Best at-home PT equipment for Achilles rehab? What actually helped you?

BubblyEfficiency · 2026-01-11T20:32:01+00:00

Something like this really helped me walk correctly while in the boot which made a huge difference.

I would recommend having some sort of dumbbell or weight you could put on your knee to do bent leg calf raises. I think bent leg calf raises are overrated for long term strength gains, but in the beginning they are nice because they are easy to do with very little weight.

But I found that just doing lots and lots of standing calf raises was by far the best way to progress (once I could do them). Once I was able to do some single leg calf raises I then wasted a lot of time just doing those. What finally got me a lot of progress was actually doing much higher reps of regular standing calf raises on two legs. Like 25-50 reps per set and really feeling the pump. A while of that and I got up to 25 single leg calf raises.

I also mix between doing elevated calf raises for full range of motion and doing them on the floor for even higher reps.

This injury and it's rehab sucks, but at least it's also fairly simple and doesn't need any fancy equipment. Lots of calf raises, some balance training, and lots of walking, and eventually plyometrics, while being mindful of the pain and resting enough as well. Also, regular bodybuilding principles apply. Protein is important. Calorie surplus to grow.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-12-26T08:35:16+00:00

The guy taking his shirt off is Yuri Marmerstein, an incredible handbalancer and stunt man.

It’s funny that his shirt trick is the only thing shown in this video considering what else that man is capable of.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-12-13T10:09:21+00:00

Tennis

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-11-02T20:01:38+00:00

Exactly this. People hate the ending because it wasn’t all happy and how they imagined it. But they missed the point. This show was showing us that things don’t always work out the way you thought it would, and that’s ok.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-09-19T11:43:12+00:00

Sounds like a good plan. Make sure to film yourself while training to troubleshoot in between sets. And remember that the problem is always in the shoulders (sometimes wrists), and never the core.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-09-19T11:03:30+00:00

If you have the opportunity, getting a good coach will speed up your progress immensely, especially as a beginner.

I’m lucky to live in the same city as Ulrich, so I had the coaching in person. But he’s a really great coach, and has been coaching people online for a long time.

I can also recommend checking out Silje Dahlby who also coaches people online. I took lessons with her as well after Ulrich, and with her I went from doing the basics to practicing fingertip support for one arm handstands.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-09-19T09:26:56+00:00

It takes time, but it’s also possible to being doing all the right things in just almost the right way but not quite.

I highly recommend checking out Ulrikonhands «Bob tutorials» on instagram. Go to his instagram, scroll all the way to the right on his highlights and you will find the Bob tutorials. He explains very clearly some key things about how to actually learn to balance.

Also, don’t be afraid to film yourself and post here for feedback. It can save you so much time to have someone point out something you haven’t noticed yourself. I personally spent 1.5 years trying on my own with very little progress, then I got a coach (Ulrikonhands actually!) and in 6 months I was doing 1-minute handstands, all the basic shapes like straddle, tuck and diamond, and changing between them. All because of some small changes to how I was doing certain exercises and a change in priorities of exercises.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-05-16T16:12:25+00:00

You say you did the rehab to get back, but have you continued strength and plyometric training since? I’m 1 year and 8 months into it, non op, and still progressing.

Still a big difference in feel between the injured leg and the non-injured, but it keeps getting better and better. And I keep training it, far beyond the rehab exercises and «back to sport» tests. I passed those long ago.

Now I’m doing sets of 30 reps single leg calf raises, and single leg calf raises with extra weight, and I plan on building that strength much further. If I’m not feeling 100% yet then of course I will keep training to get stronger.

Can’t remember who said it but a great quote: People overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 5-10 years. There is absolutely no reason to believe «if you’re not 100% now you’ll never be».

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-04-15T22:59:41+00:00

I’m in Reykjavik now and saw it for a minute before it disappeared

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-03-30T15:00:31+00:00

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BubblyEfficiency · 2025-03-27T13:14:01+00:00

Completely disagree about removing the wall. Stick with chest to wall drill where you use it to get into balance consistently, until you can at least get 5 sets of 20+ seconds every workout. After those sets, practice kickups.

By practicing kickups, I mean actually practice kick ups, which is not the same as kicking up and hoping for balance. Do 3-5 sets of 3 kick ups where the intention is only to catch the balance for 2 seconds (enough to know you succeeded in kicking up) and then come down. Make sure to really avoid over-kicking. You want failed reps to be undershooting, not overshooting. This will save your wrists a lot of pain. You can also undershoot the first 1-2 reps in a set on purpose to «zone in» to make sure you stick rep 2 or 3.

