Torn Calf rant

[jfriley]

Evening all, I’m just starting to get back to training after an unplanned eight week layoff due to a torn calf. I was making great progress in my lifts, having transitioned to the advanced novice phase or whatever it’s called (where the Wed squat day is lighter)and I was looking forward to getting to that elusive PR. I’m currenty in school and we have mandatory softball, (you can guess where this story is going.) I’m at bat, I hit the ball, take two steps towards first base and pop, there goes my right calf. Couldn’t walk on it the first day, and over the next six weeks I pretty much couldn’t do any squats or deadlifts. I’m slowly working my way back, just with lighter weights as my calf is still a little tender.

The annoying thing is I was pretty much following all the rules from the Barbell Rx book...avoiding stretching before workouts in favor of light warm ups, giving up on running (distance and sprints) as it’s “unsafe” in the authors view, in favor of less impact conditioning. I’m now wondering if I did myself a disservice. The theme of their book is that we are training for life, and anything that life throws at us. But, instead of a stupid softball game, if that had been a situation where I needed to “run for my life” I’d be dead right now. Of we’ll, I guess I need to look at slight modifications to make sure I’m hitting all the physical angles and not just focusing on squats and deadlifts.

Injuries suck. Rant over.

[old guy]

Evening all, I’m just starting to get back to training after an unplanned eight week layoff due to a torn calf. I was making great progress in my lifts, having transitioned to the advanced novice phase or whatever it’s called (where the Wed squat day is lighter)and I was looking forward to getting to that elusive PR. I’m currenty in school and we have mandatory softball, (you can guess where this story is going.) I’m at bat, I hit the ball, take two steps towards first base and pop, there goes my right calf. Couldn’t walk on it the first day, and over the next six weeks I pretty much couldn’t do any squats or deadlifts. I’m slowly working my way back, just with lighter weights as my calf is still a little tender.

The annoying thing is I was pretty much following all the rules from the Barbell Rx book...avoiding stretching before workouts in favor of light warm ups, giving up on running (distance and sprints) as it’s “unsafe” in the authors view, in favor of less impact conditioning. I’m now wondering if I did myself a disservice. The theme of their book is that we are training for life, and anything that life throws at us. But, instead of a stupid softball game, if that had been a situation where I needed to “run for my life” I’d be dead right now. Of we’ll, I guess I need to look at slight modifications to make sure I’m hitting all the physical angles and not just focusing on squats and deadlifts.

Injuries suck. Rant over.

i had something similar - more of a pulled calf muscle than a tear - it was while pulling a truck in a strongman competition , the 4th event. My coach/trainer said I should have been doing something to keep loose ahead of the pull - even just jumping jacks would have been good - a lot to go from zero to 100. The good news for me was that it wasn't a complete tear and missed a week in the gym and dealt with some swelling and stiffness for a couple of weeks.

I guess, the moral is that we warm up for big weights by starting with empty bar and gradually adding more. With something like softball, i guess some jogging and light sprinting ahead of the game would serve the same purpose and may prevent it next time.

[David Clark]

I learned the hard way that you can tear a calf muscle by trying to stretch out a cramp. Of course when the cramp wakes you up suddenly in the night it hard to make a rational plan for addressing it.

[ChrisRozon]

Real MD's on this board will have to chime in, but from the perspective of someone who's played a lot of sports and got hurt doing a lot of them , you can NOT safely go from standing to sprinting (esp with a 90 turn thrown in) without warming up. Stretching and jogging might not help weightlifting, but they're crucial to get your body ready for a softball at-bat.

[Cheesepuff]

What was the temperature? Maybe sweat pants would have helped. Would make any warm up more effective, imho.