posted Fri, 01/20/2023 - 11:02
4859
+ 2 Growing calves
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I was born with very poor calf genetics. I have tried every routine known to man, and they just wont grow.
Is there anyone out there who had shit calves to begin with, but managed to get them to grow?
I am not under any false delusions - i know calves are the one muscle group that have everything to do with genetics. We have all seen it. A person who has never lifted a weight in their life and they have gigantic ripped calves.
Do I just give up? I have quads that match my upper body and in proportion to my upper body mass, but my calves just suck.
Any advice from someone with experience would be appreciated.
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Pipeliner47Spot inject them. What happened to wimpy below. Popeye put a line through his name
Just try doing calf raise heavy on leg press machine
Rustyhooker20 reps x 10sets. Both seated and standing so bot halves hit. Mine arent great but that helped. I tried the go heavy deal and got strong but no size added. Hard pumps and grew. Next day sucks....
Couldn't agree more. My calves are still smoked from my Wednesday session.
RustyhookerHave the frankenstein walk. I drive stick shift so bunny hopping at stop lights. Lol
LiftLaughLoveNo advice, but I FEEL your question. My calves are shit (like, absolute shit) to the point I sometimes check em in the mirror and it looks ridiculous. That's the reason I rarely wear shorts. And they just don't respond to anything, despite me doing no mistakes from all the youtube videos like "21 reason your calves don't grow". Intensity seems to work a little, but the progress is slow. I think the closest answer to the truth here is HangingLow's one, I've spent some time doing the opposite (heavy load, lazy range) and it didn't work, but it's not like I have this problem solved so I can't really say much. Just the same boat.
Genetics do play a role but I hardly train them anymore. A lot of it was with my balance work standing on my toes a lot with weights. For Boxing and Muay thai. Walking on my heels weighted. Standing on a stack of 45s on my toes while holding dumbells or barlbells raisng up and down getting a full stretch. Full range of motion plays a factor I believe. Just over years of work with my legs. My calves just developed thick.
Hard to see but my wife says I have thick legs lol
Muay Thai and legs like yours are why I carry a .357 when I’m not working lol, I’d hate to take one of them to the ribs
Me and @ONESICK fighting background are no match for your .357.
Gonna need to bring out the .50 cal lolol
Basically what it hits..it takes off unfortunately
Saenchai is regarded as the best of all time in Muay thai. For being 5'5" the dude puts guys in another dimension.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjqmBHPKg1Q
I hear broken ribs are the worse pain ever. Lol I'd rather have a kick to the ribs than a .357 bullet to the ribs!
Not from fighting but I broke a rib falling out of a tree as a kid lol. Not a fun experience lol. Fuck getting shot, I'm good lol
Lmao I'm dying at that last sentence. I feel ya though. I never been shot and don't intend on being shot. Hell everyone is packing nowadays.
Got stabbed when I was 16, that was fun. Beat the dog shit out of the dude didn't even notice he stabbed me lol.
I bet you didn't. All that adrenaline. One time 2 guys were fighting and after fight was well over one guy goes home and falls asleep on his couch. Wife thinks nothing. Long story short, next day the wife couldn't wake him. Dude died from a broken neck from the fight. All that adrenaline eventually wore off.
That's crazy, similar for me. I hopped in my buddies car and he looks over and sees a bunch of blood. He's like dude you're bleeding all over. I lift my shirt and I had the stad wound on my side. Nothing major was hit luckily. blade probably went an inch in. few stitches I was good. Adrenaline is a mother fucker. Such a great feeling, some just don't understand it. Pain just doesn't exist until it's over lol
Damn right. Yeah you already know! At a meet I saw a powerlifter bench 700 with a broken arm. We saw the bone in his forearm snap and he STILL made the lift. All green lights and thumbs up. Afterwards we saw him screaming and crying in pain. It was bad man. Never saw a grown strong man cry like that before.
Fuck that's crazy. I've broken almost all my fingers and kept fighting but an arm, lol nahhhhhhh
powerlifters are some sick ass twisted individuals. They play by a whole different set of rules. Some folks have no idea.
I carry as well lol. My side kick is pretty nasty. My son will hold the heavy bag and he's shocked how hard I throw it. Just years of fine tuning lol
Funny how once someone who knows better and shows you how to push the hips a little how much things improve. Good stuff bro! Keep it up!
A lot is how you wind and snap the hip and body weight. Same with boxing, just how you use momentum and body weight. It's genetic as well. Some people have power and some don't.
I see ya..yea legs kinda thick. You probably got a mean Muay thai kick lol. Yeah man folks talk about calves being a weakness and they can be but it's been said ya boy Arnold either had implants or he straight busted his ass in the gym training them. I think he busted his ass. That dude had some of the best calves ever.
Arnold put in a lot of work in my opinion. The dude just knew how to grow them. Yates, Cutler, Matrazzo all had some thick ones.
When I was younger I saw so many guys with bitch ass legs. I never understood as to why you'd want skinny legs. It kind of made me paranoid lol. I worked hard on legs. I didn't have the record for squat but 385 my senior year and a 545 deadlift I attribute to my hard work on legs when I was young. When I got into muay thai a lot of guys had some thick legs. More mass to throw at people. My coach had us walking on our toes and heels a lot. Having us run up hills on our toes weighted vests to build up out leg strength. I would do various exercises. I think me working them 15 plus years just made them thick lol
To me a nice set of calves are almost as impressive as a nice pair of biceps.
I agree haha
Don't forget about "Freakenstein" Paul Dillet.
