Calf-Length Foot Pump Socks for Calf strains and Achilles pain
Although compression hosiery, such as HealthyStep’s Foot Pump sock range, is evidence to help reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis and ankle and foot swelling, it also offers additional solutions to calf strains and Achilles tendon pathologies.
Compression socks keep tissues warmer, prevent leg swelling during exercise, and can improve the flow of waste products from an injury, thus enhancing the healing rate. They also help in preventing excessive impact-induced soft tissue displacements. This means that during recovery from a calf strain or Achilles injury, using Foot Pump compression socks over the calf muscles can result in an earlier return to running, with recurrence of the injury less likely to happen while you are using them.
This is why so many runners now try to prevent injuries by using compression socks during running. Most will not know precisely why or how they are helping, but they can feel the benefits. There is a logical argument to be made that compression hosiery can reduce injury rates, especially when legs are fatigued during endurance running.
About calf muscles
Calf muscles consist of two distinct groups of muscles at the back of the shin. The deep calf muscles are all relatively small muscles that help stabilise the ankle and have complex influences on the foot. Although these are all extremely important muscles that profoundly affect foot and ankle stability, they are not usually associated with calf strains.
The largest two calf muscles lie over the deeper muscles, found closer to the skin. They form the large fleshy masses below the knee. A muscle called the gastrocnemius (actually made up of two muscles sitting side by side) sits in the top 2/3rd of the calf. Another calf muscle called the soleus sits underneath the gastrocnemius. Both muscles link to the Achilles tendon, although the gastrocnemius forms a sheet of fibrous tissue called the gastrocnemius aponeurosis before it attaches to the Achilles while the soleus attaches directly to the Achilles. This aponeurosis gives a little more ‘shock absorption’ between the gastrocnemius power and the stiffer Achilles.
Via tensioning the Achilles, gastrocnemius and soleus, control motions around the ankle when the foot is on the ground. Their primary job is to resist forward bending of the ankle and control the rate at which body weight moves forward over the foot. The contraction forces of these muscles and the ankle’s forward motion create tension within the elastic Achilles tendon.
The Achilles tendon behaves much like a stiff spring, which stretches and then elastically recoils. Thus, the calf muscles and ankle motions stretch the Achilles to such an extent that once body weight has moved in front of the foot, the heel lifts as a result of the powerful elastic recoil properties of this tendon. This means that the calf muscles can take a rest and avoid having to lift the heel themselves.
Achilles tendon injuries are common and can result from several different issues.
For more on the pathologies and biomechanics of the Achilles tendon, click here:
he top part of each gastrocnemius muscle has a tendon that runs over back of the knee to attach to the bottom of each side of the thigh bone (the femur). This means that gastrocnemius power also influences knee motion. This creates a close relationship between knee and ankle motions and the powers that control them. This means that gastrocnemius injuries or weaknesses can cause issues in both the knee and around the ankle, as well as within the calf.
Soleus produces the steady work of controlling ankle motion, while gastrocnemius is used to create rapid changes in power. This means the gastrocnemius plays a larger role in generating extra power during running and fast walking, but the soleus is more important in all locomotive situations.
Lying over the top of calf muscles and tendons is an important all-enclosing fibrous, stiff yet slightly elastic, thin sheet-like tissue called deep fascia. The easiest way to describe fascia is to consider it forming a structure like a tight, stiff wetsuit, holding all your muscles and soft tissues in place underneath the skin and across the whole body.
Once you have that in mind, consider that fascia also penetrates between muscle groups and individual muscles, to finally bind onto the bones. It even forms the fibrous structures that muscle cells attach to. Indeed, tendons and ligaments, including the Achilles tendon and the gastrocnemius aponeurosis, are just highly structured parts of this fascia. When muscles contract anywhere, fascia tightens and pulls anatomy together. It is an important part of how we transfer muscle power across joints, acting with tendons and ligaments to keep joints stable and tissue forces within safe limits to avoid injury.
The fascia also contains lots of nerves that inform our body on positions and tissue tensions. When injury of dysfunction occurs in motion, it is these fascial nerves that are often the origin of the pain we feel. Ultimately, fascia is a continuous structure, so creating an injury that does not involve fascia to some extent, is impossible.
The causes calf strains
Soleus and gastrocnemius can both be involved in calf strains. However, most are related to tears within the local fascia that covers and binds these muscles, including the gastrocnemius aponeurosis, and/or the fascia within or between these muscles.
Sudden changes in running speed or starting to get into a running stride when tissues are not yet ‘warmed up’, are events more likely to provoke a calf strain. However, unexpected changes in terrain, such as a hole or unseen steep incline, can suddenly create external forces that the calf muscles and fascia were not expecting. This can also cause a calf strain.
Another vulnerable time to develop calf strains is when the calf muscle become fatigued after extended periods of sport, such as endurance and marathon running. This is because fatigued muscle is less able to respond to sudden changes in stresses being applied around the ankle. Fatigue should cause a runner to slow down and take shorter steps. If a fatigued runner does not change to this slower running style or if something forces the athlete to rapidly accelerate while fatigued, a calf strain will become a high risk.
What type of damage actually occurs during a calf strain is often unclear and will be somewhat variable between individual cases. Injuries can relate to muscle fibres tearing their attachments to internal muscle fascia, or tears across fascia that supports whole sections of muscle. Those tears easily felt on palpation through the skin, tend to relate to gastrocnemius or its aponeurosis. Those that require deeper pressure to feel or lie lower down on the calf, are likely to be soleus-related.
Whatever the cause, calf strains can prevent further running until healed. Once healed, these injured tissues can often create a weak point where further calf strains can reoccur. This is because the fascia in the area can change its mechanical properties on healing, creating a chronic issue that requires action to prevent reoccurrence.
How calf-length Foot Pump socks can help calf and Achilles injures
For the fascia to play its important part in managing forces generated by the calf muscles and the external forces applied across the calf and ankle during locomotion, deep fascia must maintain appropriate compression on the soft tissues beneath it. This is more difficult to achieve once fatigue sets in. Therefore, Foot Pump socks can reduce the risk of injury in endurance/marathon runners.
Fascia does a lot of hard work during running. Impact shockwaves caused by the foot striking the ground cause the soft tissues to vibrate and displace away from the bones beneath them. Human calf muscles are particularly vulnerable to shock waves because they are relatively large and sit very low down on the leg, close to the point of impact. This makes humans vulnerable to certain shin splints (pains)
For more on soft tissue shockwaves, click here.
Compression hosiery (a type known as expansive compression socks), like the calf-length Foot Pump sock, can maintain compression on the fascia, helping it achieves its important role in transfering stresses between areas of the body by reducing impact-induced soft tissue displacement. By doing this, the Foot Pumps can reduce the peak strains and stresses on the fascia, muscles and tendons, helping to reduce the risk of calf and Achilles injuries.
They also keep tissues warmer, prevent leg swelling during exercise, and can improve the flow of waste products from an injury, thereby increasing the healing rate. This means that during recovery from a calf strain or an Achilles injury, using Foot Pump compression socks over the calf muscles can allow an earlier return to running, with recurrence of the injury less likely to happen, while using them.