Pregnancy Calf Stretch

Commonly Used For: Pregnancy-Related Pain.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to stretch your calves, which is a good exercise to perform during pregnancy to help combat some of those calf cramps that you might be getting. So one way to do this is to get yourself into a stride stance. So one foot back, one foot forward. The leg you're stretching is going to be your back leg. You want to make sure your toes are pointed straight forward, not letting them turn out at all. Once you're in that position, you want to straighten your knee all the way, tighten your thigh muscles in the front here to make sure that leg is nice and straight. And then slowly lunge forward, until you feel a stretch in the back of your calf, here. You want to hold that position 30 seconds to a minute, get a good stretch in that muscle. If you need to hold onto a counter or a chair, anything stable for balance, then go ahead and do so. If you're on bed rest and not supposed to be up and about, another way to do this stretch, is in a seated position. So you can be sitting down. The leg you're stretching is going to be extended out in front of you. You'll need something sturdy to stretch, this is just a hand towel. So a hand towel, a belt, something like that. You're going to hook it around the ball of your foot, kind of up by your toes. Keeping your knee nice and straight again by tightening those thigh muscles on the top here. And then just gently pull back, until you feel a stretch in the back of your calf, or behind your knee. Hold that position 30 seconds to a minute. And then that is your calf stretch.

Leg Exercise - Heel Raises

Commonly Used For: Plantar fasciitis, heel pain, foot pain, ankle weakness, and recovery from ankle sprain.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to do heel raises, which is a good way to strengthen your calf muscles, which is this muscle right here in the back of your leg. It's important to have strong muscles here for any sort of athletic activities — running, jumping, jogging — as well as for creating good ankle stability and preventing heel and foot pain. So how you're going to do this is you want your feet hip distance apart. You're just going to slowly raise up onto your toes, making sure that the weight is over the inside parts of your big toes and not coming out on the outside edges of your feet. So the weight should be over those big toes the whole time, slowly back down. You're just going to raise up and down. Just like that, feeling the muscles working here in the back of your calves. If that's too easy, you can do what's called an eccentric heel raise, where you're going to raise up on both legs and then come down just on one. Up, and down. You can alternate sides as well, if you like. Up, and slowly down. If that's still too easy, you can do a single leg heel raise. Standing just on one leg, again, coming up with the weight over your big toe. Slowly, down. You want to make sure you come all the way up, slowly down. Just like that. And that's how you do your heel raises.

Leg Exercise - Eversion Ankle Exercise

Commonly Used For: Foot pain, ankle pain or dysfunction.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to do an ankle eversion exercise. It works the muscle that's along here on the outside edge of your lower leg. It is important for providing ankle stability and preventing inversion ankle sprains. So you're going to need a length of exercise band that you can get online or at most sporting goods stores [here's one at Amazon.com]. You're going to want to tie a loop at the end, put it around your foot, and then step on it, go around your opposite foot. Hold it nice and tight, your going to point your toes and then just bring your toes out to the side, making sure that your knees stay straight up and down, you don't want your whole leg rocking as you do this it's just your ankle that's moving and you should feel the muscle working right in here. Slowly out and slowly back. Don't let the band whip you back to the starting position like that, it's part of the exercise to control it on the way back in. So that is your ankle eversion exercise.

Leg Exercise - Inversion Ankle Exercise

Commonly Used For: Foot pain, ankle pain, plantar fasciitis and collapsing arches.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to do an inversion ankle exercise, which strengthens the muscle here at the inside edge of your calf. It comes down under and supports the arch of your foot so this is an important exercise to do for anybody who has a problem with their arch collapsing on them or any sort of plantar fasciitis heel pain type problems. So, you're going to need an exercise band that you can get at most sporting goods stores or online [here's one at Amazon.com]. I tied a loop at the end of mine just to make it a little bit easier. So what you're going to do is you're going to cross the leg that you're going to exercise over your opposite leg. Put the loop around your foot so that the band is going over your big toe here. You're going to go behind your opposite foot and up, point your toes downward and then pull out, slowly coming back. You don't want to let it just whip back. That's part of the exercise — slowly controlling it back to the starting position and you should feel a nice burn in the muscle going on either in your arch or up here, up into your leg. You want to make sure that you don't see this tendon in front pop out like that. If you see that tendon popping out, you're using the wrong muscle and you need to point your toes more. So, when I do it correctly, that tendon flattens out. If I do it incorrectly and I'm not pointing my toes enough, you can see that big tendon. So nice and pointed, slowly out to the side and slowly back. So that's your inversion ankle exercise.

Hip Exercise - Clams

Commonly Used For: To avoid knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain and foot pain.

Video Transcription: This is a clams exercise which is a good way to strengthen your gluteus medius, which is on the outside edge of your hip and it's important to keep that one strong both for preventing knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, foot pain — a lot of reasons to keep that muscles strong. So what you're going to do is to lay down on your side. The side facing up towards the ceiling is the side that you're going to strengthen. You want to have your feet together, your knees together, your hips going to be step straight up towards the ceiling. You don't want to get yourself rock back, or rock too far forward and then just like a clamshell, you're going to open your knees and close them keeping your feet together. You should feel it right here in your glutes. If you're not feeling that muscle working, you might be letting yourself rock back too far, so you can put yourself up against the wall or any other solid surface that can help keep your hips forward, as you raise up and down. It that's too easy, you can use an exercise band. You can get it from a sporting goods store online [here's one at Amazon.com]. You're going to tie your knees together, and then you perform the same exercise just against the resistance of the band now. And there are different levels of band to make this easier or harder. If it's still too easy, what you can do is raise your feet up off the floor, still keeping them together and then again open and close your knees just like a clamshell. Keeping those hips stacked straight up towards the ceiling. And that's the clams exercise.

Leg Exercise - How to Foam Roll Your Calf Muscles

Commonly Used For: Heel pain or foot pain.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to foam roll your calf muscle, which is a good way to relieve tightness down here in your calf. You're going to need a foam roller, which you can get online or at most sporting good stores [here's one at Amazon.com]. So you're going to lay that down on the floor. Sit down. Put the leg that you need to foam roll on top of the foam roll. You're going to put the opposite leg across on top just to get some added pressure. You're going to need some good arm strength because you have to lift up and then you're going to roll down onto your calf. Just slowly back and forth. You're going to feel the discomfort in your calf there. The tighter you are, the more discomfort you're going to feel but the more you foam roll it, the less discomfort will be in your calf. So that's how you foam roll your calf.