How to Do a Standing Calf Raise Exercise

Video Transcript

"Now I'm going to show you a standing calf raise and a couple different ways to execute that. First of all I'm going to grab myself a set of dumbbells here. Whatever weight is comfortable for you. You want to come down, I like to have my feet about a little more than a shoulder width apart when I do this exercise. I like to keep a bend in my knees. Once again, I'm protecting my lower back. And what I'm going to do is press up through my toes and come on down. And it's straight up. We have sort of a conditioned movement in our bodies that when we go up on our toes to lurch forward to try to maintain your balance. That's why this movement has to be nice and slow and controlled. Try not to let your heels touch the floor. Again, back straight and you're looking straight ahead. Now a variation of this exercise if you want to get a deeper range of motion in your calf is to come up on a platform or anything that will allow you to get -- go down a little deeper, deeper past center. So, I'm on a platform here and I'm just going to push straight up. Straight up and down. Again, breathe normally and nice squeeze at the top. Again, as you can see there's still a slight bend in my knee. I'm still protecting my lower back, still trying to maintain proper body balance. Again, that's your standing calf raise."