Calfs. Or is it Calves? I don’t know, and I can’t be arsed googling it, but fact is, a lot of you have trouble growing them!!
A nice set of diamonds can really set of your physique on stage – and even if you don’t compete, meaty beastly calfs hanging out the bottom of shorts are a great way to freak mortal people the fuck out lol!!!
My calfs, back in 2007. Can’t find a more recent pic, and currently I am a fat balloon, so you will have to make do with this:
Not the largest I’m happy enough to agree, but more than many
So what do I do – or what did I used to do – for them?
I like to attack the calf muscles from a combination of angles – and rep ranges. I don’t necessarily buy the whole “you are on your feet walking all day, so they need high reps” bullshit, that’s so childlike in its logic it is obvious – but they are a more heavily used muscle, and are designed to work for long periods. You can walk all day long, and your calfs will barely burn; you barbell curl even an empty bar for a few minutes, and your biceps will be hanging off – but they are also designed for bursts of high speed activity, to get us out of trouble. A real versatile muscle group; they have to be.
So I like to give them a combination of load AND reps, not just one or the other.
A typical session:
Standing calf raise – I’ll do a couple of really light high rep sets to warm up, get a bit of heat in. I like some GENTLE stretching during this period too.
Then, typically 3 sets, 8-12 reps for no other reason than I have found it to “feel” right and work for me. The last set, is to failure. Proper muscular failure. Not “ow, that’s a bit sore and burny” – total failure of the muscle to move the weight out the bottom of the movement. I want a weight that ideally will JUST place the failure point at the 8 rep mark and then I’ll work with that week on week until I can hit the failure point at 12 reps. Then the weight goes up.
The standing raise – as long as legs are locked straight - works the “diamonds” of the calf muscle, the big lumps that sit proud, the show heads. Varying toe angle can shift the stress a little laterally, but tbh I just vary it from session to session – I don’t worry too much about specifically where or when.
After this, I get on the leg press. Ours is maybe 30deg, 45 would work too. Basically the movement is the same as the straight leg standing raise, but critically, the pelvis and upper body is rotated because you are sitting in the machine. This lengthens the hams out to their max stretch, and as an ancillary, the calf too. Think about the stretching pain in the back of you knees when you try to touch your toes. That’s why I like this movement – on the face of it the dynamics are the same as the standing raise – but you get a MUCH more intense stretch. Try it. Rep/Set pattern is same as the standing raise, except without the light warm-ups; the muscle should already be thoroughly warm by then!
Next I move to the seated calf. When the knee is bent, the underlying calf muscle is worked more. This is the large flat long muscle that ties in to the heel at one end, and behind the knee at the other. Now, this clearly isn’t a “show” muscle as such being mostly buried under the “diamonds”, and is often overlooked because of this – but for the competing bodybuilder, ignore at your peril!!! Building this slab of muscle up more, actually pushes the overlying muscles further out! It also helps add that width – that triangular taper – to the calf muscles. Nothing fancy, 3 sets working up in weight, just as before although that’s not to understate the intensity of the exercise; failure is the goal.
You are probably thinking “he said he attacked them with different ranges etc, but all I’ve seen are conventional exercises, and rep range of 8-10?”
You’d be right.
But at the end, I finish them off with a circuit type routine, that hits not only short duration intensity peaks, but is of itself, in total, a long duration set of some 150ish reps. I can’t even take credit for it, I do believe its origins are based in something the late Paul Borressen used to get his clients to do, but it is a killer. Keep in mind, the calf muscles have already been pushed to momentary failure in 3 exercises now. You shouldn’t be walking in any manner other than such that it looks like you have shit yourself – before you start this.
The circuit starts back at the standing calf machine. Weight is by feel, so it will take a couple of goes to get it just right – but you want to get 12 reps, and be starting to struggle by then.
After that, immediately go to a raised step. Using bodyweight only, do 15 FULL range reps, deep stretch, right to peak contraction, no bouncing. If you are a fat fucker, hell mend you, you are gonna struggle. If you are light, keep a faster pace or hold a dumbbell – make it more difficult for yourself. I like to do this off the back of the spotting platform on the incline bench, this lets you go to max stretch, without the heel bottoming out – the physical limiter is literally the tensile limit of the calf muscle and its various connective tissues.
After THAT – get straight onto the floor. Put a plate – 10kg or whatever- under your heels. Do 20 reps, body weight again. Obviously these are stuck in the higher part of the rep range, concentrating on the contraction, no pauses. They are killer.
Then repeat.
Another 2 times.
Now, this is a test to see if you have been reading. Everything I have written above is bullshit. Well, it might be. I don’t know. I barely train my calfs, yet they are my best bodypart. I mean what the FUCK would I know about training calfs, mines were handed to me through the miracle of DNA. They just grow from indirect work. They barely shrink if I don’t train, come off cycle. They just get fatter, and less impressive. I remember flashing them in the gym when I was 18, to a chorus of “holy fucks” and “ooooffffttttttssssss” from the “big” guys. I have done NOTHING to deserve them. I wish I had arms, but I don’t. I got calfs. Fuck you Jesus.
And this is the point, this is why I wrote this article. I showed you a pic of semi decent calfs at the start of the article, and, if you read on, it was based on that catching your interest. You assumed I must know how to build calfs, because I have an OK set myself. You need to stop and think people, because it is this assumption – false for the most part – that is used to manipulate you in almost everything. If you partake in performance enhancing drugs, just for example, chances are you listen to and take advice from the big guy, you want to know how he uses, what he uses. I’ll tell you straight now – all the really big dudes I know, were always going to be big. That’s not to say they don’t work fucking hard – they do – but equally I know guys who train as hard if not harder, and they are never going to be that big, regardless of drug intake, food intake, or training. I mean the big guy MIGHT know his biscuits – but you need to stop assuming, based on external appearances.
Genetics is everything. It underpins EVERYTHING you will ever do, or achieve. You can look at as many motivational pics on Facebook, videos on Youtube, and it won’t change the insertion points of your muscles. It won’t change the inexplicable aptitude of some muscles to just bloody grow, while others stand still.
Now that’s not to say genetics can or should be used as an excuse – you can ALWAYS improve what you have got. Just be realistic, piss with the cock you’ve got.
And, to contradict myself a bit, that calf routine is fucking awesome, give it a go, I’ve seen genetically run of the mill calfs grow well from it – but I know this from trial and error experience, not because I know anything special that led me to have decent calfs.
Open your eyes people, question everything
R
PS - Thanks to TM Radio Show host Robert Craig for helping me come up with this idea!
