Simone Biles shakes off his calf injury and wins all-around gold at the Olympic Games

If you looked closely, you may have seen some signs that Simone Biles’ calf was bothering her a little. But from a gymnastics competition scoring standpoint, it didn’t seem to bother her that much. That is if you consider first helping the USA win the gold model of the women’s gymnastics team on Wednesday and then winning gold in the individual all-around competition on Thursday to achieve successful results.

Yes, it’s hard to have a more successful gymnastics week than Biles. The week didn’t start great as during the qualifying rounds she suffered an injury to her lower right leg, as I had reported. Forbes. Although medical staff attended to her, her coach Cecile Landi later offered reassurance, calling the injury “a minor thing.” Something minor probably meant she suffered a mild calf strain, which is when you pull, stretch, and possibly tear one or more of your calf muscles.

Your calves are pretty important. Without these, your feet would connect directly to your knees, making it difficult to wear most regular pants. Additionally, the muscles in your calf support you while you stand. So one concern was how well Biles would be able to stay still after landing from a jump or dismount. After all, too much wobbling or falling over would lead to points being deducted.

Another concern was how well Biles would be able to balance himself on the balance beam. As you can imagine, standing still on a 4-inch wide piece of wood is not the same as standing in the kitchen while eating guacamole. The balance required to keep your knees locked while sitting in the first places a lot more demand on your calf muscles than when lounging in the second.

A second important role of the calf muscles is to ‘plantar flex’ your ankle, which is a medical term for bending your foot at your ankle so that the front of your foot moves downward. This is the opposite of dorsiflexion, where you point your foot upward. Plantar flexion is the way you push yourself forward when you walk or run, both of which are quite important in gymnastics. One question, then, was how much speed Biles could generate when running toward the vault or on the practice mat on the floor.

Additionally, plantar flexion is the way you propel yourself upwards when you jump. And guess what, gymnasts have to do that too. So a calf injury could have limited the force with which Biles could jump into the air. So while a minor calf injury might not impact your ability to go to work in the office, file TPS reports and talk to the boss, it could have made a significant difference in Biles’ performance.

Well, did that work? Since the incident, Biles has shown signs of favoring her left leg. For example, during the jump she landed on both feet first and then quickly shifted her weight from her right leg. But in the end, the injury didn’t seem to bother her much. In the first rotation of the all-around event, she earned the highest score of the day (15.766) on the vault after completing a Biles II, named after guess who.

And even though she was tied for the bronze medal midway through the competition, Biles still jumped ahead of eventual silver medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and eventual bronze medalist Sunisa Lee by performing high-difficulty routines on two events that put significant use of the calves. extensive: the balance beam and the floor exercises.

Of course, Biles isn’t your average person when it comes to gymnastics. She’s not even your everyday gymnast. She has now won a total of six Olympic gold medals and is the first American to ever capture gold more than once in the all-around gymnastics event. She is the first country to repeat the event since Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia did so in the 1960s.

So if you’re straining your calf, assuming you’re not Biles, don’t immediately jump onto the gym floor and start jumping and tumbling. No one is going to give you an Olympic gold medal for that, especially if you do it in the office. Instead, give your calf plenty of rest (usually at least a week or two) until you are pain-free for at least a few days.