Earlier this year, tight calves plagued me for the first time. No matter what shoes I wore or how much I stretched, the back of my lower legs felt tight, sore, and uncomfortable even in the days after my runs, which made it difficult to recover fast—let alone build up my mileage.

I had been making my comeback since taking about four months off and I figured if I eased into running with a few 30-minute runs per week, I wouldn’t run into any pain or injuries . But when my tight calves lingered and made it difficult to keep running regularly, I realized I wasn’t paying the same attention to these muscles as I had in previous training cycles .

More specifically, I thought about a few calf-focused moves that I previously did one to two times a week, and figured that was the missing piece of my routine—and skipping them was causing serious discomfort.

The Best Exercises to Prevent Tight Calves and Strengthen Runs

Weak calf muscles that get overloaded on the run can cause calf tightness, says Anh Bui , DPT,…