Calf raise progression

Ah, the calves. The most ignored and underrated muscle group among mortal men. And I must confess that I'm one of them. But not to a degree where I don't do any work for the calves. I just work them with maintenance volume by doing one session of heavy work and one session of light work weekly.

There are few problems with calves. They don't directly affect your physique unless you wear shorts all the time. Also from a training perspective the calves get very little training effect from compound lifting for the lower body such as squats. Sure the calves contribute for balance and stabilization but don't get any significant training stimulus from lower body training. That's why calves need to be trained separately with isolation exercises which is time consuming and not fun. Direct arm training is fun!

Calves should be treated like any other muscle group that does not get direct training stimulus. So around 8-12sets per week and up to 16-20sets if you really want to get significant growth. In the literature the calves have different muscle fibre composition between individuals where some respond better to high load training and some to light load. That's why I like to split my training volume into two sessions doing high rep training on one and low rep training on the other. This also helps to recover between high load sessions and gives your joints and ligaments a chance to heal and you get to avoid those annoying overuse injuries and tendonitis.

Training the calves at home

When training the calves at home we don't have many options. So we'll be doing a lot of standing calf raises. There are some challenges when switching from a two leg calf raise to single leg since this effectively doubles the working load (increase is actually even more since you have to lift the non working calf also). For this transition we’ll be using arm assisted single leg calf raise where we assist with arms supporting to a table or chair backrest.

This calf block has some miles on it!

Calf training progression

1. Floor two leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZdaBOrwCOg

Stand next to a wall to get some extra support for this exercise. Start each rep from dead stop at the floor and squeeze at the top of the movement.

Work up to at least 12reps before moving to the next exercise

2. Elevated two leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQiMiUHWubw

Use a step or something to elevate your legs. Do a controlled descent, short pause and stretch at the bottom and lift up.

Work up to at least 12reps before moving to the next exercise

3. Arm assisted floor one leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Go-QaVHRpQ

When doing single leg raises the load increases a lot compared to the two leg version. Use a table or backrest of a chair and use it as assistance for this movement.

Work up to at least 12reps before moving to the next exercise

4. Floor one leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXPPFjZQjQ

Stand next to a wall to get some extra support for this exercise. Start each rep from dead stop at the floor and squeeze at the top of the movement.

Work up to at least 12reps before moving to the next exercise

5. Elevated one leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YHS_USj2uE

Same as the elevated two leg calf raise. Remember to use controlled descends and pause at the bottom.

Work up to at least 12reps before moving to the next exercise

6. Weighted one leg calf raise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlcI-MK6jAA

You can add weight to your calf raises by using a backpack, dip belt or dumbbells.

Training tempo and other tips

One thing I need to address before moving to the example workouts. When doing any exercise you generally want to use “2-1-2” tempo. Which means the rep should take about 2 seconds on the way down, 1 second hold at the bottom and 2 seconds on the way up. Usually this translates to something like “1-0.5-1” tempo in real life since we don’t really use a timer. This ensures that you don’t cheat in your repetitions and reach the proper depth at the bottom. If you just drop yourself to the bottom position and quickly bounce back up you will not get much training stimulus and the progression model presented above will not work. Cheated reps won’t get you real results. So keep that in mind.

For calves focus on the pause at the bottom and squeeze at the top since the range of motion is limited. Eliminate the rebound effect you get from your achilles tendon and do the lift with your calf muscles initiating each rep from dead stop. You can use additional weight for any of the exercises mentioned above if you like before moving to the next one.

Personally I pair my squatting exercises with calf training. Left leg squats, right leg squats, left calf, right calf. This way the calves get some training stimulus and don't interfere with squatting much when doing single leg training. Another way would be to pair calf work with another non overlapping exercise such as over head pressing.

Calf workouts

If you are training calves twice a week you can do the following (10 weekly sets):

A Heavy work

5x Weighted one leg calf raise 6-8reps

B Light work

3x One leg calf raise 10-12

2x Two leg weighted calf raise 15-20

If you are training calves just once a week (9 weekly sets)

5x Weighted one leg calf raise 6-8reps

4x Two leg weighted calf raise 15-20

Build your own calf raise step

If you don't have a step you can build one for yourself. I have made one similar for myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRwo6E8L1oU

Happy calf training!

Interested in Bodyweight Strength Training?

This one is for those who are interested in practical information in one small package.

Get Guide to Bodyweight Strength Training at Amazon.com

I did my best to gather all the information between these covers so that you can make the best progress possible. It is a textbook with some math. But you can skip the math part and read the best parts. I don't mind!