I am ready to give up. Does anyone have a real success story about growing bigger calf muscles? I have tried and my success is marginal, at best. What are the exercises that helped you to gain some real mass there? Please help. I belong to a gym that doesn't have any calf machines at all so I improvise standing calf raises using a squat machine with a step on the bottom to allow my heels to hang over. I do single calf raises using this and increase the weight by increasing the pressure on the pads that go over my shoulders. I would love to hear some success stories, no matter how offbeat the methods just to keep motivated.
Well I have very small calf muscles but that's more than I had before I started working out. First of all calf muscles are slow twitch which in layman terms means they are built for endurance so to actually build mass in the calf muscles you want to do higher reps like 20 to 25 reps to failure. Maybe get a really hot burn on the last 1/3 of the reps. Go high reps and concentrate on getting that great burn and using full range of motion rather than on how much weight you can lift.
As far as exercises there are the seated calf raises and standing calf raises and since your gym doesn't have the seated calf raise machine it sounds like you are doing pretty much the exercises you can do. Also stretch those calfs out before, in between sets, and after. I like to lean up against the wall with my feet flat on the floor about 4 or 5 feet back from the wall and get a really good stretch on those calf muscles. Also you can take a towel and put it around your toes and hold on to both ends of the towel while sitting down with your leg out straight and pulling the toes back and this will stretch out the calf muscle too. I think the stretching helps out a lot.
I was always under the impression that because calf muscles are endurance muscles that get tons of "reps" during the day they actually need very heavy weights to shock them into growth. I do 3 sets, 15 reps/ea. and the heaviest "pressure" weight I achieved so far is 85 pounds (for single calf raises). When I do calf raises with both legs ( 1 set, 20 reps)I get up to 250 lbs. I have been doing that three times a week for the past 3-4 months. Before that I used no weight at all, only my body weight. In all this time my calves increased by about 1/2". Not much for about 2 years of unrelenting effort. Maybe I will try your method with higher reps and take it easy with the weights.
Everything I've read and heard from those that have great calves says higher reps. I'd suggest you do some searching on the internet and read up on it and see what info you can find but I think you'll find higher reps is what most recommend. The forearms are the same type of muscle fibers as the calves and you also want higher reps for them. I had switched to lower reps with higher weight for a while and saw very little results and went back to the higher reps recently and feel like its working out better for me again.
I have some pretty big calves. I used to do 1000-2000 calve raises, toes in and toes out, biking and jogging help too. Also a seated calve raise thing is great to use. I usually work like just the lower half of the raise, then the upper half, then do the full range of motion, and I vary the weight from high to low, and pretty much just have fun with it (and burn!). My calves are great and always have been. Running really gave me a great soleus though.
When you say that the higher reps are working out better for you, do you mean that you have noticed some growth? And if so, how long did it take you to achieve that growth and how much of a growth is it?
Thanks for all the input. You definitely sound like you do your research in addition to doing the work of working out.
It sounds to me as though you have been genetically endowed with some great calf genes and your calves were, in all likelihood, quite large even before you started working out. You are lucky. From all I read on the subject, calf muscle shape and size are very dependent on genetics. Still, I do not give up easy and will try almost (I did say almost, right?) anything to get mine to grow.
Being an endomorph, yes I do have good genes. But genetics are only blue prints, we can alter ourselves. It just takes a bit more effort and specificity and what not to one's training. I really do need to find a chart to see what muscles are most likely made up of (fiber-wise: note I do know people are individualistic, but by being the animal we are, we generally have a certain type of fiber to certain muscles, how we've adapted over the years changes that) but knowing what fiber the calves are (gastroc and soleus) will determine how one should go about working their calves, if bodybuilding is what they're going for, otherwise power and endurance are the only practical applications to strength training
I always do high reps, heavy weight. It gives my calf's a GREAT burn.
Anyone see that show on MTV "True Life"? There was a guy who got calf implants. He went from 14 1/2 inches to a lil over 16. Looked ripped too!
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For the majority, weightlifting is a harmless past time. But for the elite, it's a grueling ritual. It incorporates pain as it's own divine reward. It sees no amount of crushing dedication as too great a sacrifice and never fails to render results.
Yes, I saw that show. It ran several months ago, also. I though his calves looked odd. But I think most implants -- breast, calf, pectorals, what have you -- look a bit odd.
