How to actually grow your calves
Its almost summer time, which means it’s almost short season, and your dreading getting your little pencil legs back out in the open. It’s common, your not alone. You train hard all year round and the only thing people notice is your tiny calves. Sad Times. 🥺
You may blame genetics, that some people are just blessed with big calves. While this is true to an extent, you can still grow yours. Yes, it’s boring. Doing calf raises isn’t fun.
This Guide will help you build a set of calves your wife can be proud of, standing next to you this summer while you get the shorts back out for the family BBQ. We’re not promising you'll grow a pair of Jack Grealish calves. However, follow the steps below and we’ll show you how to get bigger calves.
What’s Below? ⤵️
Calf Muscle make up
Which movements / exercises work best for calf growth.
How to incorporate specific calf training into your programme effectively.
Sample “Bolt on” Programme.
The Calf Muscle (Or lack of, for some of us 🥺)
The Calf Muscle, medically referred to as the Triceps Surae, is made up of three main muscles.
The Gastrocnemius (which can be split into the Lateral and Medial Heads)
The Soleus.
The Plantaris (very small, which runs between the Gastroc muscle and the Soleus, so small it didn’t make it onto the “infographic”)
The Gastrocnemius muscles, being the biggest, make up the majority of your calf along with the Soleus. These are often what your aiming to grow with calf hypertrophy training.
Which Movements? 🤔
Calf training movements can be split into two sections, with either a straight or bent knee. Seated Calf Raises being the only real choice when it comes to bent knee so below are the straight legged movements to consider in your programme.
Single Leg Calf Raises (from a stair or step)
Smith Machine Calf Raises (using something to allow you to get a deep stretch)
Standing Calf Raise Machine
Leg Press Calf Raise
In truth, with recent studies, you may only need straight leg variations of the calf raise!
Seated vs Straight Leg Calf Raises: ✍️
A study recently done in 2023 by (Kinoshita et al., 2023) [1] was carried out to find out how to best train the calves for hypertrophy. 14 Adults performed unilateral calf raises twice a week for 3 months, one leg performed standing calf raises and the other leg performed seated calf raises. Using 5 sets of 10 reps and increasing weight when they could, utilizing progressive overload.
At the start and finish point of the three months, subjects had their muscle size measured by MRI.
The result?
The standing variation (straight leg) grew the gastrocnemius much greater than the seated variation. Lateral Head - 12.4% vs 1.7% / Medial Head 9.2% vs 0.6%!
The Soleus was similar between both legs - 2.1% vs 2.9%
The whole Triceps Surae - 5.6% (Standing) vs 2.1% (Seated)
This study shows that you may not actually need to perform seated calf raise variations for full calf development. It’s long been thought that the seated variation trained the Soleus much more that standing, however the difference is negligible and since the Gastrocnemius (both heads) make up the largest part of your calves, it makes sense to focus on straight leg variations.
Now what? Programming Considerations.
Prioritisation - If your in the predicament where your training 3-4 sets of calves at the end of your lower body day, after hammering squats, deadlifts and lunging, you’ll be tired. Training them fatigued, you won’t put that much effort in, it’s an afterthought. On the flipside, training them before squats can hinder your performance, with tight calves and tired sore feet. A good option would be to train them before upper body work. Why? The fatigue doesn’t carry over to your upper body training, it’s local. This can be done in just 5-10 minutes with the short rest times that calves require.
Volume / Frequency - If your serious about growing them, 5 sets twice a week (10 Total) may not be enough. Try adding a third day to start off with. 5 sets each session, that’s 15 sets a week, and see how you recover plus any growth that may occur. If your recovering between sessions well, up it to 6 sets per session which is 18 total sets, and so on. Repeat this until you can’t recover and you’ve found your maximum recoverable volume limit.
Full ROM - Calves respond well to full ROM training, that means a full deep stretch of the calf / ankle at the bottom of the calf raise. Try pausing at the bottom of the stretched position for 1-2 seconds.
Rest Times - As the calves are well vascularised, the recovery time, unlike other muscle groups doesn’t take as long. The “burn” should dissipate quickly, as low as 20-30 seconds for most people. The fatigue is also local, and your breathing shouldn’t be effected much if at all, so this shouldn’t be a limiting factor like other muscle groups. Remember how I previously stated that they can be trained quickly at the beginning of any upper body training? The rest period doesn’t need to be as long as it is for other movements / muscle groups. You should go again when your breathing is good, the burn is almost away and you feel mentally ready for another hard set.
Fatigue & Exercise Selection - The calves are not a very fatiguing muscle to train, it’s very local. There is even less fatigue generated through Leg Press calf raises due to no spinal loading (loading of the spine with weight) like there is with Smith Machine calf raises or a dedicated Standing Calf Raise Machine.
Rep Range & Loading - We know hypertrophy can occur in the 6-30 rep range (as long as your training to 1-3 Reps in Reserve, therefore appropriate loading is required). This can be split for the human brain to easily compartmentalise repetition range as - 5-10 heavy / 10-20 - moderate / 20-30 light. You can try all three, split over three days, have a heavier loading day with a lower rep range on day 1 and a moderate weight and higher rep range day 2 etc.
Intensity Techniques - Incorporating various intensity techniques can be of value but don’t do all every training session. Myo Reps & Drop sets work pretty well with calf raining.
Sample “Bolt on Programme”
You can try adding this specific calf training into your programme. Add or reduce volume where needed. If any rep range doesn’t work for you, just swap if for a higher or lower rep range. You might find 10-20 is your “sweet spot”.
Day 1 - Single Leg Calf Raises - 5x 6-12 (Hold a dumbbell in one hand if extra weight is required)
Day 2 - Smith Machine Calf Raises - 5x 10-20
Day 3 - Leg Press Calf Raises - 5x 20-30
