Hi Everyone,
I was just posting this on my forum: www.julstro.com and I thought you might like to read it also.
A client came to the office lately and had a torn calf muscle because he was stretching his calf while it was cramping. Those of you who have any of my books know that I teach how to stop a cramp quickly without tearing the fibers.
I want to share that technique with everyone. It's a bit difficult to understand without the pictures, but I'll try.
A muscle has a phenomenon called "all or nothing". It will either contract 100% or not at all. When you need strength you will contract certain numbers of muscle fibers, but they will each contract 100%. You don't use the entire muscle giving 50% of a contraction.
This is an important thing to realize when you talk about cramping. When you are having a cramp the fibers are violently trying to totally contract quickly. You feel them contracting and your first thought is to stretch the fibers to stop it. But you can't stop a muscle from contracting. So you need to help it complete that severe contraction quickly. It will hurt like :evil while you are doing it, but fortunately it will only last for about 5 seconds (feels like an hour!)
Grab your leg so your hands are on either side of the calf muscle (one below your knee and the other just above the AT). Then push the two hands together so you are helping the muscle to shorten. It's breath-taking, but it works. After you get your breath back (about 10 more seconds) just let go of your calf, don't stretch it yet.
Now, grab it in the same two places and again push your hands together to help any errant fibers to finish their contraction. This time it won't hurt much at all.
Now it is ok to gently stretch the fibers, increasing the stretch every 15 seconds. Squeeze your calf as if you were kneeding bread dough, going all the way from the back of your knee to your ankle. Use arnica gel to help heal the bruised muscle fibers. Then go ahead and stretch. The books have two excellent stretches that get not only the gastroc (as do most stretches) but also stretches the soleus muscle.
I had an Ironman Triathlete tell me that during a competition he got a cramp and did the above treatment, then seconds later the other leg cramped and he didn't do the treatment, he just stretched. He wrote to tell me that the leg he helped to complete the contraction was better in less than a day with no after-affects, but the other leg was still hurting two weeks later!
This is good info to just keep in your head. Hopefully you won't ever need it, but it's sure nice that it's there "just in case".
Don't let pain cause a DNF! YOU are your own Best Therapist! Visit http://www.FlexibleAthlete.com and http://www.Julstro.com to learn logical solutions to repetitive strain injuries and how to stretch safely.
I was just posting this on my forum: www.julstro.com and I thought you might like to read it also.
A client came to the office lately and had a torn calf muscle because he was stretching his calf while it was cramping. Those of you who have any of my books know that I teach how to stop a cramp quickly without tearing the fibers.
I want to share that technique with everyone. It's a bit difficult to understand without the pictures, but I'll try.
A muscle has a phenomenon called "all or nothing". It will either contract 100% or not at all. When you need strength you will contract certain numbers of muscle fibers, but they will each contract 100%. You don't use the entire muscle giving 50% of a contraction.
This is an important thing to realize when you talk about cramping. When you are having a cramp the fibers are violently trying to totally contract quickly. You feel them contracting and your first thought is to stretch the fibers to stop it. But you can't stop a muscle from contracting. So you need to help it complete that severe contraction quickly. It will hurt like :evil while you are doing it, but fortunately it will only last for about 5 seconds (feels like an hour!)
Grab your leg so your hands are on either side of the calf muscle (one below your knee and the other just above the AT). Then push the two hands together so you are helping the muscle to shorten. It's breath-taking, but it works. After you get your breath back (about 10 more seconds) just let go of your calf, don't stretch it yet.
Now, grab it in the same two places and again push your hands together to help any errant fibers to finish their contraction. This time it won't hurt much at all.
Now it is ok to gently stretch the fibers, increasing the stretch every 15 seconds. Squeeze your calf as if you were kneeding bread dough, going all the way from the back of your knee to your ankle. Use arnica gel to help heal the bruised muscle fibers. Then go ahead and stretch. The books have two excellent stretches that get not only the gastroc (as do most stretches) but also stretches the soleus muscle.
I had an Ironman Triathlete tell me that during a competition he got a cramp and did the above treatment, then seconds later the other leg cramped and he didn't do the treatment, he just stretched. He wrote to tell me that the leg he helped to complete the contraction was better in less than a day with no after-affects, but the other leg was still hurting two weeks later!
This is good info to just keep in your head. Hopefully you won't ever need it, but it's sure nice that it's there "just in case".
Don't let pain cause a DNF! YOU are your own Best Therapist! Visit http://www.FlexibleAthlete.com and http://www.Julstro.com to learn logical solutions to repetitive strain injuries and how to stretch safely.