MUSCLE SPECIFIC TRAINING TIPS: CALVES
- Marvin Wijnand
- Jul 14, 2019
- 14 min read
-Before reading this, make sure you have read the introduction to my training tips series HERE.
This is the first part of my muscle specific training guide series, starting with calves, because let’s face it, who doesn’t want big, developed calves?
Creating a calf training guide has been on my mind for quite some time and I see a lot of value in this guide in particular, therefore this seemed like a great opener for my page.
Observing this muscle group in the general public and gym will leave you with a couple of things. Overweight people and folks that participate in sports like football usually have proportionately bigger calves. But since we are not necessarily interested in becoming either one of those, it is therefore important to distinguish what does and does not directly contribute to calf growth.
Despite the fact that lots of people who exercise regularly have at least ‘some’ calf training in their training regimen, more often than not it just doesn’t yield the desired results.
If this happens to be you, don’t worry, i think i’ve got you covered in this one!
Table of contents:
Anatomy
Genetics
Consistency and patience
Exercise Execution and Range of motion
Standardization
Intensity of Load
Intensity of Effort
Overload and Progression
Volume
Frequency
Variation
Exercise Index
Intensity Techniques
Practical programming
Periodization
Anatomy
Calves are composed of 2 major muscles, the Soleus and Gastrocnemius. The soleus is the long (lateral) and underlying part of the calf, whereas the gastrocnemius forms the ‘ball’ part of the calf, this section is seen mostly from the rear.
Though often forgotten, because they are different, they assist in different movement patterns and function under different join angles and thus require slightly different exercises to target them specifically.
Though both muscles assist in performing plantar flexing the foot at the ankle joint (calf raises) and flexing the leg at the knee joint (leg curls with stretched calves), the soleus is targeted primarily in the position where the knees are bend (seated calf raises). The gastrocnemius is targeted more directly when performing calf raises with straight legs.
The reason most overweight people have very developed calves is because the soleus in particular allows us humans to walk and stay upright. Because these movements are very common in everyday life, the soleus is known to be one of the most slow twitch dominant skeletal muscles in the human body. The gastrocnemius is a tad more fast twitch.
Slow twitch fibers are great in that they barely fatigue and recover very quick due to their high degree of blood vessel count for transportation of oxygen for energy production and slow muscle contractions. But because slow twitch fibers have less adaptive proclivities relative to fast twitch muscle fibers, this is another determining factor for relatively little calf growth for most people, compared to other muscle groups.
Genetics
Calf thickness and insertion points seem to be influenced by genetics more than any other muscle group, but there is hope.
Anecdotally and scientifically, one’s starting point can be a bad predictor of genetics for building muscle. An untrained individual with very little muscle mass can have better muscle-building-genetics than a relatively ‘big’ untrained individual.
Because genetics are basically the only thing we have no control over once you’ve picked your parents, any time spend debating this (limiting) factor is time away from training or recovering from training calves properly, which WILL grow them.
Consistency and Patience
Growing big calves may take you disproportionately more effort and time compared to other muscle groups. Despite the fact that it takes more time, a lot of people train them either too inconsistent or assume they will see visual changes within a month. Time is your friend, If you stop training them altogether, they for sure won’t grow.
Exercise Execution and Range of motion
This is a big one.
Most of the time, someone’s limited calf development is not due to insufficient volume, intensity or even consistency. It’s rather the execution of the ‘calf’ exercises that is the bottleneck.
Because the Achilles tendon is one of the strongest tendons in the human body, it is damn good in taking over what’s supposed to be done by your calf muscles: Plantar flexion.
Pausing firmly in the top and bottom position of any calf raise will ensure the Achilles tendon is silent, and the muscle is doing exactly what you want.
I myself have found foot placement to be another big player in executing the calf raise properly. Different sides of the calf can be targeted with pointing the toes either in or out. Add to that, pressing through the toe can make a night and day difference in ‘feeling’ the calf.
We know that feeling a muscle with a specific exercise it not a definitive must for the exercise to be effective, but since calf training can be written off almost completely as isolation work, I suggest focusing on building a strong mind muscle connection with your calves.
Pick a foot position that allows you to press through the big toe for through as much of your range of motion as possible.
Standardization
The importance of standardizing exercise technique is no exception for calves. Note your stance width, pin heights, keep the shoes consistent and take a full stretch to flexed range of motion. This ensures that whatever progress you make on paper is true progress, and you are not fooling yourself either by accident, or knowingly by cutting range of motion for the sake of adding weight or reps.
