For some body parts, improvements come easy. You can train the neck for a month with simple hand exercises and add an inch to its girth. If you’ve never squatted before, doing so for six weeks will add 10 pounds to your frame, without blinking. Calves, on the other hand, are another story. You can push them as much as you want, as frequently as you wish, and they still might not grow. It takes a special combination of heavy weights and high repetitions to make the calves grow.

For starters, you need to use heavy weights. This doesn’t mean you should use “single” repetitions like bodybuilders use for powerlifting. But it does mean you should use weight heavy enough to allow only 6 to 8 repetitions, for approximately one-half of your calf training. The other half of your calf training, of course, will be medium and high repetition work.

The movements you should use for the calves will be as simple as can be. Free weights, as always, are king. Standing barbell calf raises, seated calf press on the leg press machine, and standing dumbbell one-legged calf raises are king. Beyond that, use the machines that are available for a less effective muscle building experience, but one that will deliver a much needed pump to follow through on the free weight work with which you started your workout.

The repetitions themselves should be smooth, slow, and controlled. We’ve all known the feeling of thrusting a barbell off our chest on the bench press. You don’t feel the muscle – you just move the darn weight! For calves, however, weight used matters much less than the action feel garnered. You need to use a weight heavy enough to do damage to those resistant muscle fibers, but light enough to be able to control. If you are slamming and bouncing weights, you’re training your ego and not your calves. Your ego can grow as large as it wants, but it will still be standing on two very small calves!

Completing steady and consistent cardiovascular exercise is another aspect to building strong calves. Thirty minutes on the incline treadmill five times per week will grow those calves, no matter how much you may resist it! In addition to doing what you do in the gym, you can help to grow the calves with the work you do outside of the gym. On the three days following calf training, stretch them for about five minutes, twice per day. Better yet, you should be doing it seven days per week. Breaking up lactic acid buildup and increasing the flexibility of the muscle group will lead to growth.

In addition, if you are looking to grow the calves, your diet will matter a great deal. It is very difficult for a natural bodybuilder to make any kinds of gains – muscular strength, size, or weight – when living in a caloric deficit. If you aren’t eating enough food, you cannot grow those calves. Bump up your calories by 500 to 700 per day when training with this mission to build up your calves.

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