My plantar fascia felt great for two days after the big stretch from yoga, and then I did an uphill treadmill run and set it way back again. I saw my physio Stacee yesterday, and she figured out pretty quickly that it was my soleus that was very tight and causing the trouble in my PF. This was the calf muscle I pulled during Finger Lakes 50k in 2009, and the scar tissue has just been sitting there and not allowing full, correct mobility. It is interesting that I’m going into the same race in less than three weeks, and dealing now with the fallout from it two years ago.
She did a lot of soft tissue work on my PF and calf (owwch) and gave me a modification to the bent-knee calf stretch to target the soleus muscle in the correct way (my body had been compensating and bending inward). It’s good to get this addressed right down to the root of the problem. I’ve felt tenderness in my calf a few times and wondered about it, so it all makes perfect sense to me. I have some tendonopathy in the big toe knuckle of that foot too which should also calm down when this all resolves. Stacee, who is also just over 40 and very active, jokingly shared her personal acronym for having to deal with this kind of thing: A.G.E. J
The uphill tempo was great though. Right now I can handle more than before Rock and Ice, so I’m very pleased with that. It’s kind of a mystery to me actually, but I like it. Maybe I'm just fresher going into the workouts. Maybe I'm dreaming of Colorado.
Here’s my progression of uphill treadmill workouts this spring, if anyone is interested. My personal preference is to keep the speed constant for each workout and vary the incline only. I also topped out at 10° to keep the majority of time in the comfortably hard (tempo) range and also to keep good form. (Note the ’ indicates minutes, as in deg/min/sec, not feet, ha).
For those who aren’t workout geeks, please skip right ahead to the rest of your day! J
If you’re still here, you’re a workout geek.
7 comments:
Hey Geek...Nice to get that PF straightened out!
Hey, I have a tight soleus also. Does that make us "Soleus Sisters"? The tightness also causes problems lower in my leg and foot but has not fully gone into my heal thingy(PF) and tends to cause more problems for my Apple(evil "A" word). Sometimes my soleus just gives up and tears on me a little bit and I get a few days/weeks/months off;-) Please send me that stretch though. Funny how you train on a treadmill to get better at running on trails/mountains. Very scientific the way you adjust the incline and take recoverys at the lower incline as opposed to running up and down a hill. How do you train running down hill then? The Ultramill goes down hill;-P
Derrick, I can’t believe you called me a geek.
EJ, Soleus Sisters, that’s funny! The stretch is just the basic soleus stretch (calf stretch, but with bent leg (http://www.exrx.net/Stretches/Soleus/Wall.html ), except to counter my wonkiness she has me put a towel under my arch to make sure I’m tracking right. If you’re already tracking okay, then no need to do that.
Ah yes, the treadmill is my friend for sustained ups. For downhills I do wall sits so my quads can take the eccentric loading. I just build up to doing it for 60-90 seconds and it makes a world of difference.
Geek here. That's a pretty BA workout Sara. That looks fun. The dreadmill used to be my friend, but we grew apart. I think a dreadmill hill workout is in order to rekindle.
Do it, William, it turns a normal dreadmill slog into a mountain run!
William, Just a word of caution to ease into it very gradually on the incline.
A.G.E Actively Gaining Experience
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