Calf muscles: the whole training myth debunked

The calf muscles are every fitness fanatic his worst nightmare. They’re all crying about the bad genetics of their calf muscles that never seem to grow. I think that bad genetics is just a made-up word to make you work less hard. I’m considered as someone who doesn’t build muscle easily but I never gave up till I got my dream body. Bad genetics are just bad excuses, they won’t impress anyone and you’ll get nowhere with these excuses.

So the little calf muscles due to bad genetics? I don’t think so more of the wrong training routine in my opinion. In 3 years I’ve never done a single calf raise and I never needed to as well. Calf training was boring in my opinion. But how do I know this? Tons of experimenting gave me the first- hand experience. I never wanted to be the guy with a great upper body but no legs at all.

Stop reading those mainstream fitness magazines because they won’t get you anywhere if you’re natural. So ask yourself: is it your attitude or training that ensures that your calf muscles don’t grow?

You’re training your calf muscles wrong

Your calf muscles don’t need that much work to grow but they need to get the right work. Forget about all these isolation exercises. Have you ever felt your calf muscles hard after all these exercises?

I don’t think so. But why? Because we use our calves all the time. We’re doing a sort of calf raises every time we’re walking. We’re raising our weight all the time so you can’t expect that these isolation exercises will give you any gains. The problem with leg days is that you don’t your calf muscles with all the other exercises.

Let me explain. When your training your back you’ll automatically active the biceps in most exercises. The same goes for chest and triceps but this is happening less with calf muscles. They need much better training and not everybody will like this new approach.

It will take you completely out of your comfort zone.

Hint you’ll have to sprint to get bigger calf muscles

I would do an incline walk on a treadmill at the beginning of my fitness days. Those were pretty boring but they sure got the job done. My calf muscles were burning like hell after 30 minutes of walking at 10% incline. But I got bored with this kind of training so I was looking for a new way to train them.

My calf muscles got bigger as soon as I started to incorporate HIIT cardio and box jumps into my training routine. The explosive training paid off and my calf muscles became bigger than ever.

Both are extremely great because they are explosive and also work your whole leg instead of isolating one muscle group.

A study to back it up

In a study, they looked at the used muscles during a short and a long sprint. The quadriceps was extremely important but the calf muscles were equally activated in both forms.  This wasn’t the case for the other muscles and hip flexors. Some muscles were activated more during a long sprint.

Training calf muscles more effective

Three exercises will make your calf muscles grow

1. Box Jumps
2. HIIT cardio
3. Sled push
4. The David Beckham workout

These all have one thing in common, they train the calf muscles but will also give you endurance. Win-win. Don’t forget to use my recovery secret to get a perfect recovery.

Box Jumps

Just incorporate these bad boys in your lower body day but make sure that you do them at the beginning of your workout. Box jumps are brutal if you’re not used to doing cardio. Pick a height that you’re able to reach with some effort.

Here you can see my box jumps from a while ago and nobody at my gym could jump that high. You can also add weight if you’re looking to challenge yourself.

HIIT cardio

You can do different forms of this cardio form. This is the easiest way to build a killer endurance. I’ll share three workouts that give you some bigger calf muscles and damn solid endurance.

Workout 1: the runner-up

Go to a soccer field or find a place where you can sprint around 50 meters (54 yards). Make sure you warm up properly with some jump ropes or some running at a low pace. Just get the blood flowing, you don’t need to tire yourself already.

Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes. I mostly do 15 minutes when I do this one. Sprint from one side to the other and run back at a slower tempo. I should be a bit faster than walking. Repeat this till the timer goes off.

Remember the first bell means hell.

Workout 2: sprint Forrest sprint

Take the long side of a soccer field or a place where you’ll be able to sprint 100 meters or 109 yards. Do a proper warm-up and give it all you got. You must walk back to this training. Sprint again once you’re back at the start. I mostly do seven of these.

Workout 3: King of the hill

Go find a steep hill or a bridge and make sure that it’s at least 50 meters. A 100 meters hill is extremely challenging. Sprint towards the end of the hill and walk back down. Sprint back up and do this about 7 times. You can take three minutes of rest if you feel like vomiting after a while.

Making these 3 workouts more challenging

There are probably some people who are in peak condition and are looking for a bigger challenge. Don’t worry I can help you find it.

You can perform all these workouts with a weighted vest.

You can buy one from 20 lbs here

One from 40 lbs if you’re better trained

One from 60 lbs if you want the best bang for your buck in the long run.

You can do these with a workout partner, put a rope around your middle and let your workout buddy pull the rope once you start running. This will add extra resistance and will kill your calves.

These are all little tweaks that can make a huge difference.

The sled push

It seems like tons of fun to push a sled with some weights. Too bad I’ve never seen this in a gym over here in Belgium. Luckily it doesn’t require much imagination to make workouts with this.

Push the sled from one side to the other, sprint back and walk back to the sled. Repeat this about 10 times or more if you’re a real badass

The David Beckham workout

I recently stumble across a new fitness site which gave some quality advice and believes me these are rare. They shared five workouts in their blog post but I’ll just give you the ones that will benefit you.

The hardest one is the third option. Sprint for 20 seconds and I mean sprint like you’re chased by a lion. If that motivates you to run faster nothing will. After that, you’re allowed to rest for one minute. Fun fact: you have to repeat it 30 times. Yes, 30 times this isn’t a typo.

check the rest of the workouts here.

Conclusion

We don’t have all the same calf muscles and insertion point but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t train them. Train them hard for 3 months with this workout and you’ll never use the phrase “I’ve got bad genetics” again.

Even the guy with ‘the worst” genetics can make some proper gains. By the way, I also know this because I was considered as the guy with the bad calf genetics.

This was even the case when I played soccer. So don’t be like me, don’t do tons of isolation exercises to get bigger calves. They’re just a waste of time and only good when you’re on the juice.

I could say sorry for debunking this myth but in the end sorry remains an overvalued word.

Don’t forget to share this article with your friends who have small calves.

Till next time

Alex

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