Intensity of Load
As discussed in the anatomy section, calves are almost exclusively composed of slow switch muscle fibers. Slow twitch fibers tend to respond better to high(er) rep training as they produce less absolute force and have better endurance.
Low rep training with calves makes it really hard to focus on the actual muscle, which I have found to make a big difference in actually using the calf muscle, instead of joints and the Achilles tendon. The Tibialis anterior (the muscle that covers your shins) does take a fair beating on low rep training from my own experience too.
Exercises that target the calves are typically better suited for reps in the 8-30 range.
Intensity of Effort
Intensity of effort is the variable that describes your actual or perceived level of effort with respect to failure (you couldn’t do another repetition). As this variable will influence every other training variable (and vice-versa) considerably, this one might be taken into consideration when designing a training block or program.
Within a given training block, training effort (or relative intensity) can be increased week to week from ±4 reps in reserve. Because calves are a relatively small muscle group, going close(r) to failure potentially has little drawbacks compared to bigger muscle groups.
The magnitude of the drawbacks from going to failure will then tie-in to your calf training frequency closely.
Practical block example for X training frequency for every programmed calf exercise:
Week 1: Pick a weight that is challenging in the desired rep range and stop where the reps start to slow down considerably. (4 reps from failure)
Week 2: Progress on WEEK 1 via reps/load/sets (3 reps from failure)
Week 3: Progress on WEEK 2 via reps/load/sets (2 reps from failure)
Week 4: Progress on WEEK 3 via reps/load/sets (1 rep from failure
Week 5: Progress on WEEK 4 via reps/load/sets (Approach failure)
Deload: Reduced load and volume (5 reps from failure)
Repeat
Overload and Progression
When assigning volume in hard weekly sets (0-4 from failure) to the calf muscles, frequency will be a key player in structuring your weekly calf training program.
As derived from the scientific principles of strength training, we know training should be progressive in nature across a given timescale to ensure an ongoing adaptive response to training.
Something tightly related and less often considered within that principle is the principle of overload. The principle of Overload describes the threshold from which progression should happen in order to elicit actual adaptation to training (considered MEV).
Therefore, training can be progressive yet not overloading. Vice versa, it can be overloading, but not progressive (regressive).
This is illustrated perfectly in the following schematic (source: How much should I train?)
Training volumes as proposed and conceptualized by Dr Mike Israetel in the Volume Landmark book: ‘How much should I train?’
Maintenance volume (MV)
The landmark that describes the amount of (weekly) training volume you will need to do in order to maintain your current level of muscularity in a given body part.
Any training below this number will by definition result in de-training and actual tissue loss.
This amount of volume is relevant for phases that promote a reduction in fatigue, a re-sensitization effect to volume, or a de-emphasis phase where you want to conserve energy to bring up other body parts.
Through anecdotal experience, beginners and early intermediates potentially are able to maintain the calf musculature with as little as zero sets of direct calf training. Conventional leg training that includes knee bending and hip hinging exercises may be sufficient to maintain calf size for those individuals.
Maintenance volume for most people and/or intermediates will lay around 6 sets per week (Renaissance Periodization Guideline)
Minimum Effective Volume (MEV)
If your goal is to gain as little muscle as possible (which I doubt), your minimum effective volume is the threshold that will stimulate the muscle just enough to initiate muscle gains.
Individuals that train in a block periodized fashion where week to week volume is added via sets, this set number can be considered a starting point.
Determining MEV:
Did you experience any degree of cell swelling within the calves?
Because cell swelling, also known as, the pump, correlates with homeostatic disruption and is a direct mechanism of hypertrophy, this might be an indicator that whatever volume you are currently doing is stimulative enough to cause hypertrophy.
Was the training challenging?
Obviously, not ALL training is challenging. If I would ask you to do 1 sets of calf raises, I would be surprised if you were able to accumulate sufficient tension in order to cause any cell swelling. On the other hand, we know that we can only do so much work until it becomes too much. When you finish your calf work and you cannot remember it 5 minutes later, it’s probably below your MEV. If you feel your calves every step away from the machine, it’s probably at or above your MEV.
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)
If you experience muscle soreness, tightness or weakness the day after or even 2 days after applied stimulus? it is very likely you have surpassed your minimum effective volume in that window and growth was potentially stimulated.
The MEV threshold for individuals north of absolute beginners seems to be around 8 hard sets per week. (Renaissance Periodization Guideline)
Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV)
If there is such thing as training too little there is almost certainly something as training too much (or recovering too little depending how you look at it).
