Some people go to the gym simply to look good, and that’s a fantastic goal to have. They spend effort and time working various muscle groups to enhance their aesthetics and reach their dream physique. Yet, some body parts aren’t all the time given the identical attention as others.
Credit: Ruslan Shugushev / Shutterstock
Let’s be real. The calves are commonly ignored. That’s a shame, because not only do muscular calves contribute to a well-balanced, eye-pleasing physique, but in addition they support optimal knee and ankle health and performance. And what more easy exercise than the standing calf raise to develop this muscle group? Let’s take a take a look at this effective exercise, and find out how and why it should not be missed.
Learn how to Do the Standing Calf Raise
The standing calf raise is a reasonably straightforward movement, nevertheless it’s actually possible to have problems with performance. Let’s cover proper use of this machine to deliver complete calf development.
Step 1 — Get Into the Starting Position
Credit: Ascendancy Fitness / YouTube
Set your feet roughly shoulder-width apart on the block or step. Only the front halves of your feet must be on the step. Your heels must be hanging within the air. Keep your balance by holding the shoulder pads or support handles. Make sure that your hands steer clear of the weights and any moving parts.
Keep your knees bent and your back straight as you place your shoulders under the pads. Stand tall by pushing into the balls of your feet and straightening your knees. Keep your core tight to keep up a straight back.
Form tip: Adjust the shoulder pad height so you’ll be able to stand upright with additional room to perform a full range of motion calf raise. When standing tall, it’s best to have the option to rise onto your toes while keeping a straight line out of your shoulders to your feet. If you might have to hunch over or bend your knees, the exercise won’t be as efficient.
Step 2 — Push Through the Balls of Your Feet
Credit: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
Push through the balls of your feet to boost your heels as high as possible. Keep your legs straight to forestall larger leg muscles from helping. Pause for one second at the highest and flex your calves as much as possible. Keep your upper body stable. Resist any urge to shrug your shoulders while your feet move.
Form tip: Completely extend your ankles, pushing all of the technique to the highest. The range of motion is comparatively limited on this exercise since the ankle is a comparatively small joint. Don’t reduce the range of motion further by stopping before your calves are fully contracted.
Step 3 — Lower Your Heels Slowly
Credit: Ascendancy Fitness / YouTube
Let your heels sink slowly towards the bottom, dorsiflexing your foot (letting your heels drop below your toes). Your calves must be in a fully stretched position.
Stay within the stretched position for a second to forestall rebounding or momentum before repeating for extra repetitions.
Form tip: The stretch is a vital component of calf growth, so don’t be afraid of feeling a stretch in the underside position. Nevertheless, some people lack ankle mobility and have limited range of motion. To attenuate the chance of injury, use a slow, controlled speed and avoid dropping quickly into the underside position.
Standing Calf Raise Mistakes to Avoid
In the case of constructing muscular calves, mistakes will stop muscle growth in its tracks. If you happen to want gains, performing each repetition perfectly is of the utmost importance. Listed here are essentially the most common errors to avoid.
Fast, Rebounded Repetitions
That is the final word calf training sin. You is perhaps tempted to make use of the stretch reflex (rebound) and rush through fast-paced reps with the intention to lift more weight or make the set easier, but this may just end in eternally puny calves.
Credit: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
The exercise’s range of motion is comparatively limited, so should you rush through each rep, the time under tension will probably be minuscule, leading to poor growth. That is reinforced by the proven fact that the calves typically have loads of type I muscle fibers which respond higher to longer sets and more volume. (1)
Avoid it: For optimal muscle growth, decelerate the repetitions and don’t draw back from using pauses at the highest contraction or in the underside stretched position.
Cutting the Range of Motion Short
Performing a full range of motion has been proven optimal for muscle growth, especially within the lower body. (2) As such, you might have to ensure you go as little as your ankles will allow and flex as high as you’ll be able to during each repetition.
Credit: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
Short-changing the range of motion may be as bad for muscle growth as blasting through repetitions at warp speed. Calves is usually a notoriously hard to grow muscle group. (3) If you should progress, you’ll have to just accept some muscle-building, muscle-burning discomfort, and make sure you squeeze the muscle through every possible fraction of an inch.
Avoid it: On each repetition, sink as little as you’ll be able to within the stretched position. Tension around your ankles will let you know when it’s far enough. Also, push through your toes and imagine your heels reaching the ceiling through the peak contraction.
