Now-a-days, too many weight lifters spend too much training their favorite muscles and neglect some of the smaller one, because they feel that these muscles are not as impressive. One of the most neglected muscles is the calves. Weight lifters spend hours training their chest and arms but will leave out muscles which they believe are not as important. Even the weight lifters who have enough stones to train their legs might throw in a few lackluster sets of calves and hit the showers.

Your first step in turning those calfs into cows is realizing a need for improvement. Then you need a plan of attack. There are many different philosophies when it comes to effective calf training, so you won’t be at a loss for a training method.

Some like to prioritize the calves when training. Prioritization is performed by training a certain muscle first in a workout so that you have the most energy to put into training that muscle. I would only use this method of training if the muscle that I was training afterwards was not legs.

In many of your leg exercise the calf is being used. (ex. Squat, Leg Press and Lunges). In these exercise you usually use a lot of weight, and if the calf is already fatigued from an earlier workout, you run the risk of tearing the muscle. If you are not training legs after your initial calf workout, then prioritizing is an excellent method to push those calfs into new growth.

My favorite calf split is working them every day that I am at the gym. Yeah, wouldn’t that be overtraining? No. I’ll explain why. Your calves have been overtrained since the day you started to walk. We use the calf muscles all day.

When we run, walk, stand, sit, everything we do requires our calves to work. Over the years our calves have adapted to this work load. Working your calves out every day that you workout is fine. They will get plenty of time to rest on your days off. I have been doing this for the past year and my calves are eighteen inches five weeks out from my contest.

What do I do in this calf routine? Well first you need to know a little more about the calf muscle and how it works. The calf is ultimately comprised of two main muscles; the Gastrocnemius and the Soleus. The gastrocnemius is the big diamond shaped muscle that is located on the back of your lower leg. The soleus is the thin muscle that runs from your gastrocnemius all the way to your Achilles tendon.

Now why do I care if what the different muscles are of the calf are? Well, each of these muscles are different in shape and size but the biggest reason that I am talking to you about them is that each is trained with a different rep scheme and different machines.

To develop the gastrocnemius to the max one needs to use moderate reps in the 8-12 range and try to use as much weight as possible. The best equipment to train the gastrocnemius would be the standing calf raise, donkey calf machine or just basic calf raises on the stairs. If you don’t have a standing calf raise machine then use the smith machine and make sure you use a block to rest the balls of your feet on so that you can get a full range of motion.

If your gym does not have a donkey calf machine then you can use an old school favorite of Arnolds.  Get a table or something sturdy that is about waist height. Get yourself a two by four to rest the balls of your feet on then bend at the hip and rest your forearms on the table. Have a training partner climb on top of you and sit on your lower back. Raise your toes up and down making sure that you are getting a full range of motion. Know that you are hardcore.!

If you have not noticed, with each of these exercises the knees are not bent. The gastrocnemius is best worked when the legs are straight. I am not saying that the muscle isn’t worked if they aren’t, but the gastrocnemius will a get a more effective workout if the legs are kept straight.

Now on to the soleus. Unlike the gastrocnemius, the soleus responds better to higher reps in the 15-50 range, so you will not be able to use as much weight. The best piece of equipment for the soleus is the seated calf raise. Most gyms have this machine and I have never been to a gym that doesn’t. An alternate workout that I have found works really well is seated dumbbell raises. To perform seated dumbbell raise you need to be seated on a bench with a two by four on the ground with the balls of your feet resting on it.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and place them on your knees vertically. Continue to hold the dumbbells only for balance and start to raise your toes up and down. As you might have realized the soleus is worked best when the legs are bent at a ninety degree angle but like the gastrocnemius it will still be a workout if the legs are straight.

Now that you understand how the calf works and what exercise to use, lets put all that information together.  I think that it is best to work out the gastrocnemius on one day and then the soleus on the next. Even if you are not a beginner, I would only do about four good working sets a day for the first week and then increase the sets by one each week until you get to eight in a day. I think that is plenty. Remember to warm your calves up and always get a full range of motion. If you can’t get a full range of motion then you might be using too much weight and not getting the full benefit from the exercise. So go out there and blast those calfs into cows!

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