AEMT-CC,
Is your high rep and heavy weight method successful in getting your calves bigger? Do you see a lot of actual growth since you've started the routine and if so, how long did it take before you noticed any significant growth? The "burn" is nice but the ultimate test of success is the result you get. What good is getting the "burn" if, after all the hard work, you get little or no results?
Anyway, for me, going as heavy as I could for 15-20 reps is what started packing on muscle. And to improve, always adding reps, sets or more weight. Calves are almost impossible to overtrain - resiliant little buggers - but the biggest problem I see is that most people do not use enough weight/resistance. If you can breeze through 20 reps, it's too light (imho). Doing zillions of reps reinforces the endurance aspects, but will take you forever to get any mass.
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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins
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Keep your body lean, your blood clean and your mind sharp. -Rollins
Rita,
Yeah, it did help me pack on muscle for my calfs. But my calfs are retarded, so I have to beat the shi* out of them. They never really responded to anything I did untill I started doing high weight, high reps. I'm talking not being able to walk for a good few min after each set, intensity. I started out with exactly 15 inch calfs, now I'm a tad over 16 after a years time.
Sometimes, some people just have to face the facts and deal with stubborn calfs. It's going to take time, but it's worth it. Your going to be a stand out person when you get the big, muscular calfs because not many people have them. They don't get the attention they deserve by most people and when they do, most people give up when they don't respond.
__________________
For the majority, weightlifting is a harmless past time. But for the elite, it's a grueling ritual. It incorporates pain as it's own divine reward. It sees no amount of crushing dedication as too great a sacrifice and never fails to render results.
I was told when I first started working out to do high reps at 20 to 25 on calves and I got most of my training tips from a guy that was my height (5'10") and started out at 150 pounds and at that time he was 185 and hardly any body fat not to mention a degree in phys ed. He obviously knew what he was doing and was starting out at the same point I was. Now when I say high reps don't confuse that with low weight. Do the maximum amount of weight you can with 20 to 25 reps and feel that burn on the last 5 to 10 reps. Your face should be wincing in pain by the time you are done with a set and it should be difficult to walk right away as AEMT-CC said. The more reps you can squeeze out while feeling that big time burn the better for building those calves.
Personally I haven't gained a lot of size in my calves but I don't train them real often and my genetics dictate that I start with basically no calves at all so building them up is very difficult and hasn't been one of my bigger priorities in the weight room. I couldn't tell you what size they were or are cause I don't measure my body parts or anything like that. Try the 20 to 25 rep range, feel the burn big time, go to failure every set and do 3 sets of standing and 3 sets of seated raises and use full range of motion in your sets. Be patient and be diligent and the success you seek will come at the pace your genetics allow.
I really need to work my calves. If only they grew as fast as they strengthen. I've gone from half a stack on the standing calf machine to the whole stack with minimal size gains.
I can't stress enough how important it is when working the calves to do higher reps. Not the 6 to 12 or whatever for chest or arms or your other fast twitch muscles. Calves MUST be trained differently and that means higher amounts of reps for muscle mass gains while keeping with maximum weight and taking everything to failure as best you can.
What about jumping rope or running hill sprints? I know these aren't typical muscle building exercises but I know after I "jump-rope" with Denise Austin sometimes my calves are killing! Just a thought.
I don't know about jumping rope or anything like that. Probably goes more too the genetics of the calf muscles for your body. I'm sure it will build muscle on some people by doing that.
I'd do 3 sets of seated to failure and 3 sets of standing to failure. Now if you haven't worked calves in a long time you might want to be able to walk later this week so you might consider doing fewer the first time around and seeing how sore that makes you.
Thanks for all the nice respones. I will definitely try higher reps with as much weight as I can handle. I suppose that the gains I did make in my calves are not so bad. I increased my calves from about 13 1/2" to about 14" or a tad over. This, however, brings me to another question that has been bothering me. I find that when I measure my calves, on some days they actually go down in size even though my workout remains the same. Does that ever happen to any of you and is that kind of flactuation in size of a muscle normal or common? It can be pretty upsetting when I believe that I made some more progress and a few days or even weeks later I note a drop in size. Any ideas about this?
Is it impossible to grow bigger calves? 
