How to Build BIG Calves

This is an older video from my channel but it still rings true. One of the most neglected body parts by the average gym goer is calves. On the otherside of the coin, it's also one of the most complained about areas when it comes to hard to grow / lagging body parts. Do you see a correlation here? Why won't my calves grow?

I personally think the number one reason for people having underdeveloped calves is simply that they don't train them enough or in most cases... at all! If you don't provide sufficient stimulus to any body part it will not grow. We can't forget of course like every muscle group, everyone has naturally gifted insertions, shapes and sizes. For example, I often get complimented on my calves yet in all honesty they are not something I train regularly. I also attribute to the years that I was overweight for their development; every step you take you are working them and carrying more bodyweight than normal they WILL develop. Have you ever seen an overweight person with small calves? The calves comprise of two main muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is the larger looking of the two, the muscle that most people notice and is the more dominant muscle when the leg is straight. The soleus is situated behind the gastrocnemius and comes into play more so when the leg is bent, although both muscles work in each situation. One of the biggest things people neglect to do when it comes to training the calves is doing a bent and straight leg exercise. Most people only do a straight leg exercise OR a bent leg (maybe lucky to have a seated calf raise machine). I have seen through various training logs / blogs / youtube channels that the calf training portion of a persons weekly training split tends to only be one exercise as mentioned, either straight leg or bent leg. If you only choose one variant you are missing out on 50% of your potential stimulus.

The best approach Personally, I like to do a mix of extremely heavy reps, and less heavy for higher reps. Light weight and calves in my opinion is not something that you should be doing. Anything less than your bodyweight for stimulus is a waste of time if you ask me, especially in seated conditions. Standing exercises you will be lifting your bodyweight along with the extra weight. In a home gym condition the two calf exercises I tend to utilise are standing donkey calf raise (using a dip belt for extra weight) and seated calf raise with either a barbell or loose plates on my thighs / knee. The only problems here are you can only go so heavy due to the direct loading on your thigh and also the limitation for your dip belt. In a commercial gym setting, if you have access to a smith machine and a seated calf raise machine then you are in business as these two machines are perfect for stimulation of the calves. For both situations, you should remember that the calves generally take abuse daily via walking a round / climbing up stairs etc so you need to make sure you are consistent with training them in your weekly split. If you only did one calf exercise a week, consider doing a straight and bent variant for a couple of weeks and then look into increasing frequency; train calves twice or even maybe three times a week. Patience Like all muscle groups, they will take time to grow but if you are consistent and provide sufficient stimulation along with adequate nutrition then eventually you will have an awesome set of baby cows to call your own!

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