Today, what we’re going to be talking about is Achilles pain. Achilles pain plagues all runners at some level; if you’re a runner, I guarantee you have already been through it. You’ve had something going on there. There are many reasons why people get Achilles pain. I’m just going to break down the basics of it. Number 1: What is the Achilles? Achilles runs through two different muscles and I’m going to break that down. Number 2: What are the common reasons why those muscles fall apart? Number 3: What is one easy exercise I can do to clear it up? All right folks, so let’s get this started

Your Achilles is comprised of two muscles – one in your gastroc and one in your soleus. Your gastroc is the two big red muscles that are on top, and your soleus is the muscle that’s underneath that. That’s a very important muscle all on its own. Some people call it the second heartbeat, because it brings a lot of blood flow up. But they both extend the foot. They both help you bring the foot out, help you go on your tippy-toes, so on and so forth. So, you see how they both meld together. Together they form the Achilles – soleus and gastroc. If you have an Achilles issue, don’t think it’s just your calf muscle. It’s your calf and your soleus. If you’re doing a lot of calf stretching and it’s not going away, I guarantee you it’s the soleus. And you stretch the soleus slightly differently than you will stretch the calf, believe it or not, just because of where it attaches on the whole big scheme of things. So, that’s the Achilles.

The most common reason why you have Achilles pain is that your ankle and the intrinsic muscles of your feet no longer work very well. Achilles issues always come and go right around like planter’s fasciitis and sore feet all the time, because your intrinsic muscle – this muscles that comprises your arch and your foot no longer works. So, what happens is, they start to stretch out and start becoming hard, so you no longer have a shock absorber. That now hinders the ankle from moving, so now your Achilles and your soleus and gastroc have to work harder to extend the muscle, because the joint of your whole ankle no longer wants to move, because it’s being your shock absorber. So, the fact that the intrinsic muscles of your feet don’t work cause your ankles to start locking up rather than being a mobile object, forcing your calf and your soleus to work harder, hence the extra fray. That’s why you have Achilles issues. So, what are some things you can do to relieve this?

Okay, so, what we have to do now is we have to now focus on getting the Achilles and the soleus to start learning how to open them. What I’m going to show you is something called an eccentric load to the soleus and calf, aka your Achilles.  What this is an eccentric load is the opposite of what a muscle technically does on its normal day-to-day function, which is contract. A muscle consistently contracts, consistently contracts.  So, what happens is, on the open, that’s where it wants to contract. So, when you’re having Achilles pain, as you start to open and close, open and close, it opens, it doesn’t open as much, so you force it just by gravity, and that’s when it shreds. You have to do a controlled easy movement on the open, and once that happens, your body starts to reset how it’s supposed to do it.  So, at first, you’re going to use a little bit of body weight, and then you’re just going to control the movement. So, what you’re going to do is get a stepper, or you can do this on any step. You want to now position yourself like you’re going to do a calf raise. You’re going to go up, leave a foot off, and then you want to hold for a second. Get that calf to start wanting to open up and you’ve got to feel it contracting, and then slowly, on a ten second count, let’s say, bring it down to the floor. So, you bring the whole calf down.

What happens is, it starts to stretch all the way throughout the whole calf, and the calf should be a different type of stretch. You want to open up and let it out, go to your calf raise, hold the calf raise, and then drop it down nice and slow. Give it a second to ten second round. Then once you’re in the stretch, in that way, you want to now to let it stretch. Let it open. Teach it how to reopen again. This is not a short-term thing. This is not three or four stretches and you’re done. We’re going to have to do this for a good ten times for a week, two weeks before you start really seeing some results because of changing that habit. It’s going to be very important for you to be patient with this, because you’re reconditioning a habit. This is the bigger key to it. If you’re having Achilles issues, you’re having ankle issues and intrinsic muscle issues – one concept. It could be something that’s triggering up top the chain – a knee issue or a hip issue – but you want to understand you have a movement pattern issue. It’s not just about that, just this one exercise, it’s about the movement pattern that you’re doing as well.

Are you, for instance, a heel striker when you run? All of those different things can cause this like heel striking or just a tippy toe runner. There are just pros and cons of running styles. There’s not one perfect running style. There are pros and cons to all of them. Heel striking, you’re going to compress a lot of joints, because you’re putting a lot of weight load on it. Balls of the feet runner, you’re going to compress your calves like crazy, as well as you’re not utilizing the intrinsic muscles as well. Mid-foot runner is the safest zone for people to be in. That’s why they say you want to be a mid-foot runner, but if you don’t have the hip integrity, you’re never going to be that. You’re either going to be a toe runner or a heel runner. You have to have the hip integrity, ankle integrity to have an easy flow within the lower body.