Adarq.org

yo!

well, i had finally adapted a while ago.. but then i took a few months off from it.. then i tried to jump right back in and got wrecked. so we def can adapt, takes time.. that also assumes our form isn't "incorrect" in the sense that we are overloading our calves too much by an incorrect strike. When I adapted, calves wouldn't give out at all.

if you see a few sessions ago, I did TONS of calf raises.. calves still sore ~3+ days after that session. so ya, i'm actually attempting that. I'm going to do alot more isolation work on my calves to see if it will help.

As for how to approach it, i've been running alot less lately due to my left calf/hamstring injury. So, it's given me time to throw in some of this assistance work, because all I can really do is rest. My plan is to just "adapt" to the high volume calve raises. Several weeks ago I did high volume lunges and my legs/glutes were destroyed for a week. I've been performing hundreds of lower body reps via squats, lunges, stepups, bridges etc the last few sessions.. barely any soreness. So i've adapted there. I need to achieve those same kinds of adaptations with my calves. I figure one or two more sessions might be able to do it... UNLESS they are just so unbelievably weak, which is a possibility.

I think the only real solution is to drop running frequency to a point where you can get in the calf assistance volume until it doesn't affect you. Then gradually bring the volume back. I just don't know if it's worth it yet... I predict it will be, there's no reason a few hundred calf raises should leave my destroyed for 4+ days. For example I probably did 80-100 total dips yesterday and soreness is microscopic. I've just neglected certain muscle groups way too much, it's disappointing.

You could also approach it via:
- high frequency / lower volume.. in the sense of 'activation'
- following your runs

I think it's worth a shot, at least ~2x/week. I mean ideally we should be making sure every link in the chain retains some kind of strength stimulus at least 2x/wk. Simply running doesn't seem to be enough. I'm amazed at how much weaker my calves got, even though my running volume was decent.

That's my plan right now with this upper+lower calisthenics stuff i'm doing.. I need to address every weakness, every joint movement... the fact that I wasn't doing calve raises (various forms) over the last several months, is a lazy oversight & now i'm paying for it.



When do your calves "give up"? At what point/time/distance?

Have you tried a flat foot strike? Or even heel->toe but landing basically underneath your hips or ever-so-slightly in front? I can run all day with those forms, and they don't bug my knees and such.. feel very stable.

pc!

yeah - shortening my stride and focusing on picking my feet up definitely helped the soreness instantly so maybe there is more to work on there. i think i'll definitely give it a go after runs, since i tend to run once every 3 days atm. i would like to increase that though once my calves don't get so sore. even if i have to start with double legs 3 x 20 or something haha - i didn't ever actually train calves even when i was training for VJ etc and obviously for oly lifting they're kind of ignored.

well on the treadmill they lasted a full 5k ok - but i ran trail last time and they were shot after 2 miles, literally had to stop only because my calves were totally fatigued which is a shame cos i was having so much fun i would have run all day.

i'm actually just finishing off collecting my biomechanics data for my dissertation, i looked at different foot strikes and the effect of localised calf fatigue on kinematics/kinetics/emg - i used myself as a participant so once the models and stuff are created i'll have some real in depth gait data to look at which is pretty cool! we drafted in about forefoot strikers, one girl who weighs less than 50kg runs very FF dominant, lives in a hilly area + runs marathons FF - she had the most incredible calves i've ever seen.

i haven't really tried RFS and can't seem to get the hang of midfoot without slapping - RFS just irritates my knees no end and it's also difficult on the surfaces im running on too (other than treadmill).

btw, have you read 'born to run' ? - i'm about to finish it and now i'm totally inspired to run an ultra marathon one day haha.

Got a question for you,

So we both get wrecked calves from FF running, and it's probably one of the limiting factors in my endurance atm...my calves simply give up after a while. Would it be worth doing high rep bw calf raises to give them some extra stimulus to get stronger/improved muscular endurance and if so how would you work this around running without completely destroying your calves all the time!

Be interested to hear your thoughts!

Quote from: gukl on February 23, 2016, 01:28:34 pm

hey man, am i correct in thinking you had some problems with quad tenodnitis?

how did you get around it in the end?

I had patellar tendonitis. I'll try to make this as simple as possible.

