Dynamic Calf Stretch - Gastrocnemius, Soleus & Peroneals (a.k.a. Fibularis)

Dynamic Calf Stretch - Gastrocnemius, Soleus & Peroneals (a.k.a Fibularis) is a treatment aimed at increasing flexibility, range of motion, and mobility of the calf muscles. This stretch includes dynamic movement to the ankle joint, targeting all layers of the calf muscles. The deep stretching sensation is created by continually fluctuating from an active stretch to a passive stretch. By applying repetitive, rhythmic movements, the calf muscles will systematically lengthen

Transcript

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This is Brent coming at you with another
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that extremely stubborn ankle complex. I know a lot of you have been looking
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for something to help improve extensibility, specifically of the calf,
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the gastroc, and soleus complex. Now at this point I'm going to assume that
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you've already worked on your release techniques as well as your static and
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active stretching, and as we go through this progression you're going to understand
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from an educational standpoint, why setting that foundation for your clients
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is going to be really important from a queuing perspective. Dynamic stretching
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is a wonderful way to maintain extensibility, it's not a great way to
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get there. It's also a wonderful way to get somebody warmed up for sporting and
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higher intensity daily activity, where we're going to require extensibility at
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a higher tempo. I'm going to have my friend Leanne come out and help me
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demonstrate this stretch. Now, the first thing we're going to use is just a
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prisoner squat. So we need to go back to our kinetic chain checkpoints and
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make sure everything is optimally aligned, because if we let her compensate,
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we've been working on our lower leg dysfunction, we're not going to get out
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of this stretch what we need. So I'm going to have Leanne go into prisoner
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squat position which is hands just behind her head, she's going to be lined
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up with second toes pointing forward, I know some of you don't squat
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like that normally, optimally we should have the extensibility to do that squat
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with second toe pointing forward, and feet underneath our hips, which your hips
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are just underneath your ASIS. When she squats down I'm going to be watching to
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make sure she doesn't flatten out or turn out this way. Now the big queue that
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we want to make sure happens is, I'm going to have Leanne turn sideways here,
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is that we've got optimal tibia-torso angle. Remember our tibia and our torso should
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stay parallel. A big compensation pattern for those with lower leg dysfunction,
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those with calf tightness, is that they'll not get much forward
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translation of the knee at the tibia, and get an excessive forward lean in the
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torso. So I'm going to have Leanne go ahead and descend into her squat and
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make sure that she's bringing those knees forward. And you can see there
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at first she wanted to get into the back end of that excessive forward lean, I
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just gave her a little queue, pulled that knee a little farther forward. Go ahead
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and sit up, squeeze your glutes, sit straight down for me.
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Good. You can see there we got a little bit better forward translation of the
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knee. Good, sit back down, good tibia torso angle, good, let's speed up a little
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bit. So as we're progressing our dynamic stretching, they're starting to get that
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they have to pull their knees forward a little bit, activate that tibialis
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anterior to get a good squat going, then we can take advantage of progressing our
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dynamic stretch in speed knowing that they're going to have to move at a
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fairly quick tempo while they're playing their sport or their higher intensity
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daily activity. Once she gets good at this squat form I can start progressing
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this exercise a little bit. Since it's my tibialis anterior that translates my
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knees forward, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have Leanne put a band
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right around her ASIS. This is going to create an anterior to posterior pull.
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That anterior to posterior pull is going to ensure that her tibialis anterior has to
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be really active. Now, warning, this is one of those super bands but it's not
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one of the huge strong bands. It doesn't take a whole lot of anterior to
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posterior pull to get the benefit of this exercise. If you use a huge band all
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you're really going to do is jack up your squat mechanics really badly. So I'm
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going to have Leanne once again go into her prisoner squat, and she's going to
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sit back - I'm sorry - a better queue would be to sit straight down
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maintaining that tibia - torso angle. I'm only going to allow her go to go down as
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far as she can as long as she maintains that angle. Good. Making sure she's
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squeezing her glutes, driving her hips forward against that band on the way up,
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that way we get a little glute activity too, kill two birds with one stone. Good,
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can you feel it a little bit in your calves? -Yeah. Good. Once again we can start to
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speed this progression up a little bit. As Leanne gets more extensibility we
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can go another step further. Dynamic flexibility is all about increasing
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neuromuscular control, in essence coordination and stability, at the tempo
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of the activity we're working on. So I'm going to have her now go from a dual leg
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stretch like we're doing now, to a single leg stretch. So I'm going to
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have her descend into her squat, and then she's going to step into a single leg
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calf stretch on this side. She basically just stepped into that wall stretch that
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you had been working on during your static stretching. So if you've already
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planted those seeds during your static and active stretching, this shouldn't be
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a difficult progression to get into. Descend into her squat, make sure
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she maintains good tibia-torso angle, then she's going to step through, good
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triple extension mechanics, glute tight, quad tight, this time heel pressed
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through the floor and back. Let's see that one more time. Now, for all of my
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human movement science geeks out there, you know that the fibularis muscles also
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play a role in lower leg dysfunction as our primary everters. They'll flatten out
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the foot and turn it out just a little bit. I can get a little fibularis
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extensibility out of this exercise by using the same queue I did in my static
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stretching. So in the static stretching we talked about how if you step out just
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a little bit like this in your wall stretch, place the weight on the front
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leg, that forces your tibia on this side to come in this way, which instead of
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being foot on tibia inversion, is actually tibia on foot inversion. So
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we're going to get a nice lengthening of our fibularis or peroneals muscles as
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well. All I have to do is queue her, we're going to do the exact same thing, you're
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going to keep your feet straight, but I'm going to have you step out about 30
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degrees, so we're going to have you step out to about here. -Alright. So let's try that.
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Down into your squat, good, and step out just a little bit. You feel that just a
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little bit more in your outer calf, or your peroneal area? -Yeah. Good, and then
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back. And then we can have her do the same thing. We could set up markers on the
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floor so we keep her up nice and straight. I'm going to have you step to right about here,
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30 degrees out. Let's have you do a couple more.
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Usually I find 10 to 20 repetitions on each leg works pretty well for
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dynamic stretching. We can go through a couple of different progressions as I
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mentioned before: both speed, so you can slowly start to speed this up as long as
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they can maintain good form, and then of course we have all these wonderful
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stability progressions, all these complexity progressions. We went from
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just a regular prisoner squat with a nice queue for the anterior translation
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of the knee, then we went to the anterior to posterior pull for that nice prisoner
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squat, then we went to squat to single leg calf stretch, and then, of course, we
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went to squat to single a calf stretch with the fibularis or peroneal
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modification. I hope you enjoy this video, I hope you get a ton of