What the hell did I do to my legs?

**Asriel** · Posted On: 1/11/2007 6:15pm

Most muscular soreness will be felt the day after your workout. Immediately after the muscles will feel tired and pumped. I'd recommend Deep Heat.

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 1/11/2007 6:25pm

Originally Posted by eyebeams

No, I did 100 somewhat ballistic, bodyweight calf raises hanging from a step. This was a mistake.

I don't trust hindu squats on my knees as I had arthroscopy late last year, but I do go low on occasion for flexibility.

Dude, did you even warm up before you did that?????? Calves are the most densely packed muscles in the body, and they can take a lot of punishment... but therein lies the problem. When you get them to cramp, they'll cramp like a ************.

Prepare to have that pain for days (most of the time, that's how it is.) I hope you didn't do unglodly damage to your ligaments between the heel and the ball of the feet, too. That usually can happen when you overtrain your calves.

Anyways, what BSD suggested is right on the money. Now, this is also something that you can try. I've never used it on my calves, but I've done it on my shins to deal with the occasional shin splits.

Get tiger balm or icy hot, and apply that good **** on your calves, from where they connect on the back of the knee joint all the way down to the ankle. Dig your fingers deep and strongly in a downward motion down to the ankle as you apply the ointment. Look for any knots in the muscle and dig your fingers in it.

Imagine that knot is a nugget of cheese and that you want to squeeze the **** out of it and make it flat silly. It will hurt. Hurt is good.

Once you have warmed up your calf muscles, wrap the entire lower leg with an ACE band (a 4" ACE band will do great), and leave the wrap there for a few hours.

Loose the band every now and then to allow the blood to circulate. Repeat the procedure every few hours. That is, that **** is around the clock. Stretch your foot and calves every hour, as much as safely possible. Stretching, massaging and warming up around the clock is vital.

Will it work in the calves? Oh, I dunno, but it works for me for shin splits. Before, a shin split would last several days, and I could not run for ****.

Now, since I started doing that procedure, I can get rid of one and be good for running in a day or so. So maybe this **** may work for your calves.

*** EDIT ***
giggle, I said **** several times. he.

**eyebeams** · Posted On: 1/11/2007 6:59pm

Originally Posted by El Macho

Dude, did you even warm up before you did that?????? Calves are the most densely packed muscles in the body, and they can take a lot of punishment... but therein lies the problem. When you get them to cramp, they'll cramp like a ************.

I think my mistake was thinking, "I walk on these things every day. How hard could it be?" It didn't feel very challenging at the time. I did warm them up; they come after lunges in my program.

But man, it's the suckiest thing that ever sucked. I'm feeling a bit better now, but I'm changing my gameplan as follows:

1) First, I'm cutting these reps down. Naturally.
2) Second, this workout's happening on Thursdays, nice and distant from my actual classes.
3) Bath salts, extra stretches and massage, plus BSD's suggestion on the day after. I'm a bit leary about the Tiger Balm/compression thing.

**Hanniballistic** · Posted On: 1/11/2007 9:36pm

Originally Posted by El Macho

Imagine that knot is a nugget of cheese and that you want to squeeze the **** out of it and make it flat silly. It will hurt. Hurt is good.

.

You squeeze cheese????

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 1/11/2007 10:24pm

Originally Posted by eyebeams

I think my mistake was thinking, "I walk on these things every day. How hard could it be?" It didn't feel very challenging at the time. I did warm them up; they come after lunges in my program.

But man, it's the suckiest thing that ever sucked. I'm feeling a bit better now, but I'm changing my gameplan as follows:

1) First, I'm cutting these reps down. Naturally.
2) Second, this workout's happening on Thursdays, nice and distant from my actual classes.
3) Bath salts, extra stretches and massage, plus BSD's suggestion on the day after. I'm a bit leary about the Tiger Balm/compression thing.

Meh, ***** :tongue3:

I learned that from my sis (RIP). She was a physical therapist, and she fixed me a couple of times with that type of therapy, specially below my shoulder blades (used to get them all fucked up when I first started lifting).

She would dig her knuckles on the knots - The pain, man. The pain. But I tell ya, she would set me right on the spot like brand new. Some therapists use the fingertips, others the knuckles or the tip of the elbow. I myself have at home this wooden thing I bought at a pharmacy, with knobs that you can use to "dig" in the knots.