As much as food, sleep and fatigue/stress management will impact your ability to recover from training, there is only so much you can really do about it to the point where your training stress will surpass your ability to recover. At this stage your rate of progression will decline, progression will stop all together or you’ll get worse.
The concept of excessive damage proposed by Mike Israetel illustrates that beyond your maximum recoverable volume, every unit of volume will degrade in its magnitude and duration of total stimulus and therefore its stimulus to fatigue ratio (SFR).
In a period where I prioritized my own calf training and ultimately in search for my calf MRV I’ve encountered serious recovery problems and actual muscle/joint pain at around 18 sets per week (2x a week frequency). This seems to be in line with RP’s MRV landmark stated at around 20 sets per week.
Volume ranges
Now that you know the most critical cutoff points/landmarks that are respectively;
Maintenance Volume (MV)
Minimum Effective Volume (MEV)
Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV),
there is definitely a range between every landmark, and each of those ranges is either in your interest or not.
(White) The 0 to MV range is definitely not your best bet as it will by definition make you lose muscle.
Going from there we end up above your Maintenance volume (MV). You now enter the range that is your Maintenance to Minimum effective volume (Yellow). There is no point in moving across this spectrum and/or sit at any given set number between those thresholds for extended periods of time. The additional work you perform beyond your Maintenance Volume (6 sets) is not stimulative enough to cause any growth as it is below your Minimum Effective Volume.
Moving past MEV we now entered the golden zone that is stimulative training (Green).
This amount of training is where you want to be if you actually want to gain muscle.
If your personal MEV landmark happens to be 8 sets, starting your mesocycle at 8 or 9 weekly sets can be considered wasted time if your adaptive window (MEV to MRV) is as big as 12 sets (8-20 sets).
What do I mean by wasted time?
Because I assume you want to eek out as much progress as possible within a given training block, i wouldn’t bet my money on training on the VERY low end of my adaptive window. Therefor going up 2 sets from MEV will give you a good starting point to progress from week to week and ensure the overloading threshold is met.
This brings me to Mike Israetel his final landmark from the Volume Landmark concept:
Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV)
The Maximum Adaptive Volume landmark is less of a set number and more so a set range.
This range will give you most of your gains within a given period of time.
As I like to program my own training in blocks where I ramp up my total work across weeks to the point where I need a deload (active rest) week, this range is of great importance when assigning weekly volume. If your total body recovery capacity allows you to train your calves optimally, Ideally you want to progress along this range from week 1 to week X before your deload.
This can look as followed (SAMPLE 5 WEEK BLOCK PROGRESSION):
Week 1: 10 total sets
Week 2: 12 total sets
Week 3: 14 total sets
Week 4: 16 total sets
Week 5: 18 total sets
Deload: 6 total sets
Repeat
Please note that your personal volume landmarks will almost definitely be subject to change in as little as days or weeks and as long as months or years. Changes within these landmarks are caused by lifestyle factors such as sleep, stress management and nutrition. But also, your ability to use heavier loads as your progress along the way.
Frequency
As explained in the Anatomy section, calves are almost exclusively composed of relatively slow twitch fibers. With their high endurance capacity and ability to recover from bouts of exercise, it is probably a wise idea to train the calves more frequent if hypertrophy is the goal.
I have personally had great results with training calves up to 4 times a week, ranging anywhere from 3-8 sets per session. Undulating Gastrocnemius and Soleus focused exercises is probably a wise idea here too.
If you are training your calves once a week in anything but a maintenance phase I am very skeptical of your way of optimizing calf growth.
My typical frequency recommendation for calves is 2-4 times a week.
Variation
Now that we have rough starting points to train our calves with sufficient intensity, frequency and volume, it is time to address some actual exercises.
Since most calf exercises require little neural adaptation by their simplistic movement pattern, it might be easier to vary exercises from mesocycle to mesocycle and still be able to progress. Though possible, I advise people to stick with movements for at least 2-3 mesocycles and really eek out some good progress on those lifts. If the movement does not feel right (anymore), throw it out and pick a new one.
When classifying a great calf exercise, it is important to identify its stimulus to fatigue ratio.
In other words, per unit of effort: how much does the exercise stimulate the muscle, relative to the degree of fatigue it creates.
Back to the overweight example, heavy weighted carry exercises might be quite stimulative for the calves, heck, they will probably make you crazy sore! But so will your traps, erectors, forearms, quads and abs.
Is it all of a sudden a great exercise for every muscle group now?
