SECRET Muscle For Poor Circulation, Trouble Walking, & Falls!

When you talk about your calf muscle, most people have a general idea of what it looks like. Some people might even know it's called the gastrocnemius. But what about that special hidden muscle underneath the gastroc? What's that called and why is it so important? Hello everyone, welcome to the channel. I'm Debu, a physical therapist from Integrative Physical Therapy in Bellingham, Washington. The muscle I'm talking about underneath the gastroc that really doesn't get much publicity is called the soleus. The soleus muscle plays a big role in helping to control the ankle. It helps with walking endurance. It helps with posture and stability. And it also serves as a pump to help move some fluid up and out of the lower extremity. So if you're having issues with swelling of your feet or your lower leg, you really want to make sure that you're strengthening the soleus. Let's talk about how we can test the gastroc and the soleus. And then let's do specific exercises that target the gastroc, but mainly emphasize the soleus. All right, everyone, sorry, but it's test time. And don't worry, I'm going to show you different ways of doing it. So some people who are watching this might have pretty good strength and they're able to do a single leg balance. Other people can't. So I'm going to start to show you some of the more difficult ways of doing it, but then we will get down and show you ways in which you can do it non-weight bearing or when you're sitting, which will be easier. All right, let's get to work. We're just going to do some simple heel raises and the heel raises are going to be able to test the strength of the gastroc and soleus. So what you'll do is you're going to face the wall. You're not going to lean on the wall, but you're just going to use the wall for a little bit of balance. And then you're going to come up on your toes and back down again, back up on your toes and back down again. Now the heel raises is a great exercise and my knees are straight and I'm working both the gastroc and the soleus, but I'm primarily working the gastroc. So doing a double leg heel raise or a single leg heel raise with the knee straight is a very good exercise to do. However, it is not enough because the straight legged heel raise emphasizes mainly the gastrocnemius, which is maybe 70, 80% of the straight leg heel lift. So you can have a strong gastroc, but a really weak soleus. If you can do the double heel lift and you're doing fine with that, then let's test single leg balancing on my left leg. My knee is straight, a little bit of balance against the wall, and I'm going to come up and back down again. And I want to see how many you can do. Normal strength, you should be able to do anywhere from 15 to 20 of these. And we'll switch and do the other side, come up and back down again, all the way up and back down again. Now we want to emphasize the soleus. We're going to bend the knee. And the reason is like we saw in the picture at the beginning, the gastroc comes up above the knee, but the soleus doesn't. So when I bend the knee, that is limiting the ability of the gastroc to contract. So that puts more of a focus on the soleus. In order to emphasize and test the soleus, instead of doing a straight leg raise with your knees straight, we're going to slowly bend your knees and do a little bit of a mini squat. Now you may have to adjust the position of your trunk to minimize any pain that you might have in the knee. So I want you to do a little baby squat, adjust your trunk so that you're not getting any type of knee pain. Keep that angle fixed, a little bit of balance here, and then I'm going to come up on my toes with my knees bent. And it's going to feel a little bit different, and you're not going to feel as strong, because now what we've done is we've taken the gastroc out of it. If you're not sure, stand all the way back up again, and it's a lot easier. You bend your knees, and the more you bend your knees, the more it takes the gastroc out of it and puts the pressure on the soleus, and it does make it a lot harder. If you can do the double leg heel lifts, then what I want you to do is test your strength with single leg. So down here, I'm going to put all my weight on my left leg, and I'm going to come up and back down again. If that's too much, don't worry, I'm going to show you another couple ways to do this. The goal is to find a position that you can do three sets of anywhere from 10 to 15 to 20 repetitions. So you may have to start sitting down. So what it looks like when I'm sitting down, of course my knees are bent, and so I'm taking out a lot of the action of the gastroc and putting more of the onus on the soleus. So I'm going to sit up nice and tall. I'm not going to have any weight on my legs, and I'm going to do a double leg heel lift. Pause at the top and back down. That's really pretty easy. You can even cross one leg over the other to put a little bit of weight on here. Then I'm just going to do my right leg one leg at a time. If that starts to get easier, you can grab a weight. Now if you don't have a weight, remember a gallon of water is about eight pounds. So here I've got a 10 pound weight on my knee, and I'm just going to do heel lifts with this 10 pound weight. As you get stronger with the sitting soleus exercises, then I want you to progress it to the standing exercises. Another pro tip when you're sitting there having dinner or you're doing some work underneath the table, just sit there and work on your soleus. Get that soleus pump going. What that'll do is it won't negate the negative effects of sitting. In fact, I'm going to put a video right up here for people that sit too long. These are three exercises that I want you to do every day. But either way, at least I'm getting some circulation out of my lower legs, and I'm that soleus as a pump rather than just sitting here passively. This you can keep doing until you get tired and you can take a rest. You can alternate whatever you need to do, but just keep that soleus pump working all day long if you can, or at least whenever you're sitting. If you have any of the friends or family that might be having trouble with posture or balance or stability or walking distances, or maybe they have swelling in their legs, please share this video with them because the soleus pump is a really simple but very effective exercise. If we can get that soleus muscle stronger, it sure does make life easier. Please leave a comment down below what you think about the soleus pump. Do you have any questions about it? Keep exercising, stay healthy, and I'll see you at the next video. Take care and thank you for watching.