For all the conjecture about calves being a tricky muscle group, I'm surprised we don't have more discussion about them here. So let's talk calves, how we train them, tips and tricks, etc.
For probably 4 years I've trained calves at the beginning of every workout. One day it's seated calf press, next day it's seated calf raise and tibia raise. I never do standing calf raises because I don't want more spinal loading than I already get with squats and rack deadlifts. I do 2-3 warmups and 2-3 working sets. Once or twice a year I take a week off training them when the balls of my feet start to hurt.
My calves made another good jump in size last year - couldn't get my boots over them in the 270s - and one of the keys to that was switching to single leg calf presses. I got to where I was doing the full stack + 50lbs. for 10-15 reps on the Hammer Strength / Life Fitness calf press so I decided to drop back in weight and go one leg at a time.
I think the stretch is the most important part of calf movements. You're almost doing the top half of the movement when walking so your calves are very used to that; they're not used to being stretched under heavy loads. You still need to get a hard, full squeeze at the top, but if you're not getting a full, slow stretch at the bottom you're missing out on progress. I also stretch and flex them once or twice between my working sets.
For tibialis, I've always used a Hammer Strength tibia raise, but most gyms around here with them closed permanently in 2020 so I switched to DB tibia raises off a bench. I still think the HS tibia raise is superior given its ROM, but spending most of the year using DBs did seem to thicken them more. I started going to a 24 Hour Fitness that still has a HS tibia raise about 6 weeks ago so I'm back to using that at least once a week.
Shredded calf is Sunday and 18", bulked calf is from October and almost 20".
For probably 4 years I've trained calves at the beginning of every workout. One day it's seated calf press, next day it's seated calf raise and tibia raise. I never do standing calf raises because I don't want more spinal loading than I already get with squats and rack deadlifts. I do 2-3 warmups and 2-3 working sets. Once or twice a year I take a week off training them when the balls of my feet start to hurt.
My calves made another good jump in size last year - couldn't get my boots over them in the 270s - and one of the keys to that was switching to single leg calf presses. I got to where I was doing the full stack + 50lbs. for 10-15 reps on the Hammer Strength / Life Fitness calf press so I decided to drop back in weight and go one leg at a time.
I think the stretch is the most important part of calf movements. You're almost doing the top half of the movement when walking so your calves are very used to that; they're not used to being stretched under heavy loads. You still need to get a hard, full squeeze at the top, but if you're not getting a full, slow stretch at the bottom you're missing out on progress. I also stretch and flex them once or twice between my working sets.
For tibialis, I've always used a Hammer Strength tibia raise, but most gyms around here with them closed permanently in 2020 so I switched to DB tibia raises off a bench. I still think the HS tibia raise is superior given its ROM, but spending most of the year using DBs did seem to thicken them more. I started going to a 24 Hour Fitness that still has a HS tibia raise about 6 weeks ago so I'm back to using that at least once a week.
Shredded calf is Sunday and 18", bulked calf is from October and almost 20".