What is wrong with my legs?!

I have had painful claves for as long as I can remember, but recently I have come to the conclusion that they is something wrong with the way I walk.

Walking causes my calf muscles to become painful and when I walk up stairs I struggle to put my heel down flat, and tend to walk up satirs on tiptoes.

Stretching give temporary releif, but I want to know why it happens, and how I can fix it!

I have seen a physio in the past, but this did not seem to help, he gave me a sports massage and just told me to stretch more. So, who would be able to asses what is wrong and what is causing the pain? Is a chiro purely for backs? It does not seem serious enought to see a sports injury clinic.

Any suggestions or reccomendations would be much appreciated. - Thankyou in advance!

Whatever it is it is causing you continuing problems and holding you back from what you want to be doing - I'd say that makes it serious enough to visit a sports injury clinic. You may have been unlucky with your first physio, a 2nd opinion isn't going to hurt.

Yeah the sports injury clinics are fantastic, they've helped me with so many problems!

After chatting about this topic to a friend I was recommended a very good sports podiatrist so went along a few weeks ago.

The verdict; short calves.

What I thought were 'sensible flat shoes' was actually not helping this at all as having my feet flat puts massive tension on the calf.

No cure aparantly, but pain easily solved by heel rasiers as this reduces the 'pull'.

So, although it is not 'cureable' I am able to walk realtively pain free by having my heels raised slightly. I have been running in the heel raisers (5mm foam heel inserts) and have felt a massive difference.

Raising the heel will help, but even so, don't neglect to do proper stretches on the calf. If it is a bit short, you don't want it to shorten further and you want the calf to be as flexible as possible.

It's reminded me of a horse situation actually..

There's a trick in some cases with lame horses, where you temporarily wedge their shoes into a slight high heel style, to relieve pressure on the ligaments and (most often) tendons, particularly for the deep-digital-flexor-tendon in the back of the leg. It can also help to re-align the angles of the hoof where the heels are collapsed too. Short-term it can offer pain relief. Longer-term use of it often makes them lamer beyond repair and they are written off work, or put down. The wedged heel can cause the hoof to land at a different angle, reducing the shock absorption ability of the hoof and the leg, the heel position also reduces the stretching capacity of the leg and this compromises the whole of the leg by encouraging the muscles/ligaments/tendons to shorten overall. Causes more pain when it's back down onto a flat, because everything has been bunched by the heel and once it's encouraged to lengthen out, it causes further pain and lameness. One of the keys to recovering the full use of the leg long-term, is to manually stretch it to help prevent bunching of the muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Not quite the same with a human, at least we can take our shoes off ;)

Interesting. It does make sense.

I will not be wearing the heel raiseres 24/7. Just for work and running. When I am at home i normally walk around with no shoes on so hopefully this will help and not make my short calves even shorter in the long run!

Lots of stretching of the calves, hamstrings, hip flexors and glutes sounds like the order of the day.

How can you relax your hamstrings?

I love this question Helen, its got me thinking.... 

Flex the antagonists

Antagonist for Hamstring - Quadricep