I’ve been reading the posts about calf strains and calf micro tears. How can you tell if you actually have a micro tear vs. a strain? I haven’t been able to run for 3 weeks and received a massage the other day hoping it will help. I had a huge knot reduced so I’m confused on what I might have. Any input will be appreciated. Thanks.
I don’t really know the difference. However last year I felt a “knot” in my calf for about a week which eventually lead to a sharp pain in my calf during a ez recovery run. The pain was so bad that I almost couldn’t walk home. The pain went away after an hour or so but I had trouble walking down stairs or inclines. I went to the sports injuries clinic here in Rochester. It turned out to be a calf tear.
The problem with a calf tear is that people usually stay off it for a week or so and try running again and tear it again. This is because it takes around 18 days for the muscle to fully “retach” itself and about another 12 days to have any strength to be able to run again.
My Dr. had me do nothing (including biking and swimming) for 10 days. After that I could go back to light biking and swimming. However I couldn’t run for 30 days. After that it was a gradual build up over a month or so before I was back to 100%.
Good luck.
By definition, they are the same thing. Strains come in different severity levels. The connotation of the word strain is less severe than a tear. However, a strain is a tear… A mild strain “tears” 25% or less of fibers. Moderate at about 50%. Severe can be 75-100% fibers torn and are usually surgical cases.
Hope that helps
Lehmkuhler
I know the difference based on the pain. The two times I had a tear felt like someone shot me in the calf. The first time it happened was in a race in downtown Chicago and at first I thought I had been shot.
The second time was in a race last year. I first felt a cramping in my calf but, since I was only 1/2 mile from the finish and was leading in my AG (it’s easy to spot the old guys), I decided I would take my chances. Bam! Felt like I had been shot in the calf again and had to be driven to the finish line by the race organizer.
Both recovery times took about 6 weeks. Good luck and be patient.
When I hurt my calf last summer, I found these links helpful:
http://www.americanrunning.org/displayindustryarticle.cfm?articlenbr=1778
http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/yourhealth/healthgate/getcontent.asp?URLhealthgate="11984.html"
http://www.sportsmed.buffalo.edu/info/calf.html
http://www.sportsmed.buffalo.edu/info/calf2.html
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:6jEqSmkEZg8J:www.thestick.net/Calf%2520Heart%2520Attack.htm+"calf+heart+attack"&hl=en&client=firefox-a
(the last link is from the google cache of an article on “calf heart attacks” that i found useful, but that no longer seems to be at its original location).
Hope this helps;
-Charles
Concur with the rest, same injury different severity. I’ve had problems with calf strains playing basketball. Both times it felt like someone punched me in the calf when they occured, couldn’t walk normally for 1-2 weeks, and another few weeks before shuffling/running. 6-8 weeks to 100% recovery.
No real secret recovery, just time, rest and ice
Thanks for the info. I hurt it dec 10th. Took 4 days off, ran 3 ez miles and in the last 1/2 mile the sharp pain came back. Took 19 days off (with self-message ever other day) and tried again Jan 3rd. Got 1.5 miles into a 2 mile very ez run and had to stop again with a sharp pain. Received a professional massage on Jan 4th and here I am still doing upper body weights and floor exercises (no leg stretching). Maybe I’ll start ez indoor riding next Monday (every other day?) and try to run 1 ez mile on the 16th. I have not been on a bike since the injury occured. I have yet to see a doctor, trying to fix this thing myself (with the help of all of you of course!).
I would go see a good sports injury Doctor.
My situation was similar to TrevorS’s. I was in Va Beach and getting into top fitness after the tri at the naval base and I was doing 2 or 3 workouts a day. Then (like an idiot) I decided to help out a team in the national beach soccer championships. Got tackled HARD the first play and it was over. This injury got WORSE every night for 10 days and it would wake me up in the middle of the night. All I benefitted from going to the doctor was several hundred dollars to get an xray and some strong ibuprofen.
This may or may not have any correlation to my healing but a bunch of my buddies were powerlifting and taking creatine so i took that for a week thinking my healing wouldn’t slow.
Best of Luck!
Dan
www.aiatriathlon.com
Trevor, What was your training like for the month of gradual buildup after your calf tear? Specifically your first couple of runs and effort involved. Thanks.
Hmmmm…let’s see if I can remember.
I usually run 5 or 6 times/wk… So I think I started out 3/4 times very,very ez around 3 to 5 miles ( 25 - 45’ish mins). No hills, stay on the flats. I did that for a couple of weeks. Then added a med. run (still very ez) of 60-70 mins for a couple of weeks. Then added a long run (80 mins) still ez. and went from there.
The first few times back running are hairy because every little twinge you think you’re going to get injuried again. The first couple of weeks the key words are very very easy. So easy that you think it’s a why bother run.
Good Luck.
A strain is stretching or tearing of some of the fibers and a tear is just a more complete tear of more or all the fibers. Most calf injuries occur on the inner part of the calf muscles. The rehab is the same for a minor strain to tear. It just takes more time for major tears to heal. Surgery is rarely required for complete tears. You might try a heel lift. I would recommend putting the lift in both shoes. Start with the smallest lift possible. You can even try a piece of cardboard and tissue in the bottom of you shoe. This will help take pressure of the calf. Do you have less pain is walking on your toes? The heel lift will raise the heel far enough off the ground to help with the pain or sometimes eliminate the pain in minor strains.
Ice for twenty minutes or even better ice massage. You only need ten minutes of ice massage. You can do this by freezing a paper(dixie cup) cup with water. Tear the top part of the cup and rub the ice on you calf. You will be more relaxed if someone else does this for you. Be sure to move the cup. Some mild pressure can be applied to give benefits of massage.
Easy stretching and massage to tolerance. As the tear heel, more aggressive massage maybe necessary to break up scare tissue.
You probably should not try running until you are painfree, but I would start running earlier and try the heel lift. Again, it is not recommended to start running until you are painfree. Sometimes coming back to early is okay, but the you may prolong recovery.
See a good sports medicine doc if pain continues.
This might seem like a no-brainer but. . . the older you are, the more slowly it will heal. I’m 51, had a pull that ended up with micro tears because I didn’t take care of it during the season, and it cost me my end-of-season 1/2 IM because I couldn’t tease another 13 miles out of it. I then gave it 2 full months of 100% rest, tried to run and it came back again, so gave it 2 more full months of 100% rest with aggressive stretching, deep tissue massage, ice/heat. Have been running pain-free just within the past week for the first time since July. 20 years ago, I would have been better in a few weeks.
“I was young and now I am old…” (Psalm 37:25a)
brother bonk