Not really, all involved muscles are very limited in their range of motion, probably resulting in very little hypertrophy on the net balance in any single muscle. Now imagine the fatigue weighted carries would create! Absolutely not worth it.
Pick exercises that will minimally tax assisting muscle groups and create little systemic fatigue.
Exercise index
A list of videos with exercises that will target the gastrocnemius and soleus:
Gastrocnemius focused
Soleus focused
Intensity techniques
Intensity techniques are training techniques that may offer a stimulus and potential benefit through different pathways other than mechanical tension alone.
Training to accumulate metabolites can be done in many ways.
Some of those are: rest-pause/MyoRep training, dropsets, giantsets and supersets that target a single musclegroup.
Another proposed training modality is the addition of occlusion training, or sometimes described as ‘Kaatsu’. Implementing this tool is rather easy for the calves: you wrap your legs with bandages just below the knees with enough tension to promote metabolite accumulation. This will result in a EXTREME and painful pump effect.
I have personally used it in the past and I have found it to be rather tricky to wrap the band with the right amount tension to the point where it doesn’t make them completely numb.
I prefer rest-pause sets for calves.
Because of the slow twitch composition calves tend to clear metabolites (lactate for example) very well. Intensity techniques are thus a great tool to accumulate more volume and reduce the total duration of training and perhaps systemic fatigue.
Recent research suggests that lactate accumulation may have a direct role in stimulating growth via increased anabolic effects.
Because muscles tend to get very good at clearing metabolites within a matter of weeks, incorporating intensity techniques is probably best suited for a periodized approach to avoid anabolic resistance via these hypertrophy pathways.
Practical programming
Now that I have covered most in-depth information about the calves itself and their response to training, let’s talk some actual programming.
To grow the calves to their full potential, training both the soleus and gastrocnemius within the same microcycle is probably a great idea.
After having addressed your own personal volume landmarks, you now have a starting point to initiate your training.
For sake of practicality, let’s assume you train 4 days a week and you have found through training experience that anything north of 10 sets will cause growth (MEV/MAV starting point).
Just because the calves are a part of your legs doesn’t mean you can/should train them on leg days exclusively. Calf training can easily be added to any training day, just make sure it doesn’t interfere with subsequent exercises such as standing exercises that require a lot of stability.
A training frequency of 2-4 days is probably suited in this instance for most individuals.
(note that this is added to additional training for other muscle groups)
This may look as followed:
Day 1 Gastrocnemius focused exercise (5 sets)
Day 2 No calf training
Off
Day 3 Soleus focused exercise (5 sets)
Day 4 No calf training
2 days off
Or
Day 1 Gastrocnemius focused exercise (3 sets)
Day 2 Soleus focused exercise (3 sets)
Off
Day 3 Gastrocnemius focused exercise (3 sets)
Day 4 Soleus focused exercise (3 sets)
2 days off
Higher frequency training may result in higher initial training volume because the volume effectiveness seems to be dubious south of 3 sets per session.
Another infinite amount of program samples could be made here. Your personal training program may allow only certain modalities and is thus very individual and context dependent. Take these solely as they are, examples.
Pick a weight that is challenging in the desired rep range and stop where the reps start to slow down significantly in week 1.
Periodization
Periodization is the act of giving structure to training in the form of subsequent training blocks that last X amount of time. This is done in a systematic way to reach the best possible outcome.
Periodization for hypertrophy to my knowledge is a relatively novel idea and the potential benefits have yet to be proven. (absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence)
Starting out with your first mesocycle, picking weights to progress in the moderate rep range (8-12) is probably your best bet. No intensity techniques are added yet.
After 4-5 weeks of progressive training, decide whether you want to keep your current exercises in or if you want to exchange 1 or 2 for a slightly different variation. This time you may also increase the rep range to 10-15 for example. In this phase you can slowly start to add in an intensity technique here and there. Address intensity techniques to roughly half of your current calf exercises.
If you happen to be interested in running another high volume mesocycle as your last mesocycle, increasing reps to 15-30 can be done. Intensity techniques should make up the majority of your exercise training style.
To promote recovery, a lower volume block where you train at maintenance to resensitize your muscles to training and upregulate anabolic pathways is your best interest now.
Tradition strength training like you do for most body parts in a typical maintenance block is most likely not going to happen for calves. Lower the reps to 6-8 as a minimum, 1-2 exercises at most in these weeks.
After a successful resensitization phase, evaluate your progress and use this as guidance for your next blocks of training!
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