Last year I suffered from what many here prescribed as calf heart attack. I’d just completed a HI in a PR of 4:31 and switched over to pure running for a bit. I’d noticed that my calves were particularly tight after the HI for some time (2 weeks etc) but given there was a 14k race a few weeks after the HI battled on. PB’d the 14k event and kept going. Not long after I think I PR’d a 10k in 36:00 and at 37 yo I was thrilled I was running faster than ever. Then when building up for a possible marathon I was doing a relatively easy 30min treadmill run the day after a 90m ‘hills’ treadmill run and 15 mins in ‘bang’, calf/achilles pain. Note I had also been trying to emphasise a bit of fore/mid foot running.
The marathon dream was over and I spent the next 10 days doing next to no running before ramping back up pretty quickly (4 consecutive 1hr treadmill sessions starting walk/slow run, next day few scattered walks / mod run, full mod run to fairly solid). PR’d a 12k race in 44:50 3 weeks later.
Anyway training for the same HI at present. Noticed my legs have been feeling heavy for some time (to be honest not really having any recovery weeks). Same calf got pretty tight yesterday PM on the treadmill whilst doing 3x3km at 4:00/km pace during a multi-brick session and again emphasising leaning more forward. I’m feeling like it could happen again but wonder whether if I revert back to normal run style and ease off any hills whether I need to be overly cautious? I have a calf sleeve on at present and should start hitting the roller (have been bad with stretching and rolling this year).
What I really don’t want to do is start walking for the next 1-2 weeks.
Don’t know if it is indeed the same issue, but I had failures in the soleus/gastroc area several times and didn’t know what
was going on, tearing, strain, scar tissue etc… Turns out it was my anterior tibialis tendon (dead), so don’t rule that out!
My experience with calf heart attacks is when they happen you ain’t running - you’re walking home. Its more a bang feeling and your done! Takes me about a week of PT, massage, and dry needles to get going again. Then I start slow, walking and running and no speed work. After a week of building back up, I’m good to go. One thing I don’t do is vary between pavement and treadmill and stay with the same shoes. I stick with consistency. I’ve been trouble free this winter where the last two winters I had some problems. Good luck. No easy answer. Sort of like back problems, everyone has an opinion who has had the problem.
You need to break up the scar tissue deep inside your calf muscles with some seriously painful stick rolling and massage. And yeah, you probably need to stop running (and even walking) for a couple weeks. I spent about a month getting rid of mine last November. Seem to be pretty much back in action now, though I still work the calf muscles with The Stick a lot more often than I used to, just to be safe.
I had a knee injury late in 2010, so over the winter I tried to move to a more forefoot strike (since I was “re-learning” to run from zero again anyway, might as well do it “naturally”, right?).
I spent all of 2011 having left Achilles pain and plantar fasciitis, whether running or biking.
In the last 2 months, I’ve stopped all that forefoot nonsense, gone back to running the way I always ran. The pain is 95% gone.
Don’t think about your footstrike at all, besides landing lightly. Just run more frequently, and less at one time. I run almost every day now, whether it’s 10 minutes or a half hour. I’m too chicken to go past that yet, but I’d rather run every day for 15 minutes than once for an hour, with a 2-week recovery.
I’ve recently had the same issue. I was really focusing on a forefoot strike for the past several months and my left calf would become extremely tight and sore. I would end up walking home.
I changed my strike to a more mid foot strike 2 weeks ago which seemed to have fixed the issue.
A predominantly forefoot strike (at least for me) puts a tremendous amount of stress on my calves.
Maybe change back to a mid foot strike and see how that works out. Not sure the “Stick” or Roller will solve the issue alone.
Yes I’ll just run normally from now on. Hasn’t really stopped me (so-called heel striking) from going semi-decent in the past. I have a high turnover (185-190) so don’t overstride. Will also shorten the runs and increase frequency for a bit too.