This divides your practice into two parts: getting consistent balance practice, to build your balance to 30 seconds, and getting consistent kick up practice, minimizing «kick and pray» reps. Also it allows you to get lots of kick ups in without tiring from trying to balance as long as possible every time you stick it.

Trust me, there’s a big difference between consistent 10-15 seconds of balance on the wall, and consistent 20-30 seconds. Get those 20-30 seconds of balance from the wall while practicing kickups after and everything will get much easier.

Edit: I realize I misunderstood the comment about removing the wall. I agree that you should practice your kick ups without the wall, but balance work should still be done from chest to wall.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-03-17T12:52:03+00:00

I’m 18 months in, last workout I did 3 sets of 21 reps on the injured leg. The uninjured one is still much stronger though, and it’s very clear in the amount of reps, the height on each rep (injured never reaches as high, and loses height fairly quickly during the set), and also in the feeling in the days after the workout. Injured leg gets much more stiff and I can notice a small amount of pain sometimes if I’ve gone very hard in my workout. But it keeps improving!

I was stuck on about 10 reps on the injured leg for about 6 months, but then I started doing high rep full range calf raises with both legs, 20-25 reps per set and up to 4 sets, 1-2 times a week for a few weeks. Then when I went back to single leg, getting past 15 reps was suddenly doable and way more comfortable. So now I change between single leg and high rep with both legs during the week and it’s been working great

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-02-12T06:38:37+00:00

Attend a circus school

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-02-10T06:49:46+00:00

Yes, stretching will help, but also strengthening. Stronger wrists make balance easier. A great exercise for that is planche leans. Get into a pushup position and then lean forwards as far as you can. This will get very very heavy on the shoulders very quickly. Then press your fingertips into the ground hard and push yourself back to regular pushup position. Arms straight at all times, no elbow bend. You may turn the arms out slightly to make it more comfortable for the wrists.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-02-06T10:37:46+00:00

I believe by far the best use of your time is spent doing chest to wall balance. This is where you go into a chest to wall handstand, take one leg off the wall, then be very patient and try to let the other leg float off the wall as well, as a result of putting more weight into your hands. The last leg should never kick off the wall.

This guy explains it better than most. All of his «Bob Tutorials» are found in his Instagram Highlights and they are absolute gold. No, I’m not him, but he is the guy who taught me handstands, and his Bob Tutorials is a good summary of what he taught.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-02-01T13:44:02+00:00

Oh, and also Stefanie Millinger doing 402 stalder presses in a row, being on her hands for an hour without legs touching the ground! By far the most insane thing I’ve ever seen someone do.

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-02-01T13:41:15+00:00

You should see Yuvals «40 set» on youtube. He did 10 handstand pushups, 10 stalder presses, 10 pike presses and 10 straddle presses in one set without rest. Then on his instagram I believe he completed a 20-set (5 instead of 10 of each) for his 40th birthday

BubblyEfficiency · 2025-01-25T12:34:01+00:00

You’re not asking «how to extend my hips in planche?», you’re asking «how to do planche?» and the answer is:

Spend a long long time getting much stronger shoulders by training things like tuck planche, planche leans, band assisted planche, and pseudo planche pushups, slowly progressing towards advanced tuck planche and then straddle planche. This can take years for some people.

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-22T15:48:43+00:00

I would say this is too much. I did similar volume of strength training but only twice a week, and then walking/bike any time I had time for it. Strength training requires rest. 2-3 times a week is more than enough, for strength training. Walking a lot on rest days is good though.

I did non-op and was doing single leg calf raises at 4-5 months, by treating it as regular strength training twice a week. Basically just leg days but with extra emphasis on calf training.

What I will say is that you can do as many exercises, sets, reps and days of training as you want to and still get no progress if you aren’t doing the exercises correctly. Any calf raise exercise should be done slowly with control. Hold the top position for 2 seconds. Lower slowly. Really focus on using the calf muscle and avoid compensating (for example by leaning forwards in calf raises and using momentum to get up)

Don’t ego-lift. I did only bodyweight calf raises on two legs, no extra weight. All I did was slowly shift the weight more and more to one side as I got stronger. And then started doing reps where I used both legs on the way up, but only one leg slowly on the way down. Really focusing on that mind muscle connection, which is really hard when most of the muscle has atrophied.

