Has anyone actually had a success story with their calves?

[kaieraai]

Maybe i'm just not looking hard enough but I simply cannot find any convincing before/after photos of calf growth. I understand that genetics is a huge part of this (i.e. muscle insertions, growth, etc) and I also understand that it IS actually possible to increase the mass somewhat.

However, what I struggle with is not only mass/size, but the fact that they are simply not aesthetic and "oddly" shaped due to my anatomy. For reference, I have flat feet and somewhat knocked knees and what I hate especially about my calves is the fact the medial head of the gastrocnemius just simply doesn't look right compared to what is considered aesthetic.

Here's a reference pic which I think clearly shows what i'm talking about

Is there anything at all I can do here? Surgery / implants perhaps? Or am I forever limited here due to poor genetics. Any insight or even success stories would help so that I don't feel as discouraged working my calves in the gym. Otherwise, think i'll just have to spend more time accepting my body and managing my expectations..

 

[doks]

@kaieraai My calves started to grow when I did ridiculously high rep ranges, with a DEEP range of motion and pausing in the stretched position every rep. I also took a page out of Dante Trudel’s training and would incorporate a 60-120 sec hold in the stretched position with a very heavy weight. It’s agonizing when you’re doing it, but man does it provide a very loud muscle building signal to the body.

 

[yuhforex]

@doks Mine started growing when i did them deep and slow pausing both at the bottom and top and single leg at a time.

 

[dtc]

@doks totally agree. I took my training techniques from John Meadows and he basically says the same things. great way to get those little fuckers to actually grow

 

[kimutaikim]

@kaieraai I was born with god tier calves and a split chest that won’t grow for shit.

Be careful what you wish for.

 

[hdelaluz14]

@kimutaikim Are you sure about that.

Often weak points just improve slower so you have to focus more and longer on them.

 

[jaggerwayne]

@kimutaikim I felt this comment.

 

[prestonz]

@kaieraai Bro. My calves have gotten bigger by like a half inch in four months. Some things I did:

•don’t skip them. People treat them as an afterthought. Literally just train them.

•go SLOW on reps. Pause at the bottom and get that nice stretch for one second, then go up and CONTROL THE ECCENTRIC.

•train both seated and standing calf raise variants. Throw in some donkey calf raises too if you want.

•don’t blame your genetics. Calves WILL grow. You just need to put the work into them.

 

[thewritingmommy]

@kaieraai My strength in my calves increases, but visible muscle mass? It's hard to tell.

 

[kimberly3421]

@kaieraai Jeff Alberts at 3DMJ has done some posts showing his fairly significant growth on calves that you can look up. Of course, for him it’s literally over the course of like 30 years of consistent training.

 

[nereetjuh]

@kaieraai If you train your calves consistently and hardly they will improve.
I don't have any pictures but within the last 12 months my calves are the muscles I have seen the largest improvement with.

Don't train shitty volume. I saw the most growth when I peeled back my amount of sets per week (down to 6 sets, previously tried 20 for a few year then 12). Like any muscle they need ample time to recover, which is typically several days.

If you can lift (or raise in this case) the same weight and train them more than 3x a week you are simply not pushing yourself. If you are pushing yourself with proper form to the point of failure and exertion you cannot lift the same weight if you try again sooner than 3ish days.

 

[deesweetz]

@kaieraai I’ve gained 5/8 of an inch on my arms, 1” on my thighs, but I’ve not gained a single 1/4” on my calves the past 5-months (some of it is rebuilding lost muscle from a 2week lay off). And I’ve trained them hard and often (2-3 sometimes 4x week)

My calves look similar to that picture. There’s not much you can do but try to grow them. I’ve moved to trying to progressively overload leg press calf raises heavy in the 10-15 range instead of 15-20 to see if that helps, followed by single leg BW raises to and past failure.

I refuse to believe that they won’t adapt to training, it’s just figuring out what you have to do to get them to grow. If that means doing 25 sets to failure a week then I’ll go that route lol. Just stick to something for 3-months, measure before and after, if they didn’t grow then maybe try a different technique or exercises. You’re not alone in the struggling to grow calves department.

Edit: Jeff Alberts from team3dmj, though not similar calf genetics, grew his to be pretty damn big from being “meh”. There are some before and after pics of it on Google.

 

[kaieraai]

@deesweetz Thanks for sharing! Will definitely try experimenting a bit more but what's also a bit unfortunate is that I often find my feet/ankles giving out before my calves do. I imagine that my flat feet / overpronation issues may have something to do with this as my heels have a tendency to not go evenly straight / vertically up during flexion (if that makes sense)

 

[deesweetz]

@kaieraai I had a similar issue. My feet “cramped” when doing straight legged calf raises and I had to stop the set early. Using a shoe that isn’t totally flat, like an old Nike running shoe absorbs some of the weight and helped me out especially on leg press calf raises where the weights are heavy. It took me over a month to get the form right on calf raises as goofy as that sounds, but my mind muscle connection and ability to have my calves fail and not my Achilles or feet has improved tenfold.

I do want to mention one thing is if the only thing my calves are vascular when pumped and they were not like this months ago. So I’m guessing I’ve grown some muscle just not enough to accurately measure, or I somehow lost ankle fat lmao.

 

[fbrooks83]

@kaieraai Use full ROM, preferably do standing and sitting calf raises, try to hit your calves as often as possible, I personally end all of my workouts with calves, 3x of 15, last set AMRAP.

All of your muscle potential is about genetics, stop blaming your calf genetics and just start working harder

 

[gypsysong]

@kaieraai I think doing lots of hills/stairs has gotten my calves huge. Try adding one or both of these as often as possible. Of course you'll need caloric surplus in addition to enough protein in order to add muscle mass.

 

[caljreich]

@kaieraai I'm pretty much gifted with calves. But they definitely grow from squats and doing them on leg press, with as much weigh as if I were actually pressing. Fast reps to failure we 4-5 sets as a leg day finisher.

 

[namakula]

@kaieraai Just make it a habit to do at least 4 sets per week, or even 8-12 if you want to prioritise them. I've had the most success with 6-10 reps with around 0-1 RIR, progressive overload like any other muscle.

 

[dawn16]

@kaieraai Just got to keep training bro, mix up those angles, i have flat feet as well i dont think it effects anything.

 

[johnc101]

@kaieraai Bro science but I think they just need a lot of and frequent stimulus. Best calves of my life was when I was untrained 300lbs but walking constantly. I’ve done hundreds of calf workouts since being much leaner and haven’t been able to get back close to where they were when I was fat (and I really doubt it’s a difference in fat storage - I never really stored fat on my lower legs). That’s why imo a lot of very fat guys have big calves - they’re moving around a lot of bodyweight all day.

I don’t really care enough about them to experiment but if I did, I would try to work them at least daily or twice daily high volume high load, with full stretch and pause. Besides that, dante trudel has an incline treadmill protocol that supposedly worked wonders for a lot of guys if you google or search around intensemuscle.com.