Using Leg Drive to Move the Weight
Sometimes you’ll be able to cheat the standing calf raise without even noticing, especially when going heavy. Leg muscles just like the glutes and quadriceps are very strong and your body will instinctively “want” to make use of them to assist move the load, but that reduces the work done by the calves and reduces the muscle-building stimulus.
Credit: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
In case your knees begin bending and straightening through the exercise, or in case your body bends forward on the hips, you’ll be shifting focus away from the calves and onto other muscle groups.
Avoid it: Concentrate on a mind-muscle connection together with your calves. As an alternative of just eager about “lifting the load up,” take into consideration specifically pushing through your toes. Keep your body straight throughout the set and pay particular attention to your knees and hips.
Advantages of the Standing Calf Raise
Regardless that calf training is usually missed, this exercise can find its place in most training regimens. Listed here are an important the reason why.
Muscle Growth
The standing calf raise is among the finest lower leg exercises for hypertrophy. The standing position is an efficient technique to goal the gastrocnemius — one in all the 2 heads of the calf muscle.
Due to muscle recruitment and potential time under tension, standing calf raise can bring a big visual change to your calf development. If there’s just one calf exercise you could possibly do, this may be top of the list.
Explosive Power
If you happen to care about athleticism or sports performance, this standing calf raise actually help. Calf training helps you jump higher and more incessantly by allowing your body to provide more force, absorb more force eccentrically (during landing), and reinforce tendon strength and total-body stability so you might be more resilient.
The lower leg muscles have an energetic part within the ankles and knees functions. Every movement that mobilizes these joints — resembling running, kicking, tackling, and jumping — will profit from calf training. Strengthening your calves will enable you be a more complete and efficient athlete.
Healthier, Stronger Ankles and Knees
Standing calf raises can eventually improve your ankle mobility by regularly stretching your calves. The calves can even increase in size and strength, leading to more control and resilience over the ankle and knee joints. (4)
This carries over to on a regular basis life, since many individuals are on their feet all day long. It’s especially relevant should you walk, run, or play sports that heavily involve your legs.
Muscles Worked By the Standing Calf Raise
The standing calf raise is taken into account a single-joint isolation exercise, since the only movement must be on the ankle joint. The movement focuses training stress on a single muscle group — the triceps surae, more commonly often known as the calves, that are the principal muscles within the lower leg.
Gastrocnemius
The gastrocnemius is one in all two heads of the calf muscle. Sometimes shortened to “the gastroc,” it runs from the back of your knees to your ankles. The gastroc is the larger of the 2 calf heads and it’s the one you see essentially the most.
Credit: vladee / Shutterstock
Its function is plantar flexion of the foot (extending the ankle and pointing the toes down). It also plays a job to help your hamstrings when bending your knees. It is a muscle heavily involved in running, jumping, and walking.
Soleus
The soleus is the opposite head of the calf muscle. This deeper section is situated between the gastrocnemius and the lower leg bones. This muscle is significantly involved in plantar flexion (lowering your toes below your heels). The soleus isn’t as big, nevertheless it is comparatively powerful and it’s crucial for running, walking, and standing tall.
Who Should Do the Standing Calf Raise
Those that completely avoid calf training are sorely mistaken, especially in the event that they want complete physical development. Many lifters should introduce this exercise into their training since it has more to supply than simply hypertrophy.
Bodybuilders and Physique Athletes
If you happen to’re curious about an aesthetic, symmetrical physique, it’s best to never skip calves. In reality, within the early days of classic bodybuilding, lifters would aim to have their calves as big as their arms. The legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger supposedly “calf-shamed” himself by incessantly wearing shorts, so the constant sight of his relatively small calves can be motivation to coach them intensely.
Many individuals still overlook calf training but, along together with your forearms, they’re essentially the most visible parts of your body more often than not. In any case, should you’re chasing aesthetics, you can’t avoid working any body part.
Strength Athletes
Calf training won’t directly carry to your big lifts, but it may actually be very invaluable to strength athletes. Indeed, the calves help knee and ankle stability, and this is very true of the soleus since it is more energetic when your knees are bent — like within the squat.
Furthermore, calf training can even improve ankle mobility, which is critical for correct squat mechanics and overall lower body health. If you happen to’re a strength athlete who’s experiencing knee pain, has trouble reaching squat depth, or is experiencing instability when lifting, it’s best to give calf training a go.
Sports Athletes
In athletics, injury prevention is vital. Directly training the calves may end up in calf muscles that may withstand more shock while improving ankle mobility and resiliency — especially with respect to the Achilles tendon, a vulnerable a part of any athlete’s body.
