OK, one of our coaches (me) discussed whether or not you should even spend time training calves in our last post, now we’ll discuss some tips that will help if you absolutely must. 

Here are some very basic tips to integrate into your program when training calves.

YOU WILL NEED TO TRAIN THEM OFTEN.  With typical fiber type makeup of these two muscles, frequency needs to be high.  For development purposes, you will need to hit them a minimum of 3 times per week.  MORE if they’re a lagging body part.

YOU WILL NEED TO DO A LOT OF WORK.  That’s total volume (sets, reps, and variety).  Variety so you don’t get bored.  We can look at one study that measure biometrics of distance runners.  It showed that those that ran an average of 59 miles/week had 20% larger calves on average than those that ran 15 miles/week.  THIS DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO RUN, but it shows a direct correlation to volume.  So, 3 x 10 of calf presses just won’t cut it.  You're going to need to set aside some time to get serious volume in.

YOU WILL NEED TO HIT BOTH MAJOR CALF MUSCLES, meaning the gastrocnemius and soleus.  You cannot just go with a standing calf raise, or just a seated calf raise.  You will need to do both.

For growth, YOU WILL NEED TO GO SLOW, USE PAUSES…SO TEMPOS!  If you need to, refer to our blog post on tempos.  If you want to grow your calves you will need to implement slow and long tempos, and it will hurt!  Try out the following tempo on all calf exercises: 3232.  If you know how to implement that tempo, you know that is a 10 second repetition, for every repetition.  A set of 12 will take 120 seconds, that’s 2 minutes for a set.  It will burn.  You will not walk normally after.  Getting out of bed the next morning will suck.

These are just basics to augment what you’re currently doing.  Remember we spoke about volume?  Think 5 x 12 for each exercise if you want a chance to grow those calves.  This isn’t even going into exercise selection, variation, or speed drills.

Come back on Friday, I'll discuss how to really get that pump in.