You’re only going to be reading this if you aren’t happy with your calves. In my experience of training, there are only two types of people in the gym. Those with big calves, and those with small ones. Okay so that’s not strictly true, but I never really see anybody who fits in between and think that their calves are ‘alright’.
I’ve always had small calves. I blamed genetics for a good amount of time after I thought I tried everything. I even stopped training them for a while, the guys in the gym who had big calves didn’t even seem to train theirs, much to my frustration. I was happy with the other parts of my body; my calves were just looking unproportionate. With that said, not all hope is lost, and I have managed to add some size to my calves by learning a little bit about them. Really, there’s only two reasons why they won’t grow; you’re training them wrong and, you aren’t in a calorie surplus. Here’s what I learnt.
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The calves are used every single day. Read that again. That’s how much tension your calves are under all the time. You are using them from the moment you get up out of bed. They carry your mass around all day, they are used to exercise. This means that they have a very high level of adaptability.
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They have a really strong stretch reflex. This means that your reps need to be extremely controlled and slow.
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Their range of motion is very limited. Much like the point above, if you are performing a calf exercise with the same tempo as every other muscle you train, it's likely that you aren’t giving it enough time under tension, which is a key variable to muscle growth.
So, now knowing this information, how did I alter my calf training?
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This should have gone without saying, as I already did this on all my other exercises but keeping the resistance on my calves during the lowering of the weight became key. This was quite easy to do on any other exercise, as my mind to muscle connection was so good. Probably because I enjoyed training everything else but also because I had a high frequency training program, every muscle was getting trained between 3-4 times a week. This really dialled me in to each muscle. My calves just weren’t getting this kind of attention. I increased the frequency to 2 or 3 times a week and it improved my connection with them greatly.
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I increased my time under tension. This is a great tool for training in general. If you are used to performing reps that only last a second or two, then try increase those reps to 4-5 seconds. You won’t be as strong at first, but your muscles will thank you for it by growing. Plus, in no time, you will be back using the same weight you used for those measly 2 second reps.
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I eliminated the stretch reflex. As I previously mentioned, the calf has a really strong stretch reflex and could be one of the main reasons you struggle to grow them. The stretch reflex comes into play at the bottom of the exercise and if you aren’t pausing your reps, it's actually this reflex that is moving the weight, not your calves. A simple 2-3 second pause at the bottom of the exercise will eliminate this reflex and make sure that it’s your calves moving the weight. IF you do this right, you’ll notice a difference immediately.
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I squeezed at the top of every contraction hard. I aimed for a 1 or 2 second squeeze which may sound like nothing, but believe me, when you put all these points together and throw in a peak contraction squeeze, it feels like your calves are going to pop out.
So, all hope is not lost. Plus, I think you will agree it’s a relatively easy fix implementing these techniques. Be consistent with them and please do eat in a surplus, they won’t grow without one even if you do implement all these techniques.
