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My calves growth experiment

368 views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  BLUE(UK) 
#1 ·
Hi all

I wanted to share a calf experiment I have attempted over the last few months and get some insight and views from the community. Firstly let me explain my situation , ive always had very poor legs and particularly calves i put some of it down to genetics looking at my mother with her super thin legs despite being heavily overweight, but i think the truth was more a i wasn't putting in the effort or using good range of motion etc. I had good progress with quads after taking a little more dedicated approach but still my calves lagged massively behind.

I noticed that nearly everyone in the gym bar the really exceptional bodies had crap calves but driving to work i noticed nearly all cyclists i saw daily had a decent pair after some research online i assumed that hitting calves daily or even 5-6 times a week must be more beneficial as the cyclists were riding too and from work daily.

I decided to start doing standing raises at home on the stairs daily for 45 days and to chart my progress.

Body weight during this period was between 212lbs and 221lbs as i was bulking
Height 6 foot

First 7 days i did three sets to failure , one with feet forward , one feet facing out and one facing inward
Each seven days i added in an additional set in the same toe position rotation. All reps were slow with a two second hold at top and bottom to ensure the tenons were not taking the weight.

Day 1 i managed 55 reps total , by day 29 i was doing 231

What i noticed tho was i was starting to have very sore ankles due to foot placement so i decided to only to foot forward from there on as this was causing least discomfort.

At day 31 it started to feel like the volume was getting too much as i had reached 7 total sets daily , i scaled this back to 5 sets but added in a dip belt and a 6kg kettlebell.

At day 38 i decided to change things up a little instead of focusing on reps , i did a 5 second stretch plus a 5 second contraction 5 times in a row followed by ten normal reps repeating this cycle to failure.

During the entire experiment my calves have been sore daily but not to any point where it hindered my movement mainly only feeling soreness when fully flexing or stretching the muscle.

Measurements have been challenging and i do find it hard to get consistent readings , they almost measure different at different times of the day , i find it hard to know im always in exactly the same place. I actually became obsessed with measuring and looking for progress to the fact id often measure them smaller than the day before and be in a foul mood all day.

Left - Day 1 36.9cm Day 15 38.9cm (+1cm) Day 30 39.4cm (+5mm) Day 45 40.3cm (+9mm) total 2.4cm
Right - Day 1 37.9cm Day 15 39.1cm (+1.2cm) Day 30 39.5 (+4mm) Day 45 40.6cm (+7mm) total 2.3cm

Overall i did see more growth doing this than i ever have in the past , however the low growth at 15-45 days when i was doing the highest volume would state that potentially the best options for growth would be to do 3-5 sets daily. I also notice the change in feet placement/kettlebell/5 second hold change prompted a boost in growth.

Im starting to plan a second 45 day attack on the calves using the lessons learned, less sets , changing up type of training perhaps daily or weekly. I was wondering what ppl on here thought and if there was any ideas of stuff i could incorporate into the next cycle of calf training. Ideally my first goal is to breach 16" and i would love to get to 17" to and potentially have calf size that matches my arms at 17.5", I would like to find a way of hitting the calves with heavy weight but i can only do this from the gym as my heaviest kettle bell is 7kg.
 
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#3 ·
Far too much thought imo going into this. Train calves DC style twice a week and you needn't over think to this level.

Look up DC calve training (Dante trudel).
ive tried similar to this and simply any time ive trained calves twice a week ive never gained anything , I guess im reading this right , one set 12 reps 15 second hold at the bottom explosive up and 5 seconds down ? im more than open to giving this a try as ive never done more than a 5 second hold at bottom. I guess you can say its overthinking but after years of training and my calves still looked like when i started i felt the need was there to give some focus.
 
#6 ·


might be some useful tips for you here
He was puffed out at 34 seconds lol. How much tren? Training the tibia and calls it a muscle heh heh, I like him. He's a bit of a spanner but I like him.

Part of my job is sports massage and a couple of years ago I had a client who was an endurance cyclist. He had just returned from completing 4-5 stages of the Tour de France. It was part of a semi pro comp where they get to compete in several stages to give them a taste of what the big boys do.

He was a black guy with the most miserable excuses of calves I have ever seen. True tiddlers of the calf world. I was in shorts. He says 'I wish I had calves like yours' to which I replied 'These calves (pointing at mine) can't do what those calves can do so would be no good to you'. I envied his cardio output. Incredibly fit dude. Appearance means fcuk all when it comes down to it.

OP good to hear you found improvements. Just to note holding the squeeze for x seconds will still cause load to be placed on the tendon so it will still take the weight. The calf is attached to the achilles.

For me, daily calf work is not necessary. Heavy load is what's required. We are all different though. We walk daily and have done since the day we were able to stand up. It's about challenging the muscle fibres with different ongoing stress.

I used to include treadmill on incline at different speeds and different inclines. Walking slow up to jog/sprint. This will create adaptation. Hitting standing calf raises with toes pointed outward, neutral, inward. TUT. Speed increase. Best one for me was to train unilateral. Especially seated calf.

Only got to number 5 with my puffed out friend. Will finish for more Saturday laughs. Cheers for posting, Simon :thumb
 
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