Effect of Muscle Energy Technique Versus Static Stretching on Calf Flexibility in Females.

Introduction: Flexibility is an important physiological component of physical fitness. The length of the muscle tissue is thought to play an important role in the effectiveness and efficacy of human movement. Calf is one of the commonest muscle prone to tightness. Most of the forefoot and ankle problems arise due to gastrocnemius and soleus tightness and contractures. To manage such a condition, stretching of the calf muscles are commonly prescribed to increase available dorsiflexion of the ankle joint. Though there are several effective physiotherapeutic exercises available to resolve this problem, but it's still in dilemma about the immediate effects. Muscle Energy Technique (MET) and Static Stretching (SS) are the techniques which can efficiently improve the flexibility of muscles and also very scarce literature is present on comparing the effect of these techniques for increasing ankle dorsiflexion for improving calf tightness. So, this study aimed to evaluate and compare the immediate effect of Muscle Energy Technique and Static Stretching on calf flexibility in females. Methodology: An experimental study in which 30 female subjects aged between 18 to 25 years were divided into two groups.GroupA (n= 15) and Group B (n=15) were given MET and Static Stretching (SS) respectively. Ankle Dorsiflexion ROM was assessed pre- intervention and post- intervention. The data collected were analyzed by SPSS (version 26). Result and Conclusion: Group A (MET) and Group B (SS) were given suitable intervention for calf muscle tightness, and bothgroups showed that the mean ROM during post-test was higher than pre-test. After the comparison of both groups, no significant difference was seen in the mean scores (p≥ 0.05). Equal number of repetitions of both techniques were given, however, still MET showed slightly greater effect. Therefore, the study concluded that fewer repetitions of MET could have greater or equal effect as Static Stretching. Further studies with large sample size and follow up are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]