Athletes experience constant stress on the ankle and knee joints when changing direction, sprinting, and performing plyometric movements on or off the sphere. These activities may be a few of the most potentially dangerous movements one can perform if their body’s support structures aren’t durable. As such, should you’re an athlete that cares about knee or ankle injury prevention, it’s best to train your calves.
Learn how to Program the Standing Calf Raise
Being an isolation exercise that targets a single muscle group, it is not sensible attempting to go super-heavy with this exercise since it’s less efficient and other muscles will probably be recruited.
Furthermore, calves typically react higher to an extended time under tension and better volume, because they’ve a high proportion of slow muscle fibers. They’re best trained with moderate-to-high rep schemes.
Moderate Weight, Moderate Repetitions
It is a classic, proven hypertrophy scheme. Three to 5 sets of eight to 12 repetitions will work just fantastic. The burden must be as heavy as you’ll be able to handle to the rep range, but not on the expense of form. It is best to have the option to regulate the load in any respect times, achieve a full stretch, and have the option to contract maximally without compromising the range of motion.
Light Weight, High Repetitions
Going lighter for higher repetitions is a surefire technique to scorch your calves if you might have trouble feeling them, and may function an awesome finisher. Two to a few sets of 15 to 25 repetitions, reaching muscular failure on the last repetition, is an awesome technique to accumulate volume and grow your calves.
Tempo Work
If you happen to’re a more seasoned lifter, spicing up your calf training can spark recent gains and motivation. Calves are particularly aware of tempo training — manipulating the speed of the lifting and lower phases of every repetition.
For unprecedented soreness and muscle stimulus, try a two-part approach with several sets emphasizing the stretched position followed by several sets emphasizing the contracted position. Two to a few sets of 10 to fifteen repetitions with a two-second pause at the underside, followed by two to a few sets of 10 to fifteen repetitions with a two-second pause at the highest of the contraction.
Going Beyond Failure
If you happen to’re a complicated lifter, you may still must crank up your calf training to the subsequent level with the intention to progress. Warning: The muscle burn will probably be uncomfortable, but tremendously efficient. This approach strategically uses partial range of motion repetitions after exhausting the muscle with a full range of motion, to extend the whole time under tension.
Perform one to 2 sets of 10 repetitions to failure, followed immediately by 10 partial repetitions (doing only the lower half of the range of motion), after which hold the deepest stretch position possible for 10 more seconds.
Standing Calf Raise Variations
Whether you don’t have access to the standing calf raise machine or simply wish to spice things up, you’re covered. Listed here are variations that may share the identical advantages.
Smith Machine Standing Calf Raise
The Smith machine is an awesome tool since it takes balance out of the equation and, as such, will probably be the closest variation to the essential standing calf raise machine. Grab a step or short block and place it directly under the bar, so that you increase the range of motion and revel in a pleasant stretch.
Arrange such as you can be doing an ordinary calf raise, with the front half of your toes on the step, and place the barbell across your traps or upper back, much like a back squat position.
Leg Press Calf Raise
That is an awesome variation that permits you to concentrate on your calves with much more total-body stability. Not only is there no stabilization required, but you’re seated in a hard and fast position and only must take into consideration using your calves with none upper body involvement.
Sit within the machine and push the platform away. Position the balls of your feet on the underside of the platform, in order that the lower half of your feet are hanging. Keep your legs straight and easily push the load away through the balls of your feet.
Single-Leg Standing Calf Raise
By working one leg at a time, we’re making the exercise tougher and more focused on the working muscle. This variation can even help to enhance balance, core bracing, and may address muscular imbalances. (5) (6)
Grab a dumbbell and hold it the identical side because the leg you will probably be working. Step onto a platform with only the ball of your foot and let your other leg hang within the air. Use your free hand to carry an stable, stationary object (like a rack) for balance, then brace your core and perform the calf raise.
Standing Calf Raise Alternatives
If the standing calf raise bores you to tears, or if you should stimulate your calves in a different way for an entire lower-leg workout, try these alternatives.
Seated Calf Raise
This machine is one of the popular calf exercises and it complements the standing version. Because your legs are bent, you’ll focus more on the soleus attributable to the actual attachment points of the muscle across the knee joint.
An additional benefit is that it’s nearly unimaginable to make use of your upper body, quads, or hips to cheat the movement. You possibly can strictly concentrate on your calves. This machine works the very same way because the standing calf raise, but you’re simply seated with the pad on top of your knees as an alternative of your traps.
