It’s interesting that many people often overlook doing this simple stretch. Whether it’s because our gastrocnemius and soleus, often referred to as our calf muscles, are so powerful or that they don’t often give people pain similar to back and neck muscles. I believe it’s the latter and thus they are a neglected muscle group that rarely get stretched.

I’ve seen many ways to stretch calves – passively where someone else tries to push the foot into dorsiflexion…that’s not very effective in my opinion mostly due to the strength of both muscles combined. Remember that you can do single leg calf raises which means that these muscles can lift your entire body weight and yes, that’s what I mean by how strong they are. I’ve also seen individuals go into a stretch position where they lean into a wall while keeping their foot flat on the ground. I’ve done that before and it isn’t very effective at all and feels like way more work than I want to do when I stretch. So that takes us to my favourite way to stretch, lazy calf stretches.

This is how lazy calf stretching is done:

Using stairs, align the balls of your feet with the edge of the stair. The opposite leg is the support leg and needs to be on the stair too. Drop your heel off the edge with a bend in the knee (stretches the soleus muscle). Relax, breathe and hold between 15 and 30 seconds. Transfer weight from your support leg to the stretching leg to intensify the stretch or reduce the amount of stretch. Progress to placing all of your weight on the stretch leg to maximize the stretch. Use the handrail for balance.

Dare I state the obvious, stretch on the bottom stair because if you have a problem such as losing your balance, it won’t be far to fall.

Follow the same procedure as above.
Notice the knee is relatively straight. This will stretch the gastrocnemius muscle.

The pictures show stretching in bare feet but I often prefer to stretch with shoes or Crocs on! No kidding! Give it a try!