. And it's really fragile. So, if you go and hammer it with a foam roller, you will make the
injury worse. And that counts for about the first full week and, depending on how bad the injury is,
it can even be that you should avoid it for three weeks. And it also counts for hard manual massage.
then, if you have an acute or a very painful Achilles tendinopathy, I want you to be careful of
the Achilles tendon. If it's not injured, by all means you can go over it, it's not a problem, it's
not dangerous for it. Just don't hammer it; 'cause that's not useful either. But if it is injured and
sensitive, just be careful on it because you can make it feel worse. Then also, if you suddenly
developed a painful calf that's red and it feels really swollen and sore and it's hurting for no
reason, and you can't think of any reason why it should be hurting, please don't foam roll it.
You have to go speak to your doctor immediately, because it could be that you've got a blood clot,
okay? Blood clots are not very common, but for some people they are, and if your pain started
like that – you really didn't do any activities, it just started – please consult your doctor.
When can it be useful? If your calves are tight because of exercise that you've done.
So, you've done a hard training session yesterday and you wake up today, and you think, ‘Oh man!
My calves are not happy with me!’ Yeah, by all means, give it a go; foam rolling can make them
feel more comfortable. The research also shows that if you foam roll in advance, so, you do your
exercise session, and then half an hour, hour later, later you foam roll your calves, you can
actually prevent it from feeling that painful the next day. You will still feel some discomfort, but
it may be less, so it reduces DOMS the next day. But what I will say is, if you foam roll it, and
it just continues to be painful, and you continue to train on it, and it doesn't really help the
stiffness you feel in those calves, you've got to change what you do in training. Because what that
means is, your calves are being worked too hard and they're not getting enough recovery time,
and you may end up with an overuse injury. So, watch out: If it's not really reacting to the
foam rolling, it may mean that you need to change something else. And a physiotherapist
can help ... assist you with that, to figure out what it is that you need to be adjusting.
What's the ideal way to foam roll a calf? Now, the research hasn't given us a gold standard yet, but
what they tend to do is, they tend to use either broad strokes along the belly of the muscle,
or they tend to use point pressure, where they sustain pressure for a period of time. And they
tend to spend about two minutes per muscle group, so, two minutes on this calf, two minutes on that
calf. And for the sustained pressure (that's for the broad strokes) for the sustained pressure,
where you just kind of put pressure with a massage ball on a certain part or painful bit and
then move on, they tend to spend about 30 to 60 seconds, but it depends on how long it takes for
that discomfort to dissipate. You're looking for pressure that is 'comfortably uncomfortable’, not
super painful. Super painful isn't that useful, because you want your muscles to relax, and if you
just hammer them, they actually tense a bit more. If you're finding that you're bruising yourself,
that's way too hard; it's not useful. Bruising yourself with foam rolling is not a healthy thing.
But I demonstrate and I talk about all of the bits you've got to be careful with around your
knee and your ankle in the video as well. So, have a look at the next clip for that.
Okay, so, foam rolling the calves … I can't believe I've got to demonstrate this because I
hate doing it because mine's so tender! So again, I use my opposite leg to help guide my movement.
Because if I try to do it ... both legs on there, my upper body just gets too tired and my shoulders
actually hurt the next day. So, I find it's more effective if I use my other leg to support me.
Now, we're going to use broad strokes again. So, we're going to go the length of the muscle. We're
gonna go in the middle, angle it in, angle it out, and just work it top to bottom. You will
usually find that the outside is more tender in general, but the inside has a tender spot kind of
in the middle of the calf, in the middle of the leg there. And that's quite normal, actually;
most people have that. Again, your nerves run right down the centre of the calf, so if you're
getting tingling and stuff from what you're doing, you're probably just irritating a nerve, so get
off it and be nice to it. Areas to watch out for: Calf comes quite high. But watch out for this bit,
because you've got loads of your hamstring tendons and coming into that as well. So,
you can massage high up, but just make sure you're not just squashing a ... or
bruising a tendon. And then, for the Achilles tendon: Yeah, you can go over, but be gentle;
don't go and really, really squash it. Just be nice to it, really. If it's really uncomfortable,
you’re probably just bruising it. So, we'll start with using the other leg to guide the movement,
and I'm pressing down through that leg to get pressure on it. And then,
we're just moving up and down and coming down all the way. Just remember, your soleus muscle
does attach to the lower portion of the Achilles ... comes in there. So, you can go on to that;
just adjust your pressure: If it's a deeper, squishy bit that you're on, so, there's more
muscle, more fat, you can go a bit harder; if it's literally just a little bit of muscle,
skin and bone, you want to go softer, because you probably just going to bruise it.
And to be honest, I don't think it's a good idea to do it as ... so hard
that you actually cause a bruise, because then you just … It's counterproductive.
It should be comfortably uncomfortable when you do this; that helps the muscles to relax better. Ooh!
And there's a nice tender spot there! Okay, so you'll do this until you feel
it's adequate for you. You can also, after you've done it with your foot relaxed, you can also pull
your toes towards you and do it that way to get a little bit more of a stretch effect with it.
But then, if you've got specific points you want to work on, that you felt were specifically
tender, tennis ball works well, again. I've got mine on a towel to keep it in place.
And for this, I tend to … if I find a tender spot, and I find it hard,
that I'm not putting enough pressure through, I just rest my other leg on it ... Ooh! ... and
that's it gives me enough pressure. Now remember, you're going for 'comfortably uncomfortable',
so not getting sweats and tears in your eyes because is that uncomfortable. And you want to
hold it for anything between 30 to 60 seconds, or until you feel the discomfort slowly goes away.
And of course, you can angle different parts of it again. You could even roll on the tennis ball
itself. I just find it frustrating because I never get to control mine properly.
But if you've got a rubber ball with a rubber surface and you're on a rubber mat,
that tends to help that you can control it better. But yeah, so, first with the foam roller,
and then I find the tender spots and just put some pressure on there and relax it there. Quite good
to do in front of the TV because, let's face it, it's not the most exciting things to do,
but if you've got something to watch, it's easy to kind of spend the time to do a proper job with it.
Okay, I hope you found that useful! Now, if you need more help with an injury, you're welcome
to consult one of us via video call – the link to the website is in the description of this video.