Squatting Calf Raise
This movement is good should you don’t have access to specialized training equipment. Hold a stationary object with each hands and squat right down to parallel, or a bit lower if comfortable. Slowly raise your heels as high as possible before lowering them right down to the bottom.
Not only will this exercise train your calves, and particularly your soleus, it should also challenge your balance, proprioception, and knee and ankle stability in a singular way. As you progress, you’ll be able to try the exercise while holding a dumbbell or kettlebell like a goblet squat (keeping the load against your chest).
Tiptoe Farmer’s Walk
If you happen to’re the sort of individual that loves functional training, give this exercise a try. Simply grab a pair of dumbbells and begin walking in your toes. Keep your core braced, your shoulders pulled back, and chest up.
Slightly than total repetitions, go for distance, for time, or until your calves surrender on you. It is a implausible technique to end a workout and sneak in some extra work in your core, traps, and forearms at the identical time. Bonus: you’ll also burn some calories.
FAQs
Do I would like to work my calves specifically?
Yes and no. Calves are stimulated not directly by many other exercises like running, lunges, and squats. So that they’re somewhat activated as assistance muscles. But when you should concentrate on increasing the dimensions of your calves, you’ll have to focus on them directly.
Calves are a notoriously hard to grow muscle group, and indirect stimulus isn’t often enough to construct impressive calves. Skipping direct calf training also means you’re missing out on the ankle and knee health advantages that come from stronger calves.
When should I train calves?
Most individuals do calf raises at the top of a workout, typically after other leg exercises or other larger body parts. It is sensible because calves are trained with single-joint isolation exercises, and you should be as fresh as possible while you’re hitting your big compound exercises for other muscle groups.
If you happen to consider your calves to be a high priority, you’ll be able to hit them first in a session. This fashion, you’ll have essentially the most energy to devote to those stubborn beasts, and also you won’t risk “running out of time” to coach them in a workout. It shouldn’t impact other lower body exercises an excessive amount of. If it does, it’s a short-term issue until your body adapts.
How incessantly should I train calves?
Calves are a really resilient muscle group and so they can withstand loads of punishment while also recovering relatively fast. Start with one weekly session. After a number of weeks, should you don’t see any progress and feel that your calves can withstand it, increase to 2 sessions.
Repeat this process as much as needed. Don’t be afraid of training them incessantly. You possibly can bump this number up to a few or 4 sessions per week if needed, because calf training is comparatively low stress on the remainder of your body, unlike attempting to deadlift 4 days per week, for instance.
Stop. Skipping. Calves.
The standing calf raise machine is present in the corner of most gyms nevertheless it’s, sadly, underutilized. It’s a time-tested exercise that packs size onto a body part most lifters would conveniently ignore. Make room for this efficient exercise in your training, or simply walk around in shorts until you’ve convinced yourself to repair the issue.
References
- Edgerton VR, Smith JL, Simpson DR. Muscle fibre type populations of human leg muscles. Histochem J. 1975 May;7(3):259-66. doi: 10.1007/BF01003594. PMID: 123895.
- Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J. Effects of range of motion on muscle development during resistance training interventions: A scientific review. SAGE Open Med. 2020 Jan 21;8:2050312120901559. doi: 10.1177/2050312120901559. PMID: 32030125; PMCID: PMC6977096.
- Lawrence W. Weiss, Frank C. Clark, David G. Howard, Effects of Heavy-Resistance Triceps Surae Muscle Training on Strength and Muscularity of Men and Women, Physical Therapy, Volume 68, Issue 2, 1 February 1988, Pages 208–213,
- Elias, John & Faust, Alfred & Chu, Yung-Hua & Chao, Edmund & Cosgarea, Andrew. (2003). The Soleus Muscle Acts as an Agonist for the Anterior Cruciate Ligament: An in Vitro Experimental Study. The American journal of sports medicine. 31. 241-6. 10.1177/03635465030310021401.
- Cirer-Sastre R, Beltrán-Garrido JV, Corbi F. Contralateral Effects After Unilateral Strength Training: A Meta-Evaluation Comparing Training Loads. J Sports Sci Med. 2017 Jun 1;16(2):180-186. PMID: 28630570; PMCID: PMC5465979.
- Bradić, Josipa & Kovačević, Erol & Babajić, Fuad. (2011). Effects of unilateral strength training on balance performance.
Featured Image: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock