Best Exercises for your Calves

Calves are probably the trickiest and the hardest muscles to work out. The distance between your calve muscles and your heart reduces the blood supply to your muscle. The fewer nerve cells in your calve muscle also makes it harder to coordinate you muscle training. For those who have suffered nerve diseases like polio this makes it even harder to train calve muscles. It is not strange to find people in the gym with different calve sizes from one leg to another. It is not lack of training on their part, it might be genetic.

There are two primary muscle groups of your lower leg. The Soleus, which is wide and flat and lies beneath the heart shaped Gastrocnemius. Both muscles contract to extend the feet and toes with the Soleus only fully contracting when your leg is bent to at least a 30-degree angle.

The Standing Calve Raise

The standing calve raise is probably the most noticeable calve muscle exercise. You can use a standing calve raise machine or barbells across your shoulders. If you are using the machine, step up on the foot block of the machine and place your head between the shoulder pads. Place the balls of your feet on the foot block, with your feet about shoulder width apart, and toes pointing forward.

Straighten your legs and support the weight on your shoulders. Keep your knees straight during the entire movement. Slowly lower your heels until your calve muscles stretch down as far as possible. Hold the position for a second and rise up as high as you can on your toes. To enhance the peak contraction of the calves, hold this position for sometime. Repeat.

Seated Calve Raise

The Soleus is the main muscle that is worked with the seated calve raise. You will probably use a seated calve raise machine but if it is not available you can wrap a barbell in a thick towel and place it on top of your knees.

Sit on the calf raise machine and place your upper thighs under the leg pad just above your knees. Lower your heels to the lowest possible position and slowly raise your toes as high as you can go. Hold for a moment for maximum peak and return to the starting position. Repeat.

Leg Curve Raise

This is a great workout to do as a warm up or finishing off your calve exercises. It mainly works your gastrocnemius muscles. Stand on one leg with the ball of your foot on a clave block or a dumbbell with your heels hanging off the edge of the block.

Keeping your knees straight, slowly lower your heel until your curve muscles stretch down as far as possible. Hold the stretched position for a second then rise up as high as you can on the balls of your feet. Repeat for the desired number of reps and the other leg too.

Donkey Calve Press

You will need a partner for this. The reason it’s called the donkey calve press is that you will have someone sitting on your back as you do this. Stand on the balls of your feet on a block with toes pointing forward. Bend over and rest your hands on an exercise bench so that your upper body is parallel to the floor as your legs are straight.

Have a partner sit on your hips and balance as if they were sitting on a donkey. Slowly lower your heels until your calve muscles stretch down as far as possible. Hold the stretched position for a moment. Rise up as high as you can on your toes holding at a moment to enhance peak contraction in the calves. Repeat.

It is a great exercise for your gastrocnemius muscles with secondary stress to the soleus muscles.

There are more calf exercises out there but these are the most basic and the easiest to get results from. As long as you continuously work the calves, they will grow too as other muscles do.

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