The problem:
- Patellar maltracking. Aka my knee cap was shifted over laterally a bit.
- This was caused by too much tension on the lateral side, and too litte tension on the medial side to counter it.
- The effect of this is that the top of the tibia scrapes the cartilage under the knee cap since the tibia it's not fitting in the "under socket" of the kneecap perfectly.

The solution:
- Relieve tension on the lateral side by foam rolling the IT band
- Increase tension on the medial side by activating VMO and strengthening it

Longer explanation:
Relieving the tension on one side is simple. However, increasing tension on the other side was pretty cool to do. During the time I had tendonitis, I was squatting to parallel. As you know, this doesn't activate the VMO very much. What does activate it, however, is either extreme of the range of motion. So this means things like peterson step ups (http://www.jumpusa.com/PetersonStepup.jpg) and ATG squats.

Unfortunately, peterson step ups caused some pain in my knee. To mitigate this, I would foam roll my IT bands a ton before performing them. This made them nearly pain free. I also switched from parallel to ATG squats to further strengthen my VMOs. After this switch I noticed my VMO's getting crazy sore for the first few workouts, but nothing from the peterson step ups. I ditched the peterson step ups since I found them not effective enough.

But this part was damn interesting... I needed to ACTIVATE my VMO first! Take a look at this vid of my quads. My LEFT knee was the painful one. My right knee was okay. Notice how the left quad flexes all at once, but in the right quad, the VMO flexes just before the rest of the quad!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2neCEbA6Pw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2neCEbA6Pw</a>

On the RIGHT quad (the okay one) the VMO contracts first, stabalizing the knee, and then the rest of the quad contracts.

This tells me the VMO on the left quad was a bit under active. Anyway, I learned (forgot where I read this) that the best way to change movement patterns are using NEGATIVE lifts. So what I would do before I played basketball was foam roll the IT band, and then perform negative knee extensions beforehand on my left quad. Then I could play pain free, temporarily (for as long as the effect lasted).

Over time, as I continued to foam roll the IT band, the effect became permanent. Also, my VMO's got strong as hell from the ATG squats. Finally.... see the vid I just posted? Well, once my pain was all gone, and still to this day, when I flex my left quad now, the VMO will contract just before the rest of the quad, just like my right quad!

Awesome, thank's for taking the time to post that, really helpful. I definitely have a VMO that doesn't particularly do 'anything' if there's pain. It seems that pain = vmo inhibition + tightening of lateral structures, which makes the pain worse and you enter a vicious cycle. I may have to take a simliar vid and see what's going on in that respect, although my quads aren't so well developed as yours haha. Annoyingly with quad tendon pain it's the deep squat position that aggravates it most so i guess any VMO focus will have to come from petersons/TKE.

Thanks again!

Yeah, I'm not sure how exactly but it's defiiniely improved my ankle dorsiflexion over time - ive never used the bands while squatting it would probably make me fall over.

Otherwise there's always oly shoes + extra heel lifts to cheat better dorsiflexion

so SKYR - Icelandic yoghurt just started being mass marketed in the UK, I basically lived off the stuff in iceland, it's amazing. Better than Greek, really thick and great flavours. And nearly 10g protein/100g, I had no trouble polishing off a 450g tub in one go.

That's actually an Estonian powerlifter.

h ttp://instagram.com/martseim

Weightlifter?!

?taken-by=mohamed_ehab_youssef

100kg of barbell lol.

'inside my mind 100 of this'

Quote from: LBSS on February 02, 2016, 04:00:16 pm

viada has run ultras...

Who the hell out there would think, shit I just ran a marathon...that was easy how about lets make it longer lol  My feet get tired driving 26 miles.  First time I've heard of an Ultra Marathon

whilst you're at it you may as well throw in some mountains along the route (ultra-trail du mont-blanc) or run through the desert (marothon des sables).

there was a 268 mile ultra that passed by really near where i live recently. everyone finished, then one guy decided he was gonna do the route in reverse right away. crazy shit.

adarq - why is your right side so messed up, do you have a limb length discrepancy or something? have you rolled your plantar fascia with a golf ball - always suprises me how much this makes my whole body feel so much looser.