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What to Do If You Hurt Your Calf Muscle?

The calf muscles are susceptible to injury, especially for athletes who engage in activities that require stopping, starting and quick bursts of speedy motions. Tennis players, football players, basketball players and track athletes are all at risk of straining, tearing or overusing calf muscles, precipitating various degrees of injury and discomfort. An acronym that can help you to remember how to treat your calf muscle problems is RICE; it stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation.

  1. Rest

    • Rest the injured leg as much as possible after a calf muscle strain. The least problematic, the Grade 1 strain, will still take as long as three weeks to heal fully. Avoid playing, practicing or doing any activity that can further injure the muscle. For Grade 2 and Grade 3 strains, which are much more serious, you should use crutches for the first few days following the injury and return to walking without them only when you can do so without experiencing great discomfort with your normal walking gait. Realize that you will not have the ability to run and jump following a strain this extreme for as long as three months in some cases.

    Ice

    • Immediately utilize ice to reduce the amount of swelling in a severe calf muscle injury. You will know how severe the problem is by your inability to walk or even to straighten out your foot without intense pain. Severe strains also result in significant bruising in the back of the leg. Ice the area at least four separate times during a day for up to 15 minutes at a time. Continue this course of action for at least three days after the damage occurs. Be sure not to put the ice directly on the skin, but rather in a towel.

    Compression and Elevation

    • Prevent further swelling of the leg following the injury by employing a compression bandage on your lower leg. An ACE bandage will suffice for this purpose. When you wrap the leg, do it from the toes up so you can avoid precipitating swelling below the bandage. Never wrap your calf too tightly. Your local pharmacy may have a compression sleeve that you can use to reduce swelling. You should also elevate your affected leg as much as you can for the first day, which will keep the swelling to a minimum. Lay on a couch or bed with your leg propped up comfortably on pillows at a higher elevation than your heart.

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