A Client's Story

There was a client (lets call him Mark) that came to us last week with long standing calf pain issues. Mark reported having calf pain for the past 5 years that stemmed from old football injuries. His calf pain had worsened over the last several months and to the point where he was forced to take time away from the sport. Mark noted the worst pain was in the morning when he would limp out of bed and stumble around the flat waiting for the pain to subside.

Mark was obviously dejected from not being able to play football and had told us his calf issues not only affected his ability to play sport, but equally his quality of life. He told us he visited several physiotherapists, chiropractors, and massage therapists with little success and that he was desperate to find even slight relief.

When examining Mark’s calf, there were palpable abnormalities in the soft tissues. These felt like small rubber or leather patches and is characteritic of existing scar tissue . Scar tissue is the every day term for fibrosis, a protein that is essential for healing, but overproduced when injured. We more commonly use the term “knots” when describing the feeling of scar tissue and associate it with pain as scar tissue can restrict movement. Importantly, our body cannot simply remove scar tissue on its own.

Using Active Release Technique (ART) we were able to break down the scar tissue in Mark’s calf and, in one session, resolve his long-term calf problems. When we followed up with Mark, he reported that, for the first time in years, he woke the next morning without pain in his calf. We could only believe next that Mark returned to playing the sport he was once forced to leave.

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