I am 68 and while I have never been someone who frequents a gym, or does work out, I am usually very active and walk a lot in the park with my 3 dogs that run all over the place.  I recently had to have knee surgery and now I am noticing that my leg muscles have lost some strength and I want to get that back.  I can also see that my calf is clearly smaller.  What should I do to get the strength and size back?

This is a common problem after you have surgery.  Your muscles will atrophy if they are not used regularly.  You want to slowly get back into your regular exercise program, even if that just means walking around the park with your dogs.  For strengthening the calf muscles, we recommend standing on the edge of a step and raise your body to your “tippy-toes”, first with both legs on the step.  Do sets of 20, and repeat at least 4 to 5 sets.  Then try and do a set with one leg raised up, so all of your weight is on one leg.  Make sure that you bring your heel below the level of the step on the way down each time.  This should get you back to running around the park with your dogs fairly quickly.  Watch this video to see the proper technique on VideMD.com.