A routine for the shankless many

When you see a local bodybuilding contest you see trends in developments and what the general weak areas area for the majority of bodybuilders. As the level of competition gets higher these weaknesses are usually not as evident as the competitiors get better. In my opinion the most glaring weakness tend to be lower body orientated with two muscle groups being the usually suspects – namely the calves and hamstrings. Hamstrings are a no brainer as they are the most out of view bodypart and we are all guilty to a degree of training what we see. However calves tend to be trained reasonably regularly so this explanation falls flat. I will go out on a limb here and say there is two reasons why we don’t see as much calf development that as we should. Firstly the calves aren’t trained to the volume as other bodyparts – be honest have you done as many sets for calves as you have for biceps? Its doubtful and even if you did this also doesn’t account for the indirect work the biceps take in all pulling movements. Most people have an entire day devoted to arms yet the calves can potentially hold as much muscle mass but get stuck on the end of a lowerbody session when you’re totally wiped from already doing hard work such as squats and such.
The second reason would be due to how the calves are trained. Most people take some time to consider the various different actions of the back, chest and arms etc to ensure they are trained through every possible avenue. Calves tend to be worked by just doing standard calve raises and if their lucky they will have some seated calve raises as well. Yet one of the calves muscles is a biarticulate muscle which works in several lowerbody actions and this doesn’t even take into account the synergistic actions they contribute to in other movements. Below I have outlined my routine for calve training which has proven its efficacy as I had to stop training calves as their size started to negatively effect the balance of my physique.

But what about genetics
You hear it stated endlessly that calves are a genetically determined muscle group and some people have them some don’t. I say this is only half true, sure some people are genetically fortunate to develop calves easier than others but training makes a large difference. I for one am in this group, both my mother and daughter also seem to have good calves but the high level of development is due to this coupled with a smart plan of attack when it comes to training my lower legs. Whatever you genetic disposition you can improve your calves if you follow a dedicated program to work these areas.

 

I split my leg training up like many do into hip extension and knee extension days. Due to their biomechanical function I feel the calves’ suit being placed upon the hip extension day for reasons I will explain below.

First exercise pairing
Seated calf raises superset with deadlifts. 3 sets 6-10 reps.

I once read that the calves take around 20% of the load in the initial pull of the deadlift and it makes sense as in this position the ankle is dorsi flexed and will require the soleus to work heavily to pull the lower leg into a straight position. To make this harder for the calves if your back doesn’t like heavy deadlifts you can do it off a platform which will decrease the load employed but cause greater dorsi flexion at the ankle. The reason I superset seated calf raises with deadlifts is because the bent knee position of deadlifts more suites soleus recruitment which compliments the specific loading patterns of seated calf raises.

Second exercise pairing
Leg curls superset with standing calf raises. 2-3 sets 8-12 reps

This one is more for the gastrocnemius. As the gastroc crosses the knee and is a weak knee flexor it will receive work during leg curls. As such I do a set of calf raises followed by leg curls which gives the calf a lot of work. To make this exercise more efficient at working the gastroc rather than the hamstrings  you can ensure you  keep your feet dorsi flexed so the gastroc is not inhibited and can take some of the brunt of the workload. By combining the leg curls with  calf raises you have more or less pre exhausted the gastrocnemius before doing the leg curls which will mean it will have to recruit extra fibers when you push hard on the leg curls to aid the movement..

 

Weighted calf stretches
With a dumbbell or barbell on your shoulders or in a calf raise machine just stay in the stretched position of a calf raise machine for a minute or so. This causes a large mechanical loading on the calves in a stretched position which some belive to be beneficial for growth. It also ensures you maintain ankle flexibility which for many is a culprit in poor squatting technique.

 

On my knee extension days I will possibly do wave squats were you squat down as deep as possible and explode up onto your toes. This is a good finisher for quads but hits the calves heavily as well and allows me to get two sessions in for calves. I normally performed one or two sets of twenty or more reps which allows a different stimulus for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy rather than the myofibril hypertrophy seen in on hip extension days

That’s the routine I have found to work for me but from a personal point of view I never see anyone put calves first in a routine and they never seem to have the same volume as biceps or other bodyparts and to be honest the effort put forth isn’t worth the time either. In addition there is the extra curricular activity that calves  can benefit on, a good example of this is the calf development of overweight individuals because the have to carry around the heavy weight regularly as such doing other activites which place work on the calves regularly will help for example walking uphill and other non gym based activities and sports can certainly impact the development of the calves.

Anyway I’ve shared my routine , if you have a calve weakness try it and let me know how you get on, but just remember if you want good development you have to put forth the same effort as other body parts and with a rational plan of training.