Ouch! Calf strains are painful, inconvenient, and common among athletes. Although any active person can be sidelined by a calf strain, you’re more likely to develop one if you do endurance exercise, like jogging or running. Athletes who jump are also at higher risk of straining a calf muscle due to forceful contractions of the calf muscles each time you jump. Fortunately, most calf strains heal relatively quickly. If you rest a strained calf, the discomfort will likely lessen within five days, although it may take several weeks until your calf is back to normal. However, calf strains can sometimes be more serious and take weeks to heal.
What Causes Calf Strains?
Calf strains occur when you overstretch a muscle during exercise, most commonly when running or jumping. What does one feel like? Typically, you’ll develop a sudden onset of pain in a calf muscle. If the strain is severe, you might see redness, bruising, or swelling in the area of the injury. Along with pain when contracting the injured calf muscle, standing on tiptoes is often painful with a strained calf. With a severe calf strain, you might hear a pop at the time of injury.
When you strain a calf, it’s usually the gastrocnemius or soleus muscle in the calf that’s injured. The gastrocnemius is the larger of the two muscles and is the major plantar flexor of the foot. When you plantarflex, you point your toes toward the ground. However, the soleus muscle also plays a role in plantar flexion. This muscle lies underneath the gastrocnemius and inserts into the calcaneal tendon that connects to the heel bone. Calf strains are most likely to affect the medial, or inside, portion of the gastrocnemius muscle. So, the pain may be more pronounced along the inner aspect of your calf.
Calf Strains Vary in Severity
Sports medicine physicians and physiotherapists grade calf strains from grade one to grade three. Although only a trained professional can accurately grade a calf strain, here are some generalizations:
Grade One
- Pain when standing on toes or pointing toes toward the ground
- Muscle feels sore or painful
- No bruising or swelling
- You’re able to do your normal activities, although it hurts
Grade Two
- Painful when carrying out activities and it may be hard to walk due to pain
- Swelling and bruising are likely present
- With grade two, the muscle may be partially torn
Grade Three
- Severe pain due to rupture of the muscle
- You may notice an abnormal bulge in the calf muscle
Health professionals often use ultrasound or MRI to diagnose calf strains of a more serious nature. Other conditions can cause calf pain too. If you have swelling, bruising, numbness, tingling, or difficulty bearing weight on the leg, see a physician. Some serious health problems such as a blood clot in the calf, a ruptured Baker’s cyst, or compartment syndrome can cause similar signs and symptoms.
How Soon Will You Recover from a Calf Strain?
Grade one calf strains start to feel better fairly quickly with full recovery often occurring in a few weeks. Healing is fast because you haven’t torn the muscle but only damaged muscle fibers at a microscopic level.
Grade two strains, because you have a partial tear, takes longer to return to normal. It may take a month or two to become pain-free and return to normal activities.
Grade three strains may require several months of therapy or surgery to return to normal.
What Can You Do at Home to Treat a Calf Strain?
If you have bruising, swelling, or difficulty bearing weight on the strained side, see a health care provider. They’ll make sure you don’t have a grade two or grade three strain that requires closer monitoring and more advanced treatment. If you can still walk and have no bruising or swelling, most health care professionals recommend the RICE approach.
- Rest the affected leg until the discomfort improves.
- Apply an ice pack for 15 minutes several times per day.
- Consider applying a compression wrap to the calf for extra support. If you have a grade 2 or greater calf strain, your health care provider may also recommend a compression wrap, or an ACE wrap, to reduce swelling.
- Elevate the leg as much as possible if you have swelling.
Health care professionals also recommend stretching strained calf muscles gently. One of the easiest stretches, when you’re injured, is a towel stretch. Extend the leg with the strain out in front of you and wrap a towel around the ball of your foot. Grab the ends of the towel with both hands. To stretch, gently pull on the ends of the towel to lift the balls of your feet up and your heel down. Hold the stretch for 10 seconds and relax. Keep repeating.
Hold off on exercise that involves the affected leg until the pain is gone. It’s okay to continue to work your upper body though. If the pain persists for more than a week, see your health care provider.
How to Prevent Calf Strains
It’s better to prevent calf strains than to treat one. One way to lower your risk is to do a five to ten-minute warm-up before every workout. Don’t skip it even if you’re in a hurry! A warm-up raises your core body temperature, warms up your calf muscles, and makes them more pliable and resistant to injury. After a workout, do a five to ten-minute cooldown that includes static stretches to lengthen your calf muscles. If you run, gradually increase the distance by no more than 10% per week.
Also, once healed, do exercises that strengthen your calf muscles and stretches that help lengthen the muscles you’ve just worked. Yoga may also help lengthen your muscles and improve flexibility in your calf muscles.
Research also shows having a recent injury to the lower body is a risk factor for developing a calf strain. Training against resistance to increase the strength in all the muscles in the posterior chain also helps prevent calf strains.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully, you’ll never develop a serious calf strain. Now, you know some of the steps you can take to lower your risk. Keep training, but do it safely!
References:
- com. “How to Heal, Protect, and Strengthen a Strained Calf Muscle”
- com. “The 10-Percent Rule”
- org. “Calf Muscle Injury”
- Physio-Pedia.com. “Calf Strain”
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