2023-06-09 16:00:57
We all agree that calves are finicky little scraps. Many bodybuilders struggle to develop them.
Everyone knows this guy with a massive upper body, good thighs and calves of cock.
However, did he skip all the calf sessions?
Not necessarily, but surely he resolved that his calves would never be as developed as the rest.
As a result, it no longer trains them as much or as effectively.
Do you recognize yourself in that? Here are the 3 major reasons why your calves will never get bigger.
1. You’re not using the right variety of exercise!
The calves, on paper, it’s not complicated, there are two families of exercises to work on them, straight legs and bent legs.
Research indicates that calf exercises performed with straight legs primarily activate the gastrocnemiusthe thickest muscles in the upper part of the calf.
We’re talking about exercises like standing machine extensions, raised feet and shoulder pads.
If you don’t have one, you can go on a smith machine (with the bar on your trapezius muscles) or sit in a leg press, always with your legs stretched out (tips of your feet on the bottom of the platform).
Finally, you can do your standing calf raises with dumbbells in your hands, but make sure you’re standing on something to get the full range of motion (the other concern is that your forearms may give out before your calves).
During these stretched leg exercises, you can adjust the position of your toes to activate the medial or lateral femoral more or less (toes tucked in towards each other).
Then there are exercises with bent legs, such as seated machine extensions with knees at 90°.
Thus, the emphasis is on the soleus, a powerful muscle located at the back of the leg and which extends from the knee to the heel.
In short, your training should combine these two kinds of exercises, legs bent and stretched.
To find out more, read: Muscle your calves, the only 2 exercises you need to know
2. You don’t use all available techniques
Before we talk about advanced techniques for working your flamingo calves, let’s talk about execution.
The range of motion on a calf raise isn’t huge, too, so you need to make sure you have the perfect form of motion.
We’re talking about:
- strongly contract your calves at the end of extension,
- go far in the bottom stretch movement.
Except in special cases, we don’t want momentum either to benefit from strict repetitions.
Once your technique is perfected, you may want to add a three-second pause at the end of each repetitionwhen the calf is fully stretched under tension.
The calves are also muscles d’endurance (after all, they support daily continuous activity such as walking), work with a heavy loadso can be beneficial.
Another technique then consists in overloading them on the negative portions of the movement. Example, on a seated calf extension machine (legs bent), “load the mule” and control the negative phase of the movement as much as possible (descent).
Use the momentum (the famous special case we talked about above) to go up and repeat.
This is called the “cheat rep”, a powerful intensification technique in bodybuilding (discover 5 others here).
Done well, this technique should engage your calves in a way you’ve probably never felt before and stimulate muscle development.
3. Your training is not well programmed
The calves are small muscles that require less recovery time than the quadriceps, for example.
You may train them 1-2 times a week thinking that’s a lot, but it’s probably not enough, especially if you don’t get the results you expect!
It’s time to increase your training frequency.
You can train them easily 3 to 5 times a weekif you definitely want to leave FC Flamingo.
Also remember to vary your range of repetitions with:
- sets of 8-10 repetitions,
- sets of 12-15 repetitions.
Finally, focus on progressive overload and continually (and gradually) adding reps and/or weight.
An example to put all this to music:
| Monday | Mardi | THURSDAY | SATURDAY |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4×12 seated calf raises / 4×12 seated calf raises | 4×12-15 leg press calf raises with 3 second pause | 4×6-8 Standing Calf Raises with Heavy Load and Negative Control | Seated calf raises 3×12-15 with 3 second pause |
All you have to do is “just”! If you really want calves, give yourself the means!
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