Have you been cursed with genetically poor calves? Or, do you have the stomach to admit that you didn’t train them with the utmost intensity and attention during your earlier training days? Whatever the reason, today your calves are nothing to be proud of. You’ve developed a nice upper body, a set of washboard abdominals, and some thighs that really do chafe when you walk. However, after the hundreds or even thousands of times you have stepped foot in the gym, your calves still look untrained.
You’ve just accomplished the tough part – you accepted this analysis of your shortcomings and you continued reading. This is good news. It means you’re ready to change – to improve them. It’s only after admitting you have a problem (in this case, poor calves) that you can solve this problem. So, without wasting any more words, let’s get solving. Here are a couple of sure-fire ways to move your calves from the doghouse to the penthouse.
Go heavy
Your calves are used to carrying the bulk of your body all day long. Loading up that calf sled with 45 pounds is probably a nice vacation for them. If you don’t have 300 pounds on the machine, then you’re not showing them anything they didn’t see walking you to the bathroom this morning. Go heavy, or go home.
Use lots of sets
The calves can be a stubborn body part, but so can bodybuilders. You’re probably used to maybe tossing 4 to 6 sets at calves after thoroughly torching your quads and hamstrings. Is this any way to treat the body part on display all summer long? Of course not. Move them to their own day if necessary, but you need to give them 12 sets if you want them to give you some respect (and growth!) in return.
Increase your caloric totals
Eat to grow. It’s that simple. You didn’t get those “monster” 17-inch guns by dieting, did you? If you eat what you’ve always eaten, you’ll look how you’ve always looked. Got it?
Explore new everything
Find new exercises, angles, machines, and other variants to keep your calves guessing. They’re pretty used to the whole walking routine. And they know running too. But they aren’t familiar with bent over donkey calf raises on the 45 degree angle with dumbbells hanging, now are they? Mix it up if you want them to grow.
104 is the magic number
You need to train calves twice a week. And you need to stop missing calf training days. There are 52 weeks in a year, so you should be completing 104 calf sessions this calendar year. No exceptions. If calf day falls on Christmas, you need to train them on Christmas Eve. If you catch the flu for a week, then you need to squeeze in the other two days at a later date. At the end of the year, if you trained hard and heavy for each and every session and didn’t miss a single one, you will see growth. And what happens if you skip sessions? Nothing. That’s what. Your calves will look the same as they’ve always looked.
