calf/ankle problem

[Chris Lee]

this doesnt qualify as an injury, but it hurts pretty bad. for about a week whenever i drop into a full olympic squat, i get a real bad pain in my left ankle/calf region, and a little in my right too, but mainly my left. its right when my hamstring contacts my calf, it feels like my hamstring is pushing my calf muscle in a weird way that is straining the ligaments or something. ive got some nerve damage in both of my ankles from football, and ive torn a couple ligaments in my left ankle, both things were around a year ago. anyways, i went all this time training using olympic style squats, but only recently have i had trouble with this. if anyone has any advice apart from an anti-inflammatory, alternating heat and cold, and stretching/massaging it, please help me out.

[Ben Booker]

Check your stance maybe, if your knees go past your toes it will put added stress (stretching and weight) on your achilles, calves, and knees, but everyone is different. I was haveing problems with my knee then i got some advice from my Personal Trainer Manager about my arthrokenetic line up. I changed my wide stance to a shoulder with stance and made sure that my toes point just about stait a head. Then i make sure that my acl lines up over the toe next to my big toe and that my knees don't go past my toes. This worked for me (the stability and cordination will be different at first) but this has worked for me very well once I got use to it.

[Chris Lee]

thanks ben, thats something i never thought about. my stance is pretty solid, but my knees could be going out in front of my feet too far. i'll have to check it out on wednesday.

[patrick w.]

knees over toes shouldn't matter. that is a myth.

what it sounds like is that you have had some injuries in the past to your ankle. It sounds like you need to work on your ankle mobility. If the mobility is being compromised it will lead to altered movement all the way up.

[Chris Lee]

thanks pat. i've been doing some stretches and stuff for it, but it's weird, because i've always had pretty good flexibility throughout my body, and i've trained for almost a year since i had these injuries with my ankle, always incorporating cleans, front squats, squats, etc. and i havent experienced this problem before. i think i might not be keeping my weight on my heels enough, and leaning forward a little, putting too much pressure on the back of my calves via my hamstrings resting on them, especially since this problem started with cleans, where the weight is racked like a front squat, which couldve pulled me too far forward.

[Ben Booker]

thanks pat. i've been doing some stretches and stuff for it, but it's weird, because i've always had pretty good flexibility throughout my body, and i've trained for almost a year since i had these injuries with my ankle, always incorporating cleans, front squats, squats, etc. and i havent experienced this problem before. i think i might not be keeping my weight on my heels enough, and leaning forward a little, putting too much pressure on the back of my calves via my hamstrings resting on them, especially since this problem started with cleans, where the weight is racked like a front squat, which couldve pulled me too far forward.

You made a very good point about driveing up with your heels more, and that will releive more stress off your calves.

[Chris Lee]

yeah, im used to flat soled shoes like chucks, where staying back on my heels just came naturally to me. i'm using oly shoes for the large majority of my lifting right now, and i'm not accustomed to the raised heel, i think it's been throwing me forward just enough to cause this problem, so i'll tweak around with things tomorrow, and get everything figured out, hopefully. it's probably just a matter of dropping my hips further back, box squats might also help me out with this.

[Jamie McEwan]

I'm inexperienced in the matter, but just thought I'd wish you well with it, Chris. Heal up. I want to see you tear through the heavyweight teens this year! :)

[Chris Lee]

thanks bro, i think i've got myself situated now. i'm almost positive it was just the heel on my oly shoes throwing me forward a little too much, without my knowledge, because my front squats today felt good.