Why Your Calves Won't Grow

I’m sure you’re sitting there rolling your eyes at yet another article about why your calves are small, but you’re wrong! Not about your calves being small, they are… but let me tell you about how you can fix that and get you looking like Tom Platz.

Let start with a quick science lesson. The calf is made up of two muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius makes up the bulk of the calf muscle and is what is visible through the skin. The soleus is a flat muscle that lies beneath the gastroc and isn’t quite visible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important!

These two muscles merge together at the bottom of the calf and are connected to the Achilles tendon. The purpose of them is to elevate the heel and promote forward movement. Even though the gastrocnemius is mostly used for plantar flexion it also assists in knee flexion. As I said before the soleus is still very important, as it is consisted of “slow-twitch muscle fibers” which is why you can run and jump for periods of time without fatiguing the calf too much. These fibers also contribute to ankle stability; without them we’d be falling all over the place like Kendrick Perkins on the court.

Now down to business, the main movements needed to grow the gastrocnemius are: standing calf raises and donkey calf raises. Both requiring the leg to be straight. Here’s the kicker, because these muscles connect to the Achilles tendon there’s something called “elastic recoil” which means when you overload these movements and bounce the weight at the bottom you’re not actually working your calf muscles. The same goes for isolating the soleus with bent knee calf raises, it is not optimal to speed through 50 reps with four plates and then complain that your calves haven’t grown in years.

The key is to have a slow eccentric(lowering) movement and pause at the bottom of each rep as well as a slow concentric(lifting) movement with a hard squeeze at the top of the lift. Through my own trial and error, I would suggest having a combination of heavier weight with low reps as well as a bit lighter with higher reps. No matter which one you’re doing I insist that you take it as slow as possible to get the most out of these exercises. Follow these simple steps in your workouts and soon your knee sleeves will be obsolete from not being able to get past your calves!