Hey /fit/, I hit my shin really badly about 3 weeks ago, I mean it was a super hard hit and scrape. I had an egg that made it look loke I had two knees and a big scrape along the front. I was so mad at myself because I keep doing things to fuck up my gym progress I went to the gym the next day and a couple days after that anyway. I then decided I better let it rest, now the shin injury has more or less healed, the bump has gone down a lot, but now my fucking calf muscle and a bit of my ankle are bruised and sore.
Can anyone explain how hitting and injuring my shin would cause my calf on the total opposite side of the leg to hurt and be bruised? It doesn't make sense. The ankle bit doesn't really make sense either.
I am going to give it another 4 or 5 days then I am thinking I can go back to lifting, but this is just bullshit.

>>76469198 (OP)
Swelling and bruising is due to dead blood cells and probably a bit of excess protein floating in the area, and your immune system cleaning it up. If you want it to go away, get a clean fork and scrape the skin around it gently until you have a few small beads of blood all over the affected area. Any time I bleed in an injury I don't bruise or have much soreness, so I assume my body responds more strongly to clean shit up or maybe the damaged cells are pushed out with the blood. Who knows?

It's also likely that you have a lot more blood vessels in or near your calf muscles than you do around your shin, both due to more exercise and development in the calves and because it's more protected so naturally that's where your body puts important things like blood vessels and nerves. The damaged cells and waste products are being herded there by immune cells, or being drained by lymph system.

The lump of muscle is making it hard for you to dorsiflex your foot, which is causing your calf muscles in that leg to atrophy and shorten.

This is why you should be doing stretches and something like uphill treadmill walking instead of calf raises. You should also buy a tib bar from the kneesovertoesguy store and do tib raises.

The lump is a hematome, a clump of damaged blood vessel (probably a capillary, very minor) which traps blood. You need to keep pressure on the lump to drain it, and use heat and then cold to force it to cycle blood and lymph in and out of the area.

Foam rolling your calves and using a massage gun on them will help too.

>>76469357
Very informative post anon, thank you.
I have basically been avoiding basically any exercise/contact for about the last 2 weeks, but I guess I better start applying some pressure and I like the idea of alternating hot/cold to get the blood flowing and promote healing.
I'm still staying out of the gym for a few days as it's still tender and that level of strenous activity definitely seems silly to me but I wanna do whatever I can to get back in because like I said, I keep fucking up my routine/progress and I am really angry at myself right now.

>>76469357
This is correct. A year and 6 months ago I slipped going down some stairs and hit the edge of the step with my calf. There is still a bruise there but it doesn't hurt

>>76469516
>1 year and 6 months
>bruise still there
Bro what? That should definitely be gone.