My experience with calf heart attacks is when they happen you ain’t running
Yes it is kind of an odd injury at times. I seem to get them when my pace suddenly varies. After almost of year of no problems I suddenly experienced a minor calf strain on monday. Last week I was probably a bit overzealous and ran several days a bit too fast so I suspect I over cooked my calves a bit. On monday I was doing a 10 mile run indoors on a track. After doing 6 miles at literally the exact same pace (a fairly aggressive pace for me) I slowed to grab a water bottle from a ledge and it immediately hit. For me it is almost like my calf muscle gets working at a certain rhythm and interrupting that rhythm causes the muscle to tear/unravel. My problem is always deep in the calf pretty much between the soleus and the gastroc. You can’t really get in there to break up the scar tissue.
Anyhow it is truly a sucky injury that seems to always be lurking about ready to strike again.
“lurking about ready to strike again” So true. Once you’ve experienced that feeling and the recovery time to get going again, in the back of your mind you keep think it’s going to happen again. Sort of like when your back goes out. It sticks with you for awhile, always thinking that if I lift something too heavy my back is going to go out again.
“You can’t really get in there to break up the scar tissue” Oh yes you can. Just have to find the right technique where the pain hurts so bad you start laughing. That’s the good kind of pain. The stick doesn’t do it for me. I lay on my back, knees bent, and put my calf on my other legs knee cap and push down hard and slowly move my leg back and forth across my knee cap. It’s the best way I found to self massage your soleus and gastroc. Start at your achilles and slowly slide your leg away from you until its pushing right in that tender area of the base of your gastroc.
Knock on wood…these are the things that have helped me get back to running from calf attacks…
We are talking races, long runs, two tris in one day (last week)!
Tulis heal cups on every run no matter what.
Two advils 30 minutes before every run.
Stick and foam roller everyday for 5 minutes per leg
stretch rope and yoga posing every day.
Study Matt Fitzgeralds sensory cues for running.
Those five things and I havent had issues since! …very excited bout that.
A lot to do but in my opinion very worth it.
I would rather do all of this than not run.
This thread is a few weeks old but wanted to get your thoughts since my injury is lingering. I took about 2 weeks off from running after my latest calf heart attack and have done a slow ramp up (it has been about 6 weeks since the original injury). A half dollar sized part of my calf that I strained is still tender when I run and in particular when I massage it. I have been running but I am worried about a re-occurance in particular since my racing season is beginning in 3 weeks. If it is still tender does that mean I shouldn’t be running at all? Is it ok to massage it or should it just be left alone until it heals and the pain goes away? I am never sure whether massage would limit the healing rather than help it along.
I had a similar injury. At the time I was 4 weeks from IMTX and could not afford to stop running. I used active release therapy. It allowed me to keep running and I was injury free on race day.
that’s what I was thinking as well.
although I used to use a “the dowel,” which worked just as well. it was a normal dowel, but then i gave it a nickname.
i do own a the stick now, purchased during a period of taper-induced insanity. but normal dowels work fine.
i’ll add in what some others have said - the one time i had one, i wasn’t running. i had been and was about to (playing team sports at the time) but at the moment it happened, IIRC, i was standing still.
Don’t know what to tell you. After six weeks and it is still tender you could have really pulled/tore your calf muscle more than you think and its healing and you may have some scar tissue and tightness in there. Maybe time to have a PT with running knowledge evaluate it. I can’t imagine that massage would be hurting it. I would think it would increase blood flow and help the healing process. Good luck.
THE gold standard exercise for the calf heart attack for me was long held calf stretches. By long, I mean 5 minutes. It was NOT an extreme stretch, but more like an extended lean with heels flat on the floor. I struggled with the CHA for years, worked with some very good PTs and Chiros, but it was an alternatively oriented massage therapist that gave me the 5-minute stretch suggestion. Which was actually more for my glutes and hammies than calf, but in that biomechanical chain sort of way.
Now, Haven’t had the CHA in about 18 months, have run better these last two years than the previoius ten, and that exercise is the only real change I’ve made in that time.