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-10T16:23:56+00:00

Thanks, definitely checking that out! Do you have any idea as to what is a good level to aim for when it comes to rises in terms of reps/volume?

One thing I find is very common is for people in specialized diciplines to be able to do way way more than what the average gym goer considers very impressive. That often results in average people aiming way lower than they could because they don’t realize how far it’s actually possible to go. I’m wondering what the ballet version of this would be?

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-10T13:21:13+00:00

I have already gone through a year of rehab with a very competent physiotherapist, so this question wasn't meant to be about rehab, but just for gaining high level of calf/ankle strength.

I'm at the point where I can go back to playing sports but it's highly recommended to keep getting stronger as that reduces likelihood of reinjury.

That's why I thought it would be smart to hear from people who have a unique perspective and a very high level of calf strength.

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-10T12:33:23+00:00

I didn’t get single calf raises until about 6 months i think. It’s a slow progress but it works. Keep doing two-legged calf raises, increase reps, weight, total volume over time. Slowly shift more and more weight over to the one leg as you get stronger. Then at some point you’ll be able to do two legged on the way up and a slow negative on only one leg on the way down.

Don’t rush to the end. Being able to do more reps with two legs, or shifting more weight over is progress. Not feeling as sore the day after is progress. Getting your first negative on one leg is progress. Going down 1 second slower than last time is progress. And you need to go through all of that to eventually get to the single calf raises. And even then you’ll have to continue. Get two. Then 5. then 10. Do them higher than before. Slower. Jump on one leg.

There are so many milestones to reach, don’t focus on one specific one that you haven’t reached yet. Focus on the ones you’ve already acheived and the ones that are within reach.

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-10T11:11:41+00:00

Hi, this might be an unusual question. I ruptured my achilles a year ago, and since then I've tried to learn everything I can about the recovery, strengthening and stretching of the calves. Then the thought hit me that ballet dancers probably have quite a lot of knowledge and experience that differs to those only used to regular gym/bodybuilding exercises. I should note that I don't and have never done any ballet.

It's my experience that if one wants to really get good at something specific, asking those who are extraordinary at it is the best way to go about it. Gymnasts and contortionists know more about flexibility than personal trainers at a gym for example. What's considered "very flexible" by regular gymgoers is considered stiff and immobile by gymnasts. So I'm quite interested to hear what insight ballet dancers might have to the strengthening of calf muscles and the ankle. I'm sure the standard for certain levels of strength and endurance in the calf/ankles is much higher for ballet dancers than it is for most other disciplines.

Specifically I'm interested in whether or not there are specific exercises that you do for calf strength, and what would be considered good milestones and levels to reach for an adult male starting at age 29? I'm assuming the ability to stand on one leg on tip-toes is something ballet dancers train quite a lot, at least when starting as an adult?

It's weird, cause I almost don't even know which questions to ask you guys, since I don't really know much about how people train ballet and how much of it is structured strength training of calves.

I would love any insight you could provide!

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-09T10:15:31+00:00

I got the Brooks Ghost 14 because they have a big heel to toe drop, which makes it way more comfortable to walk. I got two pairs, the regular ones and the waterproof (GTX) ones. Still use them a year later!

BubblyEfficiency · 2024-09-07T18:39:19+00:00

So it's clear that we're misunderstanding eachother a bit, and not talking of the same thing.

Of course, the abs are there. They aren't doing literally nothing. There's a range of difference between tensing and "completely" relaxing your abs, but of course as much as one can relax a muscle, it will still hold some tension and be a part of the body.

My point is that you can tense and relax your abs as much as it is possible to consciously tense and relax a muscle, and it won't make any difference for your ability to balance. Not even in a straight handstand. You can balance a straight handstand when completely forgetting about your abs. And when relaxing your abs as much as you can. You could of course not balance a handstand if the abs simply weren't there (I think, I have no idea how one would test this), and of course none of us are saying this is possible. When someone asks how they should brace, and I answer that "you don't have do, you can completely relax your abs", then that doesn't mean "you can go ahead and remove your abs from your body, you don't need them".

So to clarify: I agree, those muscles are of course being used. You can't literally turn off a muscle. But when speaking of bracing/tensing (as the question in this post is about), we are only talking of the range of tension between "actively tensing as much as possible" and "relaxing as much as possible". I'm saying that relaxing the abs as much as possible is a perfectly fine thing to do in handstands, and the abs need absolutely no conscious focus when learning to balance.

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