Strengthen Your Calves With These Exercises

In the gym, many men especially don't like to exercise their leg muscles when training, let alone systematically exercise their leg muscles, even if they train their legs, most people only pay attention to the thigh muscles and ignore the calves.

If so, you may not understand the importance of your leg muscles.

Many people don't train their legs, or think that their legs are not important.

 The reasons are none other than these:

The upper body muscles are weak, so first increase the upper body muscles, and then the lower body will run out of time and energy.

When I dress up or show my muscles, my legs are never noticed...

The legs are especially difficult to exercise.

Every time I finish exercising, my legs are tired, and I don't have the strength to walk.

In fact

 Leg training is no less important than any part of the upper body.

If you don't practice squats and deadlifts, you can't be called fitness at all. Many fitness people encounter a plateau period, and they rely on squats and deadlifts to break through! And both of these movements will greatly work the leg muscles.

Exercising the leg muscles can increase testosterone levels in men, what happens if testosterone levels are relatively high? Gentlemen, you know...

When exercising legs, the coordination of the muscle strength of the whole body helps the muscles of other parts to grow better!

The leg muscles are large muscle groups that make up a large part of the overall muscle mass in men! Therefore, leg exercises can burn more calories, improve fat burning efficiency, and reduce the proportion of fat!

Summer is here, and when it comes to wearing shorts, calf muscles are definitely no less important than two or three heads!

It's not easy to train the muscles of your lower body. Increasing the muscles of the thighs and calves only requires a lot of strength + perseverance + a lot of nutrients + time.

In fact, the thigh muscles are nothing more than squats and deadlifts,

A lot has been said,

But how do you build calf muscles?

Today I will give you Schwarzenegger's way to exercise your calves!

The following is an excerpt from the calf exercises chapter of the Schwarzenegger Fitness Encyclopedia

Standing calf raise

The purpose of the exercise is to develop the overall size of the calf.

Action Essentials:

(1) Stand on top of the pedals of the standing calf trainer with your toes in the air with your heels in the air. handful

Place your shoulders under the pads, straighten your legs, and lift the weight. Then lower your heels as low as you can towards the ground, feeling your calf muscles stretched to the maximum. Keep your knees slightly bent throughout the movement so that the lower part of your calves can be exercised as well as the upper part. I like to put something high enough under my feet so that I get a thorough stretch when I lower my heels.

(2) Start at the lowest point of the movement and use your toes up to prop up your body as much as possible. The training weight should be heavy enough for the calves to work, but not so heavy that you can't go up for the vast majority of repetitions.

When you're too tired to do a full repetition, you can end the set with a series of local movements, which can increase the intensity of your workout.

This image shows a time when I couldn't add more weight to the machine, but I don't recommend it.

Normal posture with the toes facing forward, which is optimal for the well-rounded development of the calves.

Leg curl trainer calf raise

Purpose of the exercise: to develop the calves.

Action Essentials:

(1) Choose a leg curl (I prefer to use an upright leg curl for calf raises) and place your body like a leg press, but with only your toes against the pad and your heels unsupported. Straighten your legs and push the weight up until your knees are almost locked. Bend your knees slightly and let your heels go up, but pull your toes back in the direction of your body and feel your calf muscles stretched as thoroughly as possible.

(2) When you can't stretch any further, use your toes to push the weight up as much as you can, fully contracting the calf muscles. When doing a calf raise on an instrument, you can't use borrowing. With your back on the cushions, you can completely isolate the calf muscles and give them a really high-intensity workout. Finally, make sure the safety bar is in the correct position in case your toes slip.

Seated calf raise

The purpose of the exercise: to develop the lower and lateral areas of the lower leg.

Action Essentials:

(1) Sit on the instrument with your toes on the rungs at the bottom of the instrument and your knees under the cushions. Then slowly, lower your heels as low as possible towards the ground.

(2) Use your toes as support to lift the weight up again until your calves are fully contracted. Try not to rock your body back and forth too much, but to let your calves work in a steady, rhythmic way.

Tom Platz

Ride a donkey with a heel

Purpose of the exercise: to develop the thickness of the back of the calf. This is one of my favorite exercises, and it makes the side of your calves look very toned.

Action Essentials:

(1) Place your toes on the pedals, lean forward from your waist, and lean against a stool, table, or donkey calf raise. At this point, your toes should be just below your hips. If you have a training partner, you can have him sit across your hips to increase resistance, but he should sit as far back as possible to avoid transferring pressure to his lower back.

(2) With your toes facing forward, lower your heels as low as possible, and then use your toes as support to lift your body up until you have fully contracted your calf muscles. If you use borrowing, you'll bounce your training partner up, so if this happens, let him tell you right away

One-legged calf raise

Purpose: To isolate the calf muscles on each side. If one calf is bigger than the other and you need to make the thinner calf catch up in size with the other, then using only one leg at a time for the calf raiser is key.

Action Essentials:

(1) Stand on the pedal with the toe of one foot and the other foot dangling behind your back. Lower your heels as low as possible.

(2) Lift your body upwards with your toes as support. After completing this set of exercises, switch to the other foot. If one of your calves is leaner or slimmer than the other, have it do a few more sets of exercises to achieve the necessary symmetry. Alternatively, you can also use a leg curl to do a single-leg calf raise.

Reverse calf raise

Purpose: To develop the front of the calf. Many exercisers with excellent calves overlook the muscles in the front of the calf, primarily the tibialis anterior muscle, which separates the inner and outer sides of the calf and makes it look stronger.

Action Essentials:

(1) Stand on one pedal with your heels and lower your toes as low as possible.

(2) Tuck them up and feel the lower area of the front thigh muscles getting as much contraction as possible. You can rely on your own body weight to complete 20 ~ 30 repetitions. And as a variation of this movement, you can hook your toes with a slightly lighter weight to give your movement an extra resistance.

From today, change your training frequency,

Calf exercises three times a week,

Let you have diamond calf muscles this summer too!