Has anyone actually had a success story with their calves?

[kalovisor90]

@kaieraai Get fat…real fat and then have children…the dad bod as well as the instant gains from the newly found dad strength will give you the juiciest calves and the fullest moustache you’ve also gotta start wearing polo shirts tucked into dad jeans and wear a bass pro shop cap the outfit grants +1000 in dad strength which will carry over to the calves.

But In all seriousness train them across all the rep-ranges both on the heavier side to get them strong and the higher ranges for that burn and pump also train them explosively think plyometrics like jumps, and jump rope like all muscles they will be made up of both fast twitch and slow twitch fibers the more you train all of the muscle fibers within a given muscle group the bigger the muscle is going to be.

Edit: also very anecdotal but I always notice that the more I do mobility work and stretching in any given muscle group the better I can grow it. Here’s my educated guess as to why I think that might be.

If the muscle you’re trying to grow is tight and therefore shortened it’s going to be a lot harder for you to lengthen that muscle belly and then contract it efficiently…so by doing flexibility work and mobility work you’re able to lengthen the muscle to a greater degree not only from the lack of tightness but also the increased range of motion from improving flexibility will provide a deeper stretch so maybe try some calf specific stretching and mobility work and see how you get on, including rolling out your calves, foot arches and the general underside of the foot, stretching the Achilles tendon and also the tibialis anterior and see how this helps with your ability to get the muscle lengthened and shortened better.

 

[jskywalker]

@kaieraai Since this is a natural bodybuilding sub, it should be noted that calf implants are not considered "natural" by most natural federations. That said, I know that Dave Maconi of the Brains and Gains podcast did an experiment where he only trained one calf for 2 years and it made no difference. Personally, no amount of training has ever made a noticeable difference with my calves in over 25 years. Conversely, a serious ankle injury did cause my already weak calves to atrophy and become an even weaker point. Individual differences will likely play a big role in this, but my personal experience as someone with genetically poor calf development has been that they did not respond to training.

 

[kaieraai]

@jskywalker Think i'm on the same boat here. At this point, it looks like i'll have to maintain an overall lower mass as my upper body / upper legs tend to grow decently well with training and I care a bit more about proportions at this point..

 

[dawn16]

@kaieraai Good luck! I've had next to zero success from years of lifting, trying all sorts of things. The only time I put on any size (and not very much) was when I was still competing athletically and sprinting and doing lots of sled pushes. It's the one area of my body where genetics screws me. I keep working em hard, but won't fret over them any more.

 

[confusedgirl98]

@kaieraai Do calves before you hit your upper body. Won't impact your upper body, and you won't be fatigued from like when you hit them at the end of legs

 

[sbrodhagen]

@kaieraai Some factors to consider.

Theoretically, hitting calves first whether in your leg workouts or other work outs should allow you to recruit more motor units, bigger weights, mechanical tension which is a bigger signal for growth.

This is also true for more stable exercises over less stable. I would suppose Leg Press Calf Raise is marginally more stable than standing calf raise.

I also suspect calves respond favorably to stretch mediated hypertrophy like hamstrings(and other muscles are known to do).

The Gastroc is also a knee flexor.

So if I were to do a Leg workout that prioritizes calves I would start out leg press calf raises with a great focus on the stretch position, followed by seated calf raises (stretch again) to make sure the soleus has some stimulation/volume although this is really questionable. Than following that doing ham string curls with the feet in dorsiflexion during the eccentric stretch.

May be worth also testing out to see if you could use > 50% of the load/reps doing calves unilateral as well as theoretically there would be greater mechanical tension if you could but if for stability reasons you couldn't get > 50% for load/reps it would be better to stick with the bilateral version.

Given that Mechanical tension is likely the primary driver for growth I'm not actually all that sure that extra volume from the seated calf raises or dorsiflexion during the eccentric in hamstring curls helps.

 

[bonnie99]

@kaieraai Hey this isn’t exactly your question but flat feet/knock knees is usually caused by over pronation and internal rotation at the hips and that can be corrected by activating feet/ankle muscles and working on gluteus medius/outer hip muscles. This would probably help your calves grow too as they would be in a more natural position due to the slight arch in your foot. Over pronation of the ankles can stretch and weaken certain parts of your calves.

 

[bookmaker]

@kaieraai Calves need high rep ranges. My calves grew linearly with my overal body mass, never trained them. I guess daily walking with larger weight is what increased them for me.

 

[snailchan]

@kaieraai I was overweight and walked a lot. I now have calves that are essentially an extension of my thighs.