Overview
Effective calf training involves targeting the calves, or triceps surae, and the tibialis anterior to some capacity.
The calves is made up of the gastrocnemius and the soleus, in descending order of size.
The gastrocs is a biarticular muscle connected to the knee and ankle joint, involved in both ankle plantarflexion and knee flexion.
The soleus is involved in ankle plantarflexion.
The tibialis anterior is involved in dorsiflexion.
Because of this calf training should be thought of as two distinct motor patterns; moving the ankles up and moving the toes up.
Prescription
Minimalist
An absolute minimalist approach means 1 movement ‘slot’.
In this case if we can only 1 motor pattern, there’s a clear winner:
- Straight knee calf raise with tibia raise
Moderate
If we have more resources to expend on the muscle group, it is of course the preferred approach.
In this case the movement slots would look like this:
- Straight knee calf raise with tibia raise
- Bent knee calf raise with tibia raise
Maximalist
This is the approach if we are throwing everything at the kitchen sink. Use sparingly either if you are in a plateau or looking for a specialisation phase.
Here the movement slots might look like this:
- Straight knee calf raise with tibia raise
- Bent knee calf raise with tibia raise
- Unilateral calf raise with tibia raise
Standout exercises
Straight knee calf raise movement
This is a staple for a reason, though I will say though currently the straight knee variants are almost overrated; there’s nothing wrong with it directly but there are plenty of benefits with the bent knee and unilateral variations that should be considered.
Standing Calf Raise
- This is a straightforward recommendation and there’s no obvious flaws; it’s stable, can be loaded well, and hits both the soleus and gastrocs.
Leg Press Calf Raise
- For maximum stability (by locking the hips in place), this allows the most progressive overload potential.
Bent knee calf raise movement
Seated Calf Raise
- This has been unfairly maligned by the idea that since a standing calf raise trains both the gastrocs and soleus, and the seated primarily trains the soleus, that therefore the seated machine is worthless. Needless to say, we don’t fully agree with that logic.
- An excellent variation that allows you to build a mind muscle connection with the calves (arguably better than the straight knee variations), push to safely to failure and get additional work in the shortened position as well.
Unilateral calf raise movement
From a movement quality and activation perspective, these are arguably unmatched. Not to be overlooked.
1-leg Standing Calf Raise
- This allows you to work on the mind muscle connection and focus on quality of each rep – making sure you don’t have slight deviations to the side.
- You need a shockingly low amount of weight with these when taken to a full stretch with a lengthy pause and a full contraction up the top.
- This is either with bodyweight, on any surface that’s elevated by a few inches, then progressed up to the standing calf machine.
1-leg Smith Machine Calf Raise with slight knee bend
- An interesting variation is to overload the calves with heavy load with a slight bend of the knee. This is more of an athletic focused movement and is a good option to rotate in.
- Note you’ll want a plate or short jump box to be standing on in order to get the full descent.
Tibia raise movement
Tibia raise and variations
- There are multiple versions of this but they amount to the same thing.
- A bodyweight tibia raise done standing, a mini band wrapped around the foot on one end, or one of those tibia raise straps are all good.
Execution
The key point with both calf and tibia raises is simply pointing the toes forward 12 o’clock. Make sure this doesn’t tilt to the left or to the right during the movement, and the rest will sort itself out.
Programming
Reps, tempo, sets, rest times
While reps and sets remain unchanged from other muscle groups, the tempo per rep and the rest times between sets should be called out here.
Experiment with longer duration tempos, specifically on the stretch at the bottom. This could be taken to a 3 count each rep, even up to a 5 count for periods of time.
Calves are relatively unique in that the rest times can be significantly less than most muscle groups. Rest times can be as low as 1 minute per set (and that’s with the additional superset, see below).
Intensifiers and volume
You’ll notice our suggested movements for calves always include an additional tibia raise. In between sets of calf raises, it makes sense to throw this is as a superset. This should be done every working set of calves; with the warm-up sets you could do 3-5 reps of tibia raises as well.
Sequence
There’s no need to be doing more than one calf raise per session so sequencing isn’t really a question.
That said, I do recommend calves to be worked at the start of a session than at the end; it’s better to work it properly (and warm up our ankles and knees) instead of leaving it as fluff work which may well be skipped at the end.