SummitPost.org

from hiking or running?

How did you get it to heal?
Did you use a sleeve?
Any advice would be great.

On different occasions, I've had "strains" (or partial tears) of both the gastrocs and the soleus, which are both in the calf. These injuries are a little slow and frustrating to recover from, with a lot of risk of reinjury for mechanical reasons I won't try to explain secondhand. What has worked for me is (1) NOT stretching--stretching is greatly overrated for these muscles in general and seems to be pretty counterproductive as part of rehab and (2) really, really gradual return to use, not ramping up too fast and stopping instantly at the point of any pain or spasming.
By gradual return, I mean something like this, after the acute phase is over:
Day 1: 30 sec jogs, 2 min slow walk rests, for 20 mins
Day 2: a few easy sets of two-leg calf raises on a step
Day 3: nothing
Day 4: 45 sec jogs
Day 5: just a little more weight on hurt side in calf raises
Day 6: nothing
and so on
Beware of long distance hiking before your recovery is pretty solid, not because most hiking strains the calves that much, but because if you do reinjure out there you'll be forced to limp a long way home and might do quite a bit more damage.

Good luck with it ... at least the season is winding down, so you're not missing the best of the summer!

thx. for the feedback.
What was the average time for you to heal?

Well, the first time (gastrocs), I rushed the recovery and had a fairly major reinjury, so I think I was affected to some degree for 3 months--which doesn't mean I was getting zero training, but I had some limitations for that long.

The second time (soleus) I had only one minor setback and I was pretty much fully back in terms of training at 7 weeks post-injury (although I elected not to do a mountain running race at that point due to the interruption in conditiong and the risk of doing something dumb). During those 7 weeks I could still bike flat-footed, and after 2-3 weeks I could hike medium speed on moderate uphills with good footing--I just had to stay flat-footed on the upgrades and be slow & careful coming down. It's the running and fast uphill walking that took a lot longer.

I strained my gastrocnemius during mile 15 of my first 50 miler (Diablo), then stupidly finished the rest of the run. Luckily, by mile 40 the endorphins kicked in and it didn't hurt anymore. I laid off on running for a few weeks, but continued to hike in preparation for the Sierra Challenge. I've never had that injury crop up again.