Leg Exercises: Calves

Video Transcript

"Now for a lower body work out we are done pretty much hitting the quadriceps and the hamstrings, now we are going to go to the calves and the calves are generally two major muscle groups. You are going to have the soleus and you are also going to have the gastrocnemius. The soleus is the bottom part and the gastrocnemius is the diamond part of the calf so you are going to want to hit both parts. Some gyms are limited on equipment and this gym for example does not have a seated calf raise which is the best for hitting the soleus muscle but if you do some gastro work the soleus should be getting hit as well and also you can do different types of things in order to hit the calves in a variety of ways. Now this is just a plate loaded dunking calf raise so you are going to have to load the weight on here and I like to usually keep a slight bend in the knees. It is a good idea just to keep stress off the joints and everything like that. You are going to come down and feel that nice stretch in the gastrocnemius and you are going to squeeze all the way up in a nice fluid motion and get that nice squeeze at the top and come right back down, feel that stretch, again a slight bend in the knees and squeeze it right up. Now I would mess around with all sorts of rep ranges if you have trouble building your calves and probably go with the 8 start with the 8 to 12 rep range and you could even use some heavy sets for the 4 to 6 rep range. I would even mess around with some 20 reppers and you could even play around with some 30 reppers if you are real crazy just to shock those calves into some growth."