What do you do if your calfs are chronically tight?

Do you feel the biggest stretch in your calfs when you bend forward to touch your toes? Do you miserably fail basic ankle mobility assessments? Do you find it impossible to stay upright in a squat?

These are all signs that your calfs are holding you back. The thing is, they don’t want to drag you down. They just need some love to get back to normal.

While there are plenty of great drills to try, here are the top three methods I’d start with if your calfs are always tight. They’re simple, can be done just about anywhere, and in my experience, are effective:

Here are a couple other things to note if your calves are always tight:

1. The more running or jumping (or other exercises that intensively load the calfs) you do, the more you may need to work on these calf drills to balance that out.
   

2. If you’re not seeing results in a week or two, the #1 reason is usually not enough consistency. You need to get LOTS of touches on these drills daily. With the exception of intensive deep massage where you’re really getting in there, for stretching and using the buffer the general rule is: the more the better.
   

3. After a calf mobility session, I really like to finish with an active mobility drills. They’re not essential and if you’re consistent with the drills I’ve shown above, you should see improvement. However, these active mobility drills seem to enhance the effect of stretching, make it last for longer, and improve your ability to actively control the joint through a larger range of motion.
   
   There are many good options here and I’ll eventually do a video of my favourites, but this clip will get you started. Start the video around 90-sec in.