Help building calves

[ShutUpNlift]

Im pretty much consistent with my upper body but there is one thing that stands out from a far.

MY CHICKEN NOODLE CALVES.

Anybody got any suggestion or tips for me?

[GreenGiant]

Calves respond to high reps and low reps. Not only should you squeeze and hold at the top of your lifts but you should also extreme stretch at the negative part of the lift. For example..standing calves raises...lock your knees and let your heels fall as far as you can down..hold for like three seconds and go up and hold for 3. Genetics plays a big part in having big calves. Yes, you can alter them but within the limits of your genetics. Running will not build huge calves in IMO Just look at marathon runners. Walking on a stair climber on your toes will bring up your calves

[SteelWolf]

Big calves are not important for me as much as strong stable calves, but my clients use a modified DC approach. 8 negative 15 second stretch for 12 reps then drop the weight and nail out at least 20 quality reps normal style.

[ZiR RED]

Calves respond to high reps and low reps. Not only should you squeeze and hold at the top of your lifts but you should also extreme stretch at the negative part of the lift. For example..standing calves raises...lock your knees and let your heels fall as far as you can down..hold for like three seconds and go up and hold for 3. Genetics plays a big part in having big calves. Yes, you can alter them but within the limits of your genetics. Running will not build huge calves in IMO Just look at marathon runners. Walking on a stair climber on your toes will bring up your calves

That's because marathon runners train and have higher genetic percentage of type I slow twitch fibers.

But, look at the calves on sprinters. Higher genetic predisposition to type II fast twitch fibers, and a completely different training. Lots of triple extension movements will improve calf development.

The soleus (which is mainly worked when doing seated calf raises) is predominantly type I fibers and has a lower potential for growth. The gastrocnemius, however, has a much higher amount of type II and a higher potential for growth. All the more reason to disclude seated calf raises from your training - that, and the majority of the bodybuilding population already has poor ankle flexibility due to over active soleus and weak ATs.

Br

[ninja]

Bringing up your total bodyweight will almost always make your calves bigger. How much do you weigh? Of course you don't want to add fat unnecessarily though.

[Danielito]

OP, how much do you squat?

[Benson]

I'll just note for the record, I saw a guy hiking who had the best developed calf muscles I have ever seen...he was otherwise unremarkable and not particularly muscular anywhere else but he had some freaky calves...

[Kimbo]

Zir Red made a very good point about different parts of the calf being compromised of different fibers. Triple extensions definitely put some meat on my calves.

[mich29]

great discussion here I just use the good old Arnold technique from I believe his first book.

[Azx]

Hmm my calves seem pretty big at least compared to the rest of my body I guess, (16" calves, 13" biceps) it must be entirely genetic since I never do anything at all to work them. At least one body part worked out well for me..

[Josh]

Calf growth
I have always had quite big calves, but when I did train them I used high load, high volume training (standing calf raises & 1legged calf extension on the leg press) and they grew so quickly, that I stopped training them on a regular basis. I am sure that calves work with higher volume than other muscle groups [IME n>1], and high numbers of dropsets seem to work well.

Tibialis anterior
As an aside, when it came to building my Tibialis Anterior, I had tried for some time to do toe raises without success - it always seemed quite an awkward movement too. TA did seem to grow in response to pharmacological stimulus, but have developed strongly in response to EMS that directly isolated the TA. I suspect that the problem with TA growth from voluntary loading, is the mind muscle connection & getting the load to hit the right spot [IME n=1].

J

[mich29]

Calf growth
I have always had quite big calves, but when I did train them I used high load, high volume training (standing calf raises & 1legged calf extension on the leg press) and they grew so quickly, that I stopped training them on a regular basis. I am sure that calves work with higher volume than other muscle groups [IME n>1], and high numbers of dropsets seem to work well.

Tibialis anterior
As an aside, when it came to building my Tibialis Anterior, I had tried for some time to do toe raises without success - it always seemed quite an awkward movement too. TA did seem to grow in response to pharmacological stimulus, but have developed strongly in response to EMS that directly isolated the TA. I suspect that the problem with TA growth from voluntary loading, is the mind muscle connection & getting the load to hit the right spot [IME n=1].

J

great stuff here

[H factor]

Good stuff in this thread.

I recently started adding vertical and broad jumps into my training. My tibalis anterior has been extremely sore after these sessions!

[tyciol]

Great stuff indeed. I'm not sure what to say to OP since I don't know what he's already doing. My calves aren't that good, I mostly do a variety of bodyweight calf raises on my stairs. I wish I had a cage so I could do some weighted barbell variations, or a gym membership to use those calf machines that have shoulder pads.

The way people do calf raises on the leg press also looks interesting.

[Quinc]

Calf growth
I have always had quite big calves, but when I did train them I used high load, high volume training (standing calf raises & 1legged calf extension on the leg press) and they grew so quickly, that I stopped training them on a regular basis. I am sure that calves work with higher volume than other muscle groups [IME n>1], and high numbers of dropsets seem to work well.

Tibialis anterior
As an aside, when it came to building my Tibialis Anterior, I had tried for some time to do toe raises without success - it always seemed quite an awkward movement too. TA did seem to grow in response to pharmacological stimulus, but have developed strongly in response to EMS that directly isolated the TA. I suspect that the problem with TA growth from voluntary loading, is the mind muscle connection & getting the load to hit the right spot [IME n=1].

J

I get my best results from 1 legged leg press extensions as well.

[chea]

Ask Drama. lol

[npakergy16]

I have the same problem you do OP. My calves are literally stick thin, even though I've been training them hard for several years.

Calves are mostly genetic, some people have em and others don't.......me and you just don't have em.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't train them to make them bigger and stronger............they might not grow as fast as your chest or quads, but given enough time, frequency and patience, they will be sure to grow.

I recommend training high reps, in the rep range of 15-25. This seems to work for me but you may need to do some experimenting to see what works for you.

All the best!

[huntsmana]

Im pretty much consistent with my upper body but there is one thing that stands out from a far.

MY CHICKEN NOODLE CALVES.

Anybody got any suggestion or tips for me?

Calves are so genetic dude, I've seen people with huge calves just bouncing big weight on the calf raise machine, and people who do 5 second negatives with stick thin ones. Find what works for you and stick with it