Calf Strains, Tendinitis, & Achilles Tears | The Anatomy of the Calves 

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I think it's first time that there's another live human in the video

Can we, please get a dedicated video on anatomy of heart in its full glory? There are so many things to know and understand. Humble request.

I would LOVE a video on the issues of flat feet, how this affects the feet and the lower legs, particularly related to walking/running. Visualising all this really helps me understand how the mechanism works. Love your content!

"Achilles Tears" *Trojans Liked that*

As a ballet dancer constantly dancing on pointe and who suffers from tendinitis and calf pain, this makes me want to take even more care of my body. This is so fascinating but I’m very queasy 😅 so this kind of scared me lol

I am Physical Therapy student and I really appreciate these videos. Also, these are very well made. Thank you so much!!!!

Im 42 & just suffered a calf strain yesterday playing 🏀. Its my 3rd in 6 months & I am currently "ricing" it. This gentleman is the 1st time Ive heard mention that the gastroc is best strengthened w a knee straight method / or standing Ive been doing calf raises w my knee bent on the seated calf raise machine regularly building strength but that per his statement is more soleous. Once I start strengthening it again Im going to focus more on standing variations. Thank so you much.

When I was younger, my grandpa tore his Achilles tendon walking down the steps and That scared me for a long time. I developed a phobia of either tearing it myself or seeing someone else tear one. For some reason this video helped get over some of that fear. Thank you.

Why do sports commentators yell all the time it’s literally the most irritating thing

Having a live demo is so useful for connecting the ideas. Would love to see more of it

Why do I find this presenter's video so interesting? It's not a topic I would normally be interested in, but his balanced approach, level of details vs clarity vs sticking to the important points, is just so refreshing and informative. How else can I show appreciation but by sponsoring him! Thank you.

I always found it fascinating that there is a clear border between the muscles and the tendon, almost unreal. Had no idea that they actually share the same stream of collagen and fibers. Would love to know more about the tendons now. In my massage therapy class there was a talk about how beneficial it can be to massage the tendons too, even though its somewhat debatable if it has an actual effect, but knowing about the shared fibers, it must have an effect, its basically a symbiosis of two parts in one.

Very interesting! Wondering if you could do a video on knee injuries and the roles played by the various ligaments and tendons in the knee. I'd also be interested in a video about the anatomy of pain. And more specifically chronic pain/fibromyalgia.

Could you talk about connective tissue disorders? Collagen is everywhere and I'd love to actually see how problems with it can manifest. These videos are so informative and interesting, keep it up 👍

I absolutely love these vids! They help so much since we can't be in school (nursing) and on site for experience. Our instructors tend to play these videos in class a lot 😂

When I was more athletically active, I paid super close attention to my calf muscles . My biggest fear was having a ruptured Achilles tendon mainly due to the extended recovery and rehab time. Oh, and if I were KD at that time and had to make that decision, I'd play. It's the finals. Gotta play.

I actually had a calf tear and it was very painful. This video helped me see what happened and explained how it happened for me. My calf was hurting a week prior, and walking up a ramp on my way to work I felt something “pop” and couldn’t walk. It took months to heal! Thanks for explaining this for me!

Watching for the first time. I love how you fully cover a topic! Love the use of the cadaver to see and really understand the anatomy then how you cover possible injuries and treatment! Loved the video! Thank you

Thank you for another awesome video! I love to learn about the human body, when I was a child I wanted to be a doctor so is pretty cool to have this introduction to anatomy just to learn a little bit more in deph about this beautiful machine. It would be good to have a video about fractures, what happens to the area depending of the type of fracture, those kind of things 😊 Again thank you so much!

The smile on your face when the other living human came into the frame 😅😂👌❤️

Love watching your videos. Really informational and a lot to learn. I've some concerns over running and the effect on your knee joints. Could you please do a video related to that explaining the injuries and the functions? And why you can't use other person's cartilage if you're worn out? Many thanks and always look forward for your new videos

Hey guys! I’d like to see a video on exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis. I got Rhabdo from a spin class a couple years ago. I’m particularly interested in the healing process-there isn’t much out there about exercising after Rhabdo. Thank you for the informative videos! I love your channel!

I have been searching the internet for weeks to try and understand what I’ve done to my calf/Achilles and this is the first explanation that’s involved the musculotendinous junction... that’s where my problem is. It’s a start while I wait for a Doctors appointment. Thank you

Could you possibly describe what plantar fasciitis is and what/how it is caused!? If there’s ever a chance!! Thank you guys and love your videos they’re amazing! Anatomy is so great to learn

Your content is amazing!😍

This has really helped me identify the problem I’m having in my lower leg. Thanks 🙏

I would like to look at a cadaveric piece of Achilles tendinitis. I’ve had that lesion for many years now and I can feel the inflammation through my skin. Love your videos as they give me another view of what I have seen in books and drawings. Thanks so much!!!

I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for this video - it as helped me understand my own injury in ways which no one has been able to explain thus far.

Super good video. Wish i could had them when i was in college. 10 yrs ago. I am PT assistant. These videos would had helped me so much with anatomy and rehab. Videos are excellent!!!!

People are really suprised once you diagnose them in the ER with Achilles rupture! Great review!

Thank you. Really enjoyed your informative and interesting explanations.

Thank you! Very helpful! Once I got past the initial shock of looking at a cadaver's calf!

Well done! A few years back I had surgery to reattach my Achilles to the heel bone. However the range of motion in my ankle is compromised due to scar tissue build-up. What if any solutions exist to regain full range of motion and eliminate scar tissue? Keep up the great work on this channel.

Excellent video. An out of control skier took me out from behind back in 2017. Tore my ACL, and fortunately only a small partial tear to my MCL. MRI was interesting and also noted a moderately strained gastrocnemius muscle belly. Surgeon never mentioned anything about that. I went on to have a donor tendon ACL graft and repair of the MCL. Long rehab and am okay today but I recall the lingering soreness of that gastrocnemius muscle. No one, not even the PT ever made mention of that part of my injury. Your video really helped me understand the physiology and mechanics of this muscle. Thank you so much.

This was an epic video! I loved the real world sports example and the live model demonstrating the movement (thank you live person!) alongside the dead tissue (thank you dead person!). I have a crystal clear understanding now of what you explained, which I could never quite fully grasp before. Awesome!!

it's awesome to be able to see this, thank you for the great videos, and the good explanations that are easy to learn from.

Awesome video. First time viewer. Thanks for the Clarity & flow of the video 👏🏾

I can't believe I can get all this knoledge so clear and well explained and being able to see a real human body! I´m just 30 years all and when was a teenager I dreamed of geting to see and anderstand human body! Thank you so much!

There’s a video I’ve seen somewhere on RU-vid, where somebody was doing flips or something in a gym setting, and upon landing, you can actually see through their skin where the tendons or leg muscles or what not snap. Like both of them at the same time. It was so clear.

Very well explained. now i know which muscle injury that cause pain at my ankle. great video and keep up the good work

just an interested human-body-having entity here (not taking anatomy class or such). This content was stellar. Keep up the good work, guys.

Thanks so much for your videos. I find them fascinating. I learn a lot. Hopefully you can help me understand what happened to me. I was sitting on a chair talking on the phone, and I hung the phone and got up very fast, but my right foot got caught with the phone cable. I was falling, my body totally horizontal maybe a foot, a foot and a half from the floor, when my foot got free from the cable and I stepped only with my toes. What happened next was that I felt like I had a zipper from my toes, all the way through the sole of the foot and through my leg and stopped behind the knee and I felt like the zipper was open from my toes to the back of my knee. I had a lot of pain and obviously took a lot of pain killers and ointments and bandages, but never went to the doctor and after watching your video, I was wondering what tore in my foot and leg,. This happened when I was 28 years old, now I am 56, so this was long ago, and I did eventually healed, althogh was never able to wear high heals again. Hope you have the time to answer my question. And thanks in advance. I really enjoy your videos and have understood a lot of other personal injuries.

This is phenomenal info, thank you! I had a complete achilles tear about two months ago, and the most disconcerting part is to not really know how it happened - so this video gives me some ideas. Have you found anything on a nutrition or rehab exercise front that have been particularly effective in a fast and full recovery?

Thank you for this information. After an incident, I have been struggling to isolate these .

Suggested video: the differences and commonalities of carpal tunnel syndrome and tarsal tunnel syndrome. ( I have both ) I’ve.been in the retail industry for 36 years as a result, I suffer from a lot of numbness and pain. Thank you! I look forward all your videos and TikTok ! How do you keep all of that information in your head?

I ruptured my Achilles tendon twenty years ago during a Nutcracker rehearsal. It was a devastating injury. I had surgery and it healed, but I never felt it was the same and the healing period was long. After I had the post-surgery boot removed, I had to have physical therapy to learn to walk again without a limp. As an aside, the boot and the crutches lead to lumbar bulging discs and trigger fingers. I still feel tendon strain from time to time.

I had a mild calf strain a week ago, and now this video was recommended to me by YT. I learned something 👍

Fabulous information! I learned a ton! I've never heard of the crus before, & the seven posterior muscles...

Thank you for your effort in making these videos. Very informative stuff.

You both guys are doing really a amazing job with this informative vedios they are very very helpful for us.. Would appreciate if you could make more vedios on all muscles and injuries like this vedio ...

Thank u for the video such an effective video with plenty to learn plz keep it up 👏🏻👍🏻

Excellent presentation. Thankyou.

Concentric and Eccentric contraction very well explained. Thanks for sharing this important piece of information.

Very interesting - thank you for this deep dive!

Love this... curious if there's a way to show the nerve network in a cadaver calf?

Thank you so much I was looking for this all day long

This is one of the best channels on RU-vid

Please do a video about how to strengthen the knees in order to avoid injury or to recover from injury

Wow, excellent presentation and so informative.

The best video on this subject, well done mate.

very well spoken and well made! thank you!

It makes me so happy that there are over 5 Million subscribers of this wonderfully informative channel!

Very, very, very-very informative. You now have yourself a spanking new subscriber. And yes, I did click on the Notification Bell. Looking forward to future content.

I would love to see what causes a Charlie in the calf muscle!

Thank you. You explained it much better than my Doc and Physio did.

Cool explanation of the tension-muscle belly intersection

Super informative thanks so much, really enjoy your videos :)

as a victim of calf strains over the years. I have found the best exercises for me were the calf raises on the edge of a stair or 2x12 while holding dumbbells works the best especially in the lowering and stretching the muscle....also it keeps the achilles loose and elongates that as well....all i know is for the past 4 yrs, I have been doing these exercises and both achilles tendinitis and calf strains/tears are nearly zero....also i went to lower shoes to stop the rubbing on the achilles while playing sports...i risk ankle turns but the calf raises strengthen the whole ankle area and help with rolling over...great explanations

Love your videos guys!! Was wondering if you could explain why the achilles tendon (in children) gets tight especially in toe walkers and with hypermobility? Was told my daughters gets tight often but never explained why?? Thank you in advance if you are able to answer. Thanks frim bonnie Scotland

Excellent explanation. Thanks.

Thank you for your videos. Very informative. Love you guys.

epic content. Can you please do a video of whats going on anatomically in the shoulders and upper back when doing a snatch in olympic weight lifting. Thank you.

Celiac disease next please! Would love an informative video to show people with questions about it that are difficult to explain without seeing it

I was thinking about r.i.c.e and how there could be a video on what happens when we apply hot or cold substances on our body and how it reacts. Is there contractions or expansion? What are the nerves doing? Something like that would be interesting or perhaps I'm just an amateur. Love your videos!!

Thank you very much! Very informative.. more of this...

A video on 'high ankle sprain' would be nice. The surgery to fix Peroneal issues can be quite the butchery. They make a huge groove in the bone, etc. I've got a chronic issue that keeps me from running (i ain't having that surgery).

In med school I failed to diagnose an achilles rupture on a guy whose motorbike had tipped over while he was on it. I thought Thompson's test was negative but it turned out I just wasn't squeezing hard enough! Tricky. Oh and just one thing about the etymology and pronunciation of "gastrocnemius". Taken from Wikipedia: "The muscle is named via Latin, from Greek γαστήρ (gaster) "belly or stomach" and κνήμη (knḗmē) "leg"; meaning "stomach of leg" (referring to the bulging shape of the calf)." Oh and eccentric is pronounced ex-centric.

You’re my anatomy idol!!!

Yes, my study hall teacher is my favorite athlete...

Fascinating to watch. For someone with extremely tight calf muscles (cannot get my heel on the floor and walk on the ball of my foot), it sounds like I could attempt to get more length (so I could get my heel closer to the floors by working in the ecentric muscle exercises. Going up on my toes and slowing lowering (as you demonstrated). I have Bethlem Congenital MD. I always thought my Achilles was tight not that my calf muscles were too tight 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Reminds me of liverpool goalkeeper Alisson this seoson when he had a tear and looked behind him after he shot the ball

Thank you for take your time and made this master explanation. I have pain in my gastrocnemius, my soleus, my Aquiles tendon, and my heel with a little inflammation. No redness, no tingling. Playing raquetball I was running forward, stop and change my direction very fast. I felt like a ball hit my calf. I did the R.I.C.E. and went much better but yesterday tried to run from the rain to my car and the ball hit my calf again. Back to zero and I have an photography trip to Colorado in three weeks. Any recommendations? I did Cold water / hot water intervals for a ankle sprain and worked perfectly.

Many years ago I ruptured my tendon. Ended up having my leg from below the knee in a cast for 2 weeks.

Great video. Thanks.

Excellent explaination, and extended question - Calf muscles will effect the Achilles, but will any or both of them affect the heel and cause heel spurs due to over use while Achilles ruptures ?

Hello! Thanks for the video! Could you talk more about the soleus muscle? Please

Wish you could talk about hamstring injuries; I twisted my knee a month ago, my knee is fine now, but the hamstring that goes from my hip (under my butt) all the way down to the back of the knee is super tender still. I do yoga so I have to be careful because it hurts and I don’t want to damage it further.

Awesome 👍. It makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

On my first week of nursing school, I visited a woman's house to dress a leg wound. I took her old dressings off and I was surprised to see that her wound was very deep and that I could see her Achilles tendon (and surrounding muscle mass) moving as she moved her leg. Was very interesting and definitely memorable!

This was Insanely helpful

Plz make video about ankel ligament tears and injuries.. I had a severe ligament injury in my left ankel thats why i am asking you to make one video thank you

I have Metatarsus Adductus and I was never treated for this condition. I ran, jumped and played like all the other children but I just thought that everyone's legs and feet hurt! So I never complained to mother. She would though, message my feet, legs and back after a hard day of play but I thought it was because I was always barefooted, always. It was so difficult for her to find shoes to fit my feet properly. I also went to Jr. High during the Kennedy era and gym was essential. We swam ( my favorite ), ran track and did all types of gymnastics. Stretching was paramount but I could never, ever reach my toes, standing nor sitting down. I was a very fast runner but only for the 50, 75, or 100 yard dashes. No long distant runs for me, please. I found out that I had this condition at the age of 50 when a tendon ( tucked under outside left ankle bone popped out of place, rolled up to the top of my foot and then snapped back into place ), it happened so quickly and was so painful that I couldn't even scream. My mouth opened, my body shuttered but no sound came out. I decided I'd better go to a foot and ankle specialist. After all the tests, x-rays and scans, the doctor told me that I have the tightest Achilles' tendons he'd ever seen and couldn't understand how I was walking flat-footed and straight ahead. He also explained why my shin, calf and the muscles surrounding my knees are so large and the reason that it is so difficult for me to walk such short distances because of my horrific shin splints. The three toes in the middle of each foot zig-zag down into my toes from my ankles making for unusually wide feet at an unusual place on each foot. So much surgery would need to be done that he wouldn't do it on someone my age, especially since I already have osteoarthritis in each joint of both feet ( fingers and spine ) and if he had to break my tibia and fibula, it would be there also. Then after my recovery from this, he'd have to do my ligament ( too lax ) and tendon ( too tight ) repair. Too much surgery for a woman my age, he said. He also saw this tendon problem in my right hand ( which I've always known about ) and left elbow and said he felt that this was a systemic problem from birth and wouldn't refer me to physical therapy ( I could do this on my own ) nor any other doctor because he felt that this would be tantamount to malpractice to take a grown woman who could walk fine, albeit in constant pain, and put her through all of this surgery. I had immediate respect for him because of this statement. He had all his tech's, nurses and P.A.'s come into the room to examine me and all my x-rays and scans, and talk about my case. Then he left me with this statement, " It is amazing how the human body can compensate for a congenital abnormality such as this "! I ask him if thought that this could be a miracle but he retorted that " This kind of language was not in his vernacular ". I replied, " Well doc, from what you've explained to me today, it is in mine ". We both just smiled. I'm 66 now and still in pain and now my very high arches are giving me problems as well as my shins and calves, hands, elbows and spine ( curvature now ) but at least I can walk flat-footed and straight ahead and I appear " normal ", just several inches shorter. God is good. ☺️

Wow! That was super helpful!

Great channel! Thank you

I have a likely grade 2 strain of my right gastroc. I’m 2 weeks in, can finally do some light jogging, and am almost back to full, pain-free motion. Was jumping rope daily (5k per day) before the injury and am a little scared give it a try. Your video was very informative. Since the injury, I have noticed some mild tenderness in the Achilles area. I suspected it was related, and will probably take it a little slower just to be safe.

Whoa! This is amazing - subscribed!

So glad I came across this video, thank you very much. But how about Achilles tendenosis ? Had this for years, my Achilles never tore but always stays inflamed - running 🤦🏼‍♀️

Wow, so much knowledge, my brain is contracting eccentricly!

Fun fact about the Achilles tendon/heel! A lot of you probably know this, but I think it's amazing, plus I'm in a mythology class where I just recently learned about it. So the Achilles tendon/heel is named that because there's this mythological dude named Achilles, and he died by getting shot in his leg/heel I don't remember which one tbh. Anyway, next time you hear about it, you can remember that it was named for a mythological figure, which is pretty cool imo