Calf Muscle Strain

Healing and treating a calf strain can take time and patience. Learn how to treat sports injuries in this video on health and rehab.

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Stretch with knee bent & straight
Medial calf injured most
Apply ice
Restore strength

About this Author

Russ Paine is a well-known physical therapist with the Roger Clemens Institute at Memorial Hospital. After getting his degree in physical therapy from Texas Women's University, he trained for several years under David Drez, MD, a renowned surgeon and sports medicine specialist. He has been a rehab consultant for the Houston Rockets, Houston Astros and NASA. He has given hundreds of presentations in his career in the US and abroad, and has published many chapters in text books and papers in peer review journals.

DR. THOMAS CLANTON: We are going to talk now about an Achilles strain or a calf muscle strain. This occurs in the back of the leg or the back of the ankle where the calf muscle becomes the tendon, which is the Achilles tendon, before it attaches onto the back of the heel bone. Strains are injuries to a muscle tendon area as opposed to a sprain that is an injury to a ligament. So strains occur to tendons and muscles; sprains occur on ligaments. And in this instance, what happens is there is usually an overstretched or sometimes even a tear in the muscle fibers or the tendon fibers and that is what produces the injury and the subsequent pain and inflammation. This can be remedied through prevention by stretching and warming up well before exercise, making sure that you don't overuse or overstretch a muscle or tendon before it is warmed up well and is ready to function to the best of its ability. Also, making certain that you don't do things that overuse a muscle tendon beyond the point of fatigue that can also result in an injury if you are working with a fatigued muscle and overstrain it. So the treatment, once it does occur, you have to rest the muscle-tendon junction. That can sometimes be done simply by reducing activities. Other times, it requires immobilization, so that may involve using a walking boot or sometimes even a cast in an instance of a bad muscle tear; although, we try to avoid immobilization in athletes because that generally results in muscle atrophy. Very seldom does this ever require treatment by surgery. The only instance would be a complete rupture of the Achilles tendon where sometimes it's necessary to repair that surgically. So hopefully your strains and sprains will not keep you from participating in sports, and you can treat them and get back on the running trail or the cycling path.

Calf Muscle Strain Video

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