Calf problem - help!

[andy from embsay]

Hi - I'm a runner training for a marathon in 5 weeks. All was going well and had gradually built up to c50m a week. I had a half marathon 12 days ago and possibly overdid it in the week building up and on the day at 11.5m I got some calf pain. I nursed it home and immediately iced it etc. After a week I saw a physio who's diagnosed an inflamation/irritation in the membrane between the two calf muscles (the soleus and the one that begins with g!). He said I was ok to run on it but to stop when it hurt - so yesterday I took it out for 6 gentle miles and at about 5 it started to hurt - so I jogged home. Today I only got 1.5m before it hurt.

I've therefore booked in for 6 sessions of sports physio to try and get some intensive work on it in the 5 weeks I have left.

My questions are:

1. What is the proper name for this problem? All I can find online is calf strains - I've had that before and that was ok in a week - this definitely isn't (and actually wasn't as painful as the proper calf strain in the other leg I had a few months ago).
2. Can regular physio on an injury like this accelerate the healing process? If someone says "don't run for 2 weeks and after that you'll be able to build back up to full training" then I'll be happy to rest it - but it seems to me that the "run til it hurts" thing didn't really work.
3. If anyone has come across this - what's the recommended treatment and how long should it take?

Thanks!!

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[physiofixme]

Hi

The other calf muscle is called Gastrocnemius.

Basically any calf strain relates to muscle strain/tear of either the soleus muscle or the gastrocnemius muscle. You can strain either of these muscles acutely (ie running and feel sudden intense pain) or by a gradual process whereby you cause microtrauma to your muscle fibers over a period of time. This is usually due to overuse (eg too much running!!) which causes inflammation and scar tissue in the muscle fibers.

SO - depending on which muscle is involved and whether or not it's acute or overuse, they can all be labelled calf strain and one can feel completely different from another. Which is why this injury may feel different from previous calf strain injuries.

What to do?? REST initially. You can cross train by cycling, swimming, aqua jogging. Work on stretches and most importantly eccentric calf raises!!! Eccentric exercises are key to rebuilding muscle fibers and strength quickly. You should see a physio for guidance on this (or google eccentric gastrocnemius and soleus exercises) OR - let me know if you have no luck and I could try and send you some exercises with pictures.

Hope this helps.

[andy from embsay]

Thanks! I've been to see a physio and it's definitely something deep in the Soleus and is acute rather than overtraining (I'd done several 50+m weeks previously with no problems). He did some manipulation on it (across the muscle) and then used laser and a heat machine - then gave me some stretches. I've got 5 more sessions and will rst ot for a further fortnight (which will be c4.5 weeks) before trying again.

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