Sprinting, Achilles

It's strange if your achilles only hurt after the 200. Usually and often with master sprinters, achilles problems once they come on, produce pain when sprinting all distances.

The achilles are fairly inert tissue (they don't get much blood supply) this is what slows their healing down and also makes them more difficult to warm up.

Therefore, it could be that you are not warming them up fully before your sessions. You could increase blood flow by massaging the calf and achilles area for a few minutes before you warm-up. You could also perform some drills in your socks! Try taking very small forward steps, using your feet to push you forwards, using very little knee bend. Training shoes don't allow the achilles to fully flex, which can leave them unprepared for sprinting. Progress these drills slowly and obviously do them on a suitable surface.

Finally, performing calf raises in training concentrating on the lowering phase, using a medium to heavy weight, can improve achilles tendon strength, improving their absorbent capacity.

200m racing is very choppy on the posterior leg due to the speed you are running around the bend and that you are changing from a acceleration to max speed on the bend. The bend will ultimately make the left leg (inside leg) slightly smaller in its stride length with the right leg (outside leg) having a slightly larger stride length. This action if not practiced enough can leave the achilles, calves and hamstring sore because foot placement can be a little out of sequence. This is seen more in indoor races with a camber and tighter bends.

Have you just started to use spikes in training or competition - if you have very little graded spike practice/conditioning prior to this, this can also cause low leg posterior pain as you may not be used to be in a plantar flexed position.

Pre comp/training stretching will not stop pain and i s not a precaution to injury.

If there are no other underlying pathology, then conditioning is the way forward. Walking bare foot on the toes, heels, lateral border of the feet over flat surfaces, mats or sand will start to put some conditioning through the area. Doing some of the training session in spikes may help to condition the area.

I have all the athletes completing low leg conditioning exercises 3 x week for non injured and 5-6 x week for injured/rehab athletes. Calf raises/negative calf raises are good for general conditioning but the walking drills while maintaining positions with the foot are very specific.

As a masters sprinter I too suffered from achilles problems. The difference between training shoes to sprint spikes was much of my problem. The other answers were good on strengthening the calfs,barefoot exercises. I only wear spikes when competeing, but many say you need some practice in them to condition the achilles for lesser elevation in the heel. Also check how much pronation you have in your feet. With extra pronation that achilles cAN TWANG like a plucked guitar string-happened to me when I ran with one spike missing on the inside of the shoe. Please don't try to keep running if the pain increases-gets worse. Sincerely Russ