Calf Stretch: The right way of stretching your calf and why you still have issues with your foot and ankle flexibility

For you to better understand the reason why your ankle flexibility is lacking, it is important to know that there are four muscles that plantar flex the ankle (bring the heel up and push your toes away).

Soleus and Gastrocnemius are the most powerful, but the two of them are only one third of all the muscles that restrict the dorsiflexion or pulling your foot up and pointing your heel. In this article we will explain the reason for all the different exercises in the EasyFlexibility Foot & Ankle program, as opposed to just one standard calf stretch that we see people do all the time.

The Soleus and the Gastrocnemius muscles both plantar flex your foot. In other words, when you go up on your toes, these muscles contract. The long muscle overlays the short muscle as usually is the case. Other muscle groups such as Gluteus Medius overlay the gluteus minimus and Rectus femoris overlay the Vastus medialis, Vastus lateralis and Vastus intermedius and the long muscle usually works on more joints.

Soleus crosses the ankle, while the Gastrocnemius crosses the ankle and the knee. For that reason, the Gastrocnemius also flexes the knee and not only plantar flexes, the ankle. In the EasyFlexibility system, different actions of the muscles and different joints that they work on are always taken into account, and thus, stretching techniques look different even for synergetic muscles that do the same thing.

Even if you are going to do passive standard stretches, which are not EasyFlexibility techniques, because EasyFlexibility techniques are moving stretches and not passive stretches. But even if you are going to do regular standard stretching. If your knee is extended because the Gastrocnemius flexes the knee you will stretch the Gastrocnemius but you are not going to get to Soleus. To get to Soleus you have to bend the knee. This is similar to Psoas and Iliacus muscles. They both do almost the same thing, but they are different and extra action is required to separate them and stretch them.

In that standard stretch where you stand with your hands against the wall and one leg is in the back of you and the heel is on the floor. If your leg is straight, most likely you are stretching the Gastrocnemius muscle. If your knee is bent you are aiming at the Soleus muscle. If you are looking for flexibility in your ankle then these two stretches, if you do them both, won't be enough to get your ankle flexibility. Because there are six muscles that plantar flex the ankle and not two.

So, besides the Gastrocnemius and Soleus, what are the other four muscles? There is a muscle called Plantaris. Plantaris is not commonly mentioned. Not everyone even has that muscle and it is currently believed that the muscle is more about proper receptive awareness than about the power. However, if you do have Plantaris (a muscle that not everyone has) and it's tight, it will prevent you from full dorsiflexion. In other words, from pulling your toes up and pointing your heel. Even if it's not a power muscle, it could still prevent flexibility.

Tibialis posterior is a muscle that also plantar flexes your ankle and can prevent dorsiflexion of your ankle. You've probably heard of the Tibialis anterior, which is a muscle in front of your shin. And that muscle dorsiflexes the ankle. Of course, if you have Tibialis anterior and not just tibialis, it means that there is a posterior tibialis somewhere as well, and that tibialis posterior is behind the leg. Opposite of the tibialis anterior, which is in front of your lower leg.

Now we have Flexor hallucis longus. Flexor hallucis longus and flexor digitorum longus. These muscles are unique in that not only do they plantar flex the ankle, but they also work on the toes. There are other muscles that work on the toes as well, but these two cross both the joints of the toes and the ankle.

Thus, these muscles explain why your toe extension or your ability to pull your toes up and expose the ball of your foot, changes with the position of your ankle. Same way as your ability to flex or extend your fingers will change with the position of your wrist.

So, regardless of how well-known these muscles are, they are still plantar flexors, together with the other four muscles mentioned above. If they are not flexible they will restrict dorsiflexion or they will pull the toes into awkward position. And when they are stretched over an ankle joint, they will have to get shorter somewhere else, and that somewhere else will be the toes.

Of course, in the EasyFlexibility system, the Zaichik Stretching Techniques focus specifically on each muscle and its' kinesiological line of pull, and thus the reason for interesting looking techniques that are different from standard stretching techniques. If you are interested in specialized foot and ankle flexibility program using Zaichik Stretching Techniques as well as supporting strength exercises, take a look below.