How To Build Freakishly Big Calves Workout

Alright we’re going to be starting today with standing calf raise a few things that are key to make sure you do when you are using this machine is getting a full range of motion now I’m going to preach in this a lot and I’m going to sound like a broken record because so many people do that wrong and do not do a full range of motion which is one of the most important parts to building great calves and another thing is making sure that your foot placement is right there’s a lot of questions about whether you should have your toes out toes in or toe straight personally like to keep them straight reason being I really feel it my calves better sometimes you know if there are theories or they say hey I feel like it worked my outer calves or inner calves.

I just think if you do your foot straight which is kind of a natural foot position it’s going to work your calves so let’s go ahead and get started I’m going to get under here and show you how to do it so getting under where you want your foot placement just inside shoulder-width you want to make sure you have a little bend in your knees and we’re going to go ahead and put the balls of our foot is going to be on the edge of the foot platform so get that full stretch you come all the way up onto your toes and get that full range of motion so a little bend of the knees making that stretch in the calves all the way down and then come all the way up onto your toes and hold that for a second and if you can do these for 15 or 20 reps your calves should be burning.

We’re going to be doing for calves is going to be the calf press via leg press and one of a movement that I like to do and incorporate in my calf training because a lot of gyms you go to don’t have a lot of calf pieces they should but this leg press they should always have so I’m going to go ahead and demonstrate how to do a proper rep with the leg press so you go to the bottom of leg press here and what I like to do is not have my toes only I kind of put the ball of my foot on the bottom of leg press and then I always get make sure I get a good stretch on the bottom position and by putting the ball of my foot on the bottom of leg press.

 I’m able to really get a good stretch and then make sure you’ve come all the way up onto your toes another thing to is not locking out your knees keep a little bend in your knees and that’s going to put a little bit more on to your calves full stretch all the way up on your toes and making sure you pause it on the bottom during that stretch and pause it for a second on top to really get that contraction.

Our next movement how to build bigger calves is going to be the seated calf raise one of my favourite movements again it’s a movement that’s usually done wrong so I’m going yo teach you how you going to do it in order to build bigger calves with the machine again a little tip and trick in my book is when you’re doing this you see a lot of people just put the pad on toward the edge of their knee now that’s okay and that works but if you really want to build some dense thick calves and make it makes a statement get the pad where it’s more sitting on your quad and it goes back to having like a little bit more of a bend in your knee versus like a straight leg when doing some other movements like the standing or the leg press

so when I do this the ball of my foot again is on the footpad, not just my toes but the ball get the pad on my quads and doing this you’re taking all the way down to get that full stretch super important and you come all the way up withholding it for a second all the way down give me that second pause and bring it up with another one or two-second pause on the top that range of motion is super important with that tempo to make sure you get the most of the seated calf raise when you think about it it’s pretty simple but very effective movement for building bigger calves all right finishing up the calf routine on how to build bigger calves.

I’m going to show you a variation to the standing calf raise if your gym doesn’t have it to use the smith machine but if you do have that you want to incorporate this I’m going to teach you the single-leg version on the smith machine reason being sometimes you have imbalances with your body and you may have one calf bigger than another or sometimes you have particular a side that will dominate.

If you do it together say like a barbell press you may have your right shoulder be dominant stuff like that so sometimes I like to do unilateral movements to help fix any problems you may have with imbalances rep range were shooting for as always is the higher rep 15-20 reps if you’re doing that rep range your calves should be burning by that 15th 16th rep and maybe just kind of squeeze out a few more if you’re getting more maybe add a little bit more weight but if you’re getting less you know lighting the weight up a little bit get that form right so what I like to do to get that stretch because you really can’t do it.

If your flat foot on a floor is making sure you get some kind of pad to elevate or some kind of little platform so I’m going to go ahead and get underneath this just like you would on a squat but doing single one leg at a time so again ball your foot, not your toes but the ball your foot is on the edge of the pad get that full stretch and come up keeping the foot free all the way down and squeeze up about one or two-second hold on top one or two-second hold on the bottom and come up usually like the average three to four sets per exercise so if you do all four kinds of a true calf circuit of an intense calf workout we’re really focusing on one particular day doing these four movements are really going to help build those calves but those of you that need calves you need to make sure that you’re doing it at least twice a week.