UKC

Afternoon all,

I hope you all had a good NY and christmas break. I always suffer from dodgy calves and roll and stretch them at every chance I get - both on a grid roller and using 'the stick. Its mainly my Soleus/deep calf muscles rather than the big gatsroc muscle.

Just wondering if anyone has used either or both of the above and the results they achieved from them.

As always, any help appreciated.

Cheers

In reply to Ben Watts:

I've used both. Serious evidence that either help is lacking, but my experience is that they can reduce muscle tiredness and aid recovery. Not so sure when it comes to protecting against shin splint type problems. I don't think it makes much difference which you use.

In reply to Ben Watts:

Ive tried both, I preferred the socks because they also supported the ankle, however that then limits you to wearing that particular sock, the calf guards allow you to wear any socks you like so are more flexible and not needing to be washed as often may last longer.

I found that they do reduce muscle stiffness the day after the run but not by a huge amount, I certainly wouldnt go spending loads on these things, some are easily £40 which is daft/

In reply to Ben Watts:

For me, skins or similar do the whole calf better than the socks. Socks stop a couple of inches before the top of the calf muscle and leave a dent at the top due to the elastic which is a bit annoying.

Occasionally have running spells to boost fitness though often found my calves an initial struggle with stiffening and slight pain during and post run.

Although sceptical, I bit the bullet and got some PHD wool compression running socks. The sock is very tight - no surprise there, eh - and certainly makes a difference. Being wool you can get a few runs out of them before they need a wash, unless you are seriously mud plugging, which I'm hoping will help longevity. For both the sock and my calves....

In reply to Ben Watts:

In my experience they work well to reduce that tired muscle feeling at the end of long runs, but do absolutly nothing to avoid tight calve musles.