A Short One on the Soleus

Health.

A calf muscle

That’s a weird looking calf muscle but better than an old lady leg which is what a selfie would be.

While enduring a challenging day of travel last week, an article crossed my screen. It was about a “special” muscle. Say what? Sounds dirty but, of course, who can resist?

There was a University of Houston study in 2022 that found that the soleus muscle (anatomy lesson in a minute) has a unique ability to metabolize energy in a way different from other muscles. Hang in here, this is fascinating.

The soleus is a little (although apparently big) muscle that sits behind the gastrocnemius in the calf.

The soleus is involved in plantarflexion (pointing the toes) of the foot working with the gastrocnemius. It is also involved with stability during standing, without it we would fall over. Although some of us fall over with it.

The original research found that the soleus uses fat and glucose for energy. Most muscles do not, they use glycogen. The researchers used a movement that isolates the soleus and then studied the results of using that movement (SPU) for exercise to see what the physiological result would be.

The physiological result (replicated in another study in 2025) was improved glucose tolerence, in other words for people with diabetes and pre-diabetes activating the soleus muscle improved their blood sugar numbers. Even without a interest in blood sugar in terms of diabetes, a muscle that uses fat and glucose shows that everything about exercise is not known.

This is huge, a little weird, but interesting. The SPU, or soleus push up, is just a movement where the ball of the foot and the toes stay in place on the floor and the heel is lifted in a seated position. That’s it. Of course, there is hype and of course there is buzz with the soleus being called “the second heart”. Not sure about all of that but incorporating that movement into a daily routine would be beyond simple.

The original study is written about here: https://stories.uh.edu/2022-soleus-pushup/index.html

There are many you tubes about it. One here:

Might be worth a look.