Be brave and give it a try (and please take a pic of you when you are wincing in pain... muahahahah.) I does works, believe me. :toothy5:

Originally Posted by Hannibal MAP

You squeeze cheese????

Why, of course!!! I squeeze it against pita bread, whole wheat bagels or my g/f toes, all the while making Bruce Lee like noises. That's how I practice my d34dl3y, cheesy dim mak. :tard:

**MediumMike** · Posted On: 1/12/2007 1:59pm

Originally Posted by eyebeams

Okay, this week was going to take me back to kung fu and MMA, something I felt good about after hitting some significant health goals around the new year. Last Sunday, I decide to kick up my bodyweight workout a notch (I do a bunch of things, since I get bored easily).

The next day, no MMA for me. By calves, which were fine hours after the workout, are on fire. I can't walk properly. Even light massage is painful. My quads were pretty bad too, but they got better after a day. My calves are *still* in pain today -- a bit better, but I'm still walking funny.

Now I obviously overdid it, but I'm kind of flabberghasted that I had this grace period from the end of my workout until I went to bed, where I didn't feel *any* unusual pain. It only happened after I woke up the next day, and it's sidelined me in a big way.

Aside from (obviously) scaling back my calf workout, how do I deal with this kind of thing? It was a hell of a piss-off for me this week.

Did you stretch and warm up before you started? How long was it since you did those workouts? Maybe you strained or like you said over did it.

**PPlate** · Posted On: 1/21/2007 9:52am

Stretching the muscle really well AFTER the workout and before the warmdown usually works for me.

If you forget to stretch after the workout, you'll feel the pain the next day. If you stretch it the pain is reduced like 80%, from my experience.

100 (ballistic) calf raises shouldn't be a problem I think, unless you weigh a ton. Try stretching before cooling down. It works wonders.

**panthersix** · Posted On: 1/21/2007 11:24am

Your age? I'm 46 and I can't trust my body any more. Sometimes when I work out extra hard and I'm really, really paying attention to my body and it appears that I'm doing the same as when I was younger, but I'm not. Sometimes my body doesn't "fess up" till a day or two later that I was pushing this old machine too far, too fast.

Case in point, I'm 8 weeks out from shoulder surgery and my PT told me to go ahead and start lifting again, but take it easy with light weights and don't do anything stupid! So I get out my old Body For Life book and do the upper body routine with very, very light weights and only do one set of 12 reps. NO PROBLEM. I felt great.

Then I wake up at 0400 hours sore as crap!

My two cents, probably not your issue. Just thought I'd share in case some of ya'll make it past 45!

**FickleFingerOfFate** · Posted On: 1/22/2007 12:54pm

Originally Posted by panthersix

Your age? I'm 46 and I can't trust my body any more. Sometimes when I work out extra hard and I'm really, really paying attention to my body and it appears that I'm doing the same as when I was younger, but I'm not. Sometimes my body doesn't "fess up" till a day or two later that I was pushing this old machine too far, too fast.

Case in point, I'm 8 weeks out from shoulder surgery and my PT told me to go ahead and start lifting again, but take it easy with light weights and don't do anything stupid! So I get out my old Body For Life book and do the upper body routine with very, very light weights and only do one set of 12 reps. NO PROBLEM. I felt great.

Then I wake up at 0400 hours sore as crap!

My two cents, probably not your issue. Just thought I'd share in case some of ya'll make it past 45!

I have noticed as I approach 40 that the aches associated with an agressive workout seem to wait a day to let me know if I push too hard.

The next day just feels like a normal day after, but on the occasion I push too hard the real bill comes due the second day.

Not sure if this is an age thing or my own little slice of hell

**MediumMike** · Posted On: 1/22/2007 2:02pm

I know i'm still a youngen in this world and not appreciated on this site but, what the hell. In the military I have worked w/ young to old. The age is one thing but, you are not in the 70's yet so their is still enjoyment of the physcal structure of the human body. From what i've seen and been taught ligting heavy like you were younger is a no go. Lighter weight and reps. is the way. you've had your time to be buff now maintaining for older age is important. Also, especially getting older food has effects as well. Monitor your food types. Bad food and good work equals 0, no noticable gain. Slice of hell is another way to look at it.