Calves are known as being the one muscle group that is most greatly influenced by genetics. They can be a stubborn muscle group to develop, especially for those who aren't genetically gifted. The deal with calves and genetics is a lot of people just don't have much natural working muscle cells to build on in the calf region. Their lower leg consists mostly of bone and tendon rather than muscle. They have a very short calf muscle and long achilles tendon. Quite a few African Americans (and good athletes in general) fit this "high calves" curse. The long tendons give them an advantage as far as spring and reactionary strength, but a disadvantage as far as developing nice full calf development. You can increase the size of an area where you have muscle but unfortunately you can't turn tendon and bone into muscle!

However, anyone can make the muscle they naturally have better and a lot of people have the potential for decent calves they just don't train them properly. When training calves, it's important to slow down and go through the full range of motion. Lower the weight under control and it also helps to use a pause at the bottom.


Toes In vs Toes Out?

What about varying stance and pointing the toes in and out? Can shifting foot position enable you to target different areas of the calf? Well, sort of, but not in a way most people think. There is a myth that pointing the toes in hits the outer calves and pointing the toes out hits the inner calves. The calves consist of 2 muscles, the soleus and gastrocnemius. The soleus is a thin muscle that lies under the gastroc. It is much thinner, more endurance oriented, and has less growth potential than the gastroc, which is the more visible of the 2 and makes up the great majority of your total calf mass. Anytime you plantar flex your foot you'll recruit BOTH the soleus and gastroc, but when doing movements with your legs straight you shift focus towards the gastroc. When doing movements with your legs bent, like you would in a seated calf raise, you shift more focus towards the soleus. Since the gastroc makes up the great majority of your total calf mass and has much more growth potential, I don't even recommend fooling around with targeted soleus exercises like seated calf raises unless you're an advanced bodybuilder who already has as much total calf mass as you desire and are simply looking to define what you have. Simply do all your movements with straight legs so that you get the most bang for your buck.

As for pointing your toes in or out, foot position really doesn't influence recruitment so this is mostly a myth. However, even though you can't TOTALLY shift emphasis to inner vs outer calves, the gastroc makes up the large majority of your inner calf mass thus doing straight legged exercises which involve a pre-stretch will help you target the inner calves more. My favorite is donkey calf raises.

Try this: From the seated position flex your calf while placing one hand on the inner calf area and see if you can get a good contraction. Next, stand up with your leg straight and do the same thing. You should find the contraction kicks up a notch when you stand up and straighten your leg. I imagine the myth of toe position influencing contractions came about because when you point your toes out you automatically tend to place more of a pre-stretch on your calves.

So, if you want to target inner or outer calves worry more about the bend in your knees and the pre-stretch rather than your foot positioning. I recommend you use a stance that you're comfortable with and allows you to "feel" good contractions in your calves. You'll probably find that concentrating on getting your center of gravity over your big toe will allow you to do this. I personally find pointing the feet slightly in and really focusing on the pre-stretch allows me to get the best overall contractions but just experiment with it and find what works best for you.


Do Calves Really Require Super High Reps?

Now some other thoughts and myths about calves: Another thing about them is they are thought to be very endurance oriented and only respond to super high reps and volumes. This is only partially true. The reality is the range of motion on calf raises is so short that it takes more reps to get the same time under tension compared to most other muscle groups. If you go by the clock instead of rep count you'll find that a 45 second set of squats might take 12 reps, but a 45 second set of calves might take 50 or more - Especially the way most people do calf raises bouncing up and down at a rapid pace. Having said that, the main portion of the calves, the gastrocnemius, is fast twitch oriented in most people and responds best to sets 20-60 seconds in duration.


Training Parameters

Calves are similar to forearms, in that they CAN be trained with more frequency then other muscles. Many other bodyparts can grow while being trained once per week but there is a big difference in results training calves 2 days vs 1 day per week. It is possible to hit calves every other day with pretty good results, however, I haven't seen much difference between training them twice a week vs 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 days a week so I usually recommend hitting them twice a week. Calves also respond well to high intensity training techniques like the following:

Rest-pause: Start with a weight that causes you to hit failure somewhere between 15 and 20 reps...rest 10-20 seconds and rep out....rest another 10-20 seconds and rep out...repeat for a total of 3-5 rest pauses per set. Do 1-3 total sets.

Drop sets: Similar to rest pause but strip weight off during some or all of your short rest periods.

Partial reps: Do as many full range repetitions as possible. When you can no longer to full reps do as many top range partials as you can

Stretching: Many people with good calves have superior mobility and ROM during calf exercises. They get a better stretch and are able to get up on their toes easier that people with smaller calves. Calves also respond well to stretching. Doing a standing, donkey, or leg press calf raise take your set to failure and then lower your heels until a full stretch is achieved. Hold for 5-60 seconds.


Sample Routine

My own personal favorite it so to put all those together into one. I recommend you do this on either a standing calf machine or leg press. Start with a weight you can get somewhere between 15-30 reps with. Get your 15-30 reps, do partials at the end and rack the weight. Rest 20 seconds than take that same weight again, do as many reps as possible followed by as many partials as possible, and rack the weight. Then reduce the weight a bit to allow at least 15 reps on the next set. Hit it a 3rd time and if you're really masocihistic a 4th and 5th time. At the end of the last set hold a stretch for as long as you can stand. After that there's not much else that needs to be done for calves.

I've found that varying the tempo and alternating between higher rep and lower rep workouts works very effectively. You can apply the above principles to either of them but The first workout might involve sets of 15-30 fairly slow and controlled reps. The next workout would involve sets of 30-100 faster reps. You can also use both high and low reps in one workout. Do 1 extended set with lower reps and another extended set with higher reps. On the first one use a weight that causes you to reach failure at 15-20 reps and do an extended set with 3-5 rest pauses like I described above. Take a break and come back and do another extended set but this time start with a weight that causes you to fail on your first set at around 30-50 reps.


Haphazard Training Can Be a Benefit

Here is something I recommend for calf training you might find find fairly unique. In my opinion, one of the big problems with calves is they tend to adapt VERY QUICKLY to any stress and once they adapt they will no longer respond. Therefore I suggest training them in an inconsistent fashion. Go for a few weeks where you hit them twice a week and really pound them into submission. They should respond nicely. As soon as you notice them stagnating, basically leave them alone for 2-3 weeks. Either leave them completely alone or train them at really low maintenance volumes - Just one or 2 straight sets once or twice a week just to maintain. Basically you want them to forget abut the thrashing you were giving them before so when you go back to it they will once again respond to what you were doing. If you do that over time you should see some nice calf gains.

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