Detailed guides to painful problems, treatments & more

Do you need a calf-stretching gadget?

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Effective? I’m sure. Needful? Meh.

Stretching may be an effective part of treatment for plantar fasciitis. There are some calf-stretching gadgets available, like the Prostretch Flexibility Exerciser. I’m sure they can stretch calves. However, stretch is stretch, and the calf is an easy muscle to stretch strongly — anyone can already apply as much of a stretch to the calf musculature as you can possibly tolerate. There’s not really any way to improve on that. My advice is not to bother: one less plastic doohickey in the world.