Now that guys calves were bigger than alot of guys waist.
Mine ain't freakish big but they're proportional. Now my forearms could use some work lol
Bro now arms and forearms is all me. Gotta keep it proportional like you said. I like training forearms better than training my arms but my arms respond faster. For some crazy reason I really don't like training arms.
I actually love training my legs. My upper arms get big but i don't put a lot of effort in my forearms. I need to lol.
I can tell you love training your legs haha. Yeah gotta train legs too. Alot of guys are TOP HEAVY.
Lifted-presence92Dude your calves are huge wtf!?
Haha thanks
For me and this may be different for everyone. I train my calves hard. Harder than what you'd think. I use a lot of weight for them. I'm not talking small calf raises or presses. No I go on a seated leg press machine. I throw on as much weight I as I can possibly push with my toes. I let the weight stretch my foot towards my shin sowly I stop right before my foot stops and make sure there's tension and I press away slowI. Ido about as many reps as possible. I do this for 3-5 sets. I take off a plate. Do as many reps as I can for 3-5 sets. Drop a plate do 3 more sets. I think because we're on our legs most of the time you have to train them harder. They need more stimulation. For me I can do these a lot and if I'm training them right they get thick. I also don't do a lot of cardio. Not sure if that plays a factor. I just do a lot of high reps/sets with heavy weight. Works for me.
Lifted-presence92Ahh nice bro well keep it up!
unfriendmeI understand your frustration with your calf genetics. I too had poor calf genetics when I started bodybuilding, but I was determined to make them grow. I changed up my routine and focused on exercises that specifically targeted my calves. I also increased the weight and reps I was doing. With consistent effort and dedication, I was able to make my calves grow. Don't give up! With the right routine and dedication, you can make your calves grow too.
JohnJuiceI have really great calves. And I rarely train them, they are larger than my hands. Not here to brag or anything.
I think I got my calves when I was training (track and field athletics), or maybe it's from my genetics, but I'm sure track and field for more than 8 years did the job too.
mysteriousThe key to growing your calves is to focus on progressive overload. This means that you need to gradually increase the weight, reps, and sets that you are doing for your calf exercises. You should also focus on doing exercises that target the calves specifically, such as calf raises, donkey calf raises, and seated calf raises. Additionally, you should make sure to stretch your calves regularly to ensure that they are getting the proper range of motion. Finally, make sure to get enough rest and nutrition to ensure that.
I joined 4H and it made all the difference. :-P
There should be a support group for us poor genetic calve guys lol. People just don't understand man. It makes me so sad! Super happy with my upper body. Super happy with my thighs, quads, and glutes. But I can't wear shorts to show my quads off because people will see my calves and then here come the JOKES!!! "Hey, glitch can I borrow one of your toothpicks?" "Hey glitch, how do your lower legs hold up the rest of you??"
Now goddamn it I'm sick of it!!! Implants? Synthol? Those just aren't options for me. ... I'll just keep trying to find out the way to beat shit genetics. And then I'll sell the secret online.
coolshirtbraI don't have good genetics mate i get mine out of a vial. I was a skinny 62kg bloke and trained like a mother fucker with a strict diet strict juice protocol for 3 years and gained 40kg. One of the things i did was absolutely smash my calves on leg day then again 3 days later. Every week for 3 years.
Arnie used to take all his earlier photos in water because he had fucked calves and what got me was him saying smash them twice a week and the need to have at least 500 hours on them before you'll see anything developing. Worked for me.
OneinamillionI have the same shit calf genetics bro.. only thing which made them improve more (still not great), was adding in high resistance exercise bike, along with my usual high rep calf raises (standing, seated, leg press)
Probably all shit you've tried before though
I have shit calves genetics. They still aren't big but they have shape and, vascularity, and can tell I train the hell out of them. My routine is 3x/wk, 3 exercises 4 sets each. Usually in the 12-20 rep range to failure and even partial reps to true failure. With doing stretching between sets. Like hanging low mentioned below, full range deep stretch on the negative slow and controlled and explode and squeeze hard as possible with a 1-2 count hold at the top. You can point toes in or out to focus on inner/outer. I usually do toes out, toes in, toes straight parallel
I agree here, I do various toe positions with my sets. I go to absolute failure and push them hard. For me anyway, not sure about anyone else but I can push my calves harder than most muscles on my body lol. For whatever reason they just never get exhausted. By the next day I'm fine like I didn't work shit lol
I am 6'5 so I have always had shit calves, I would say they are not a strength now but not lagging either. What worked for me:
TRAIN THEM LIKE ANY OTHER MUSCLE GROUP
FULL FUCKING RANGE OF MOTION
every pussy with small calves I see starts seated calf raise with 2 45s and bounces that shit for 1/3 of the range of motion, no, go
all the way down and push as far as you can up to the top
DO NOT GO SUPER HEAVY
most of the time the problem is form with calves, you go heavier you get worse and worse form, this is why most have shit calves they are told to train them 5 reps at a time with 1/8th the range of motion needed
TRAIN THEM FIRST AND ATLEAST 2X A WEEK
do not do them at the end of heavy squats, you are not going to give them as much attention, start prioritizing them if you want them to grow
3 EXERCISES MINIMUM
dudes with small calves always hit 1 movement with shitty form, if you want your calves to be as developed as you chest, think how you train your chest, is it 1 movement? 3 different movements, do 2 bent, 1 standing
This ^^^^^
Range of motion is paramount. Worry less about the weight, more about the stretch and the squeezed contraction.