The New Year is quickly approaching and no doubt you are considering your resolution options. While there are many different New Year’s resolutions to choose from, loosing weight and getting fit are amongst the highest on the list. Of course this often means new exercise in the form of running, walking, hitting the elliptical machine or the treadmill, or Zumba classes to name a few. All these activities will certainly mean more pounding and repetitions than your feet have encountered recently. What you might not know is that your calves that are too tight will increase those forces significantly and create problems.
The most common reason that we don’t follow through with the New Year exercise is because we loose interest or motivation. We also get busy and life gets in the way. Like me, some of us might be a bit lazy. Pity. However, just in case you really mean it, we recommend that you get ready early and start stretching now!
In my orthopaedic practice, January and February are filled with New Years resolutionaries (yes, I made that up) in pain and out of action because of a foot or ankle problem resulting from an isolated gastrocnemius contracture . The sad thing is that the isolated gastrocnemius contracture is silent in December, but screams in the New Year in the form of plantar fasciitis, insertional Achilles tendinosis, second MTP synovitis, shin splints, metatarsal stress fractures, midfoot arthritis and others.
Don’t let your tight calves spoil your comeback, start stretching NOW.
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