Calves, Forearms, and Overtraining

[quote]Malevolence wrote:
The other day I had to cut a squat workout short due to some knee pain, which was kind of a drag, because I was very pumped that day. So I decided to spend my time in the gym doing movements that I normally don’t do. In particular I tried to kill my forearms completely.

Lots of BB reverse curls, standing and preacher.
wrist roller
plate pinches
DB holds
DB lever thingies

Just whatever I could think of really. Trying my best to really max out on everything and use weights that were challenging. The next day my forearms felt pretty much fine, a tiny bit sore if I flex them but otherwise fine.

Conversely, Whenever I got rock climbing my forearms are sore for a week.

[/quote]

Exactly. I can’t seem to get enough stimulus in the gym to really rock my forearms now that I have been hitting them frequently.

Your experience with rock climbing makes sense. As primates we probably have our forearms wired to have climbing as the real set point for our grip and forearms.

[quote]shizen wrote:
When I did train calves they could end up sore for a week after one session! I don’t as much anymore since I’ve always been heavier and tended to walk on my toes as a kid so my calves are fine and get worked enough in compound movements-also I hated getting random cramps in my calves all the time from the way I walk-.

For forearms, anytime I train forearms I train grip. So my forearms don’t get over trained really but my grip does tremendously. My hands can become sore for over a week sometimes.

I think you can pretty much over train any body part if your doing it every day in high volume, of course thats an extreme but you get the point. I seriously don’t know how your calves are not getting sore, maybe its just me but those and arms seemed to get the most sore for me. [/quote]

I have found the same thing. Grip training is intense and is easy to overload.

I agree its possible to over train any muscle group. All biology has limits.

I am sure I could over train my calves and forearms if I was hell bent on it but I have added several hours a week of each and I can’t imagine spending any more time on them.

It does seem for me that calves have a much greater capacity to improve recovery rate from training than other parts and forearms have an even higher ability to increase recovery or perhaps they are just harder to overload.

I am getting sore and I am not training them all out every day but the level of intensity and volume I am able to sustain with them is much greater than other body parts.

IMO you can overtrain and undertrain anything.
From my experience guys use too little weight, too many reps and often too much volume. Furthermore, myself and others have gotten little benefit from the seated machine that’s so popular at most gyms.

I’m not a monster and don’t have spectacular calves (18 1/8"), but I find that mine like at least 2x/week frequency, VERY heavy weights, rep ranges from 8-20, and more frequent changes in the movements than you would for other body parts.

A few other tips, pause at the bottom position for 2 sec, hold the top position for 2-3 secs. This alone has helped a lot of guys I’ve trained with. Don’t be afraid to pile on the weights on a leg press machine or vertical leg press machine and knock out heavy sets in rest-pause fashion. Lastly, try CAREFULLY raising on both feet, lowering on one slowly.

You guys that get the cramps/soreness/crippling pain in your calves:

Do you stretch them out really well before exercising them? I don’t mean warm up like a 5 minute jog I mean actual static stretching.

When I was in Cross Country in HS and ROTC I’d die if I tried running without stretching my calves. It seemed like all the lactic acid in my body would just pool there and cause them to seize up.

However, if I stretch them out like there was no tomorrow I’d be fine. Just something you may want to try cause crippling DOMs sucks.

As far as my forearms and calves are concerned they get stronger, firmer and slightly more defined but don’t grow very much =(. Best luck I’ve had for my calves was with Dante’s style of calf training. 15 seconds at the bottom with 5 seconds at the the top for 10 reps no cheating use a stop watch. Absolutely brutal!

Heres my current 4arm and calf routine

Day A:
Towel wrapped around DB farmers walks
Towel wrapped around lat bar, wide grip lat pulldown behind neck

Day B:
*** all below are done on single leg and all the exercises are done one right after the other on the same leg, then the next calf is done****

Single leg calf raise of block
Single leg calg press on leg press machine
Single leg calf raise seated
Single leg dorsi flexion
Single leg calf bounce, dont allow heel of foot to touch ground
Standing on one leg close eyes and balance as long as possible before you loose your balance.

ALL done with a 311 tempo with exception of static single leg bounce and eyes closed balance

Day C:
**strip-set 311 tempo
towel wrapped around BB forearm flexion 10/10/10
Towel wrapped around BB forearm extension
10/10/10

Towel wrapped around lat bar, lat pulldowns wide grip to front

I’m having good success with these. Especially lat pulldowns and towel farmers walks. These will fry your forearms!!! And you will feel the burn all the way into your fingertips!!!

  • I have not included the rest of my w/o. Just calves and forearms

Good luck