Recurring calf pain from full squats and oly lifts
Please help!
I have been reading the Cathletics forum for around 6 months now, and I haven’t found a thread that deals with a recurring injury that I keep having. I would be very grateful for any/some advice.
It seems that I keep hurting my left calf (more specifically, my outer mid calf) when I start to squat regularly (or do movements that end in a full squat; for example the oly lifts).
(Below is my training program in terms of squatting since 13-Apr, when I first had some issues. Apologies if the detail is excessive and irrelevant)
I first felt a little twinge there on 13-Apr when I was doing a linear strength cycle of Back squats (3x5), Presses (5x5) and DLs (5x1), alternating with Front Squats(3x5), Dips (3 sets) and Pull-ups (3 sets) every other day (so A, rest, B, rest, A etc). I went from 115 on the back squats on the 11-Apr to 127.5 on the 23-Apr, at which point I decided to stop squatting because the pain was constant, and very acute during work-outs (it built up steadily during this period, at first only during and after workouts but then during the day afterwards as well).
So I took a break til 1-May doing only 3 workouts in this time, one with BS @ 80x2x3 on 27-Apr where there was only a little bit of pain in my leg, and then some heavy singles on 1-May (up to 145). I don’t think it hurt much at all on this day.
I thought that I had recovered by the 5-May, where I did another set of BS @ 116x3x5. There was only slight pain in this work-out, so on 9-May another workout similar to the previous cycle until I stopped on 13-May because the pain was really bad again.
I decided that I would do no squatting whatsoever for two weeks, but I did do some DLs (these didn’t seem to aggravate the calf, and I had cut them back to once a week).
On 29-May BS 100x3x3 with no pain (but the left calf felt a little tight). 1-Jun FS 80x5x3, 3-Jun OHS 50x5x2 (my OHS squat is very poor) 5-Jun BS 80x5x3, 8-Jun BS 70x10x2, 10-Jun FS 70x4x2, 12-Jun no squats, but some cleans up to 85 which is heavy for me (105 is my 1RM), (left calf felt a bit stiff, but not sore)
Then 15-Jun BS 80x7x3 with a little bit of pain in my left calf, 17-Jun some MH cleans up to 60 but I stopped because the pain became quite strong again.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me!
I train by myself, but have received some coaching in the Olympic lifts and did CF for a little under a year. I train in oly shoes, have recently purchased a belt. I’m 6’ and around 90-something kilos (weight has gone from 78kg at the start of this year to 90kg at the end of May). In terms of my leg proportions (if that’s relevant), I full squat comfortably with my legs quite close together. My knees crack a little when I squat. I have a foam roller and very tight outer quad muscles I think (at least they feel quite rock hard and are quite painful to roll on); I don’t think my calf or ankles are particularly tight because I can squat to full depth in bare feet and they don’t feel very sore when I foam roll them. In terms of diet, mostly paleo, but with 2-3 ltrs of Full cream cow’s milk, and half oats half almonds (plus meat plus fruit) in the morning (the oats are the only regular non-paleo thing; if I’m feeling especially keen to put on weight, I’ll go hunt down some double quarter pounders, etc). I’m not sure what else is relevant?
Should I take a month off from squatting? 2-months? Change my program? Change my form? Stretch more? Warm-up more? Eat cleaner? Eat more fish oil? All of the above?
Is the injury likely to be tendons? muscle related? how can I tell?
I want to keep lifting weights Olympic style but I would also like to keep walking as well...
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