Direct Calf Work Neccessary?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

[quote]FightingScott wrote:

Well shit. I’m wrong. I remember seeing an interview with Coan where he said that Biceps were just ornaments on a tree and that he never trained them.

There. I’m wrong. I’m so wrong. I’m embarrassed. [/quote]

In his book he says “I finish with two sets of curls.I take a light warm-up and then do a heavy set to finish up.I don’t do a lot of curling and unlike most other weight trainers never had a love affair with my biceps.”
You are right about him not caring what they looked like, but he did train them.

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[quote]FightingScott wrote:
KeithJones wrote:

Ed coan didn’t do Curls or Calf Raises, but he managed to sport arms and calves that didn’t look out of proportion.
They just appeared from training for powerlifting.

And don’t try to argue that he’s a special case because he’s so genetically gifted. If anything, he has some of the worst genetics for building size and that’s why he was so damn strong at such a light weight.

I have Ed Coan’s book The Man, The Myth, The method and he says this about training calves…

“I have always worked my calves hard making it a point to include some type of calf exercise at the conclusion of every leg workout.”
He also does curls for biceps.

I think in his case as a powerlifter, you are only as strong as your weakest link and although calves are a smaller muscle group they are a muscle nonetheless.

If you are a bodybuilder and only care about their appearance, train them if they are a lagging body part, if they are already up to par you don’t need to if you don’t want to.

Personally my calves are my worst body part, they do grow because they are bigger now then when I started training them, but they do not grow at the same rate as my other body parts do.

If anyone has had some success growing their stubborn calves, I would love to know what they have done.I am willing to try any program.I know I could run a search and find 50 programs, I am looking for ideas that you guys have actually DONE YOURSELF with success.

Well shit. I’m wrong. I remember seeing an interview with Coan where he said that Biceps were just ornaments on a tree and that he never trained them.

There. I’m wrong. I’m so wrong. I’m embarrassed. [/quote]

I saw the same interview.
To be honest, I have yet to see a powerlifter with huge guns (or delts, legs, whatever…) who didn’t train them directly with progressively heavier weights in the hypertrophy zone as part of his assistance work.

Dave Tate comes to mind. He tore his pecs numerous times and needed bigger and stronger tris in order for them to be able to take the added strain on the bench press. That required more than heavy lockouts for 1-3 reps a set.

23

If you want bigger calves, then train them directly.

Someone who says that they do power cleans might not be a bodybuiler since I have yet to see any bodybuilders doing power cleans on a regular basis.

I am not a kinesiologist or biomechanist or exercise physiologist. However, there is no eccentric loading on the calves during the lowering phase of a power clean. What is there for calves in a power clean - that little jump or what is just short of a jump.

If physique enhancement is your goal, don’t neglect ANY bodypart in your schedule. If you are interested in strength, calf work MAY improve your numbers. I don’t think it does.

And as for all these inquiries regarding doing away with exercise for specific muscle groups - I ask “what does this have to do with bodybuilding?” What bodybuilders have ever completely neglected training a muscle group aside from those with some of the most freaky bodyparts.

Some guys have trained specific muscle groups less frequently (I think Ernie Taylor trained his arms about once per month in the offseason) but they never completely neglected them.

24

My calves are stubborn and since I started training them at the end of EVERY workout (3x week), holding the contraction for 2 seconds, lowering for 4 seconds and holding a 2 second stretch…I have noticed them taking nice shape.

Listen to Stu. In another thread he mentioned the Small Calf Solution by Tim Henriques, an article on this site, and it pretty much prescribes what I am doing for calves.

As long as you find yourself talking to God in the middle of your third set, you are on the right track. People always stare at the sort of ‘bitter beer’ face I make when I finish the routine and get up to leave.

Oh, and I stretch them when I’m done. Like two minutes each.

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[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
FightingScott wrote:
Since this is in the Bodybuilding Section, Calves are obviously a MUST for isolation work.

Most likley, if you Squat 500+ your Calves will be big enough that no one will point out how small they are. They will mostly have developed from walking around at a bodyweight above 150. But if you want your calves to be more than just adequate, if you want to compete in shows, then do calf work.

I’m 240 and my calves don’t grow at all just from walking around. It’s pretty ridiculous to think they would.

Squats don’t even work calves. I don’t know where this rumor got started. Have you ever stopped a set of squats because your calves gave out and were completely on fire?

If you want muscular looking calves, work them. Very few are blessed with good calves without working them directly. [/quote]

My calves are proportionally my biggest body part. I never do any direct work for them, and they keeping getting bigger as my body weight goes up. If I did do direct work they would look disproportionally weird.

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[quote]tv wrote:
LankyMofo wrote:
FightingScott wrote:
Since this is in the Bodybuilding Section, Calves are obviously a MUST for isolation work.

Most likley, if you Squat 500+ your Calves will be big enough that no one will point out how small they are. They will mostly have developed from walking around at a bodyweight above 150. But if you want your calves to be more than just adequate, if you want to compete in shows, then do calf work.

I’m 240 and my calves don’t grow at all just from walking around. It’s pretty ridiculous to think they would.

Squats don’t even work calves. I don’t know where this rumor got started. Have you ever stopped a set of squats because your calves gave out and were completely on fire?

If you want muscular looking calves, work them. Very few are blessed with good calves without working them directly.

My calves are proportionally my biggest body part. I never do any direct work for them, and they keeping getting bigger as my body weight goes up. If I did do direct work they would look disproportionally weird.

[/quote]

Right. Maybe start training the rest of your body (properly) then.

Oh, and take a picture if you can. That will be an interesting sight to see.

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i totally agree your walking weight influences your calf size. fat people dont have big calves by luck its from suspending the weight of their 300lb+ ass all day.

which is also the basis on why i think training calves has much more to do with the weight being used and less with the reps being performed. maybe 70% weight 30% reps, but dont hold me to it.

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[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i totally agree your walking weight influences your calf size. fat people dont have big calves by luck its from suspending the weight of their 300lb+ ass all day.

which is also the basis on why i think training calves has much more to do with the weight being used and less with the reps being performed. maybe 70% weight 30% reps, but dont hold me to it.[/quote]

It’s more likely the old ‘time under tension’ principal. If you weight 300+ lbs, and have to walk around all day, that’s a lotta time under a whole lotta tension! -lol

S

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right. thats why i train my calves the way i do; with 4 sets of static holds with 4-5 plates for ~60 seconds then 4 sets of reps.

i gotta say, when you start developing calves on a long leg, it looks freakish.

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[quote]elano wrote:
Hello, I was just wondering if it was really necessary for me to do calf raises and such to build bigger calves. I already do squats, deads, power cleans however after learning that I should also work my biceps dirrectly with isolation, Im wondering if I should throw some direct calf work in there.

I don’t want to waste my time on them if heavy powercleans will do the job. Thanks for any advice or sugguestions.[/quote]

Depends on you. Got good calves already? That should answer your question for you.

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I was blessed with pretty good calves and never train them. Well…I guess they get trained when I run.

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Yeah, ive even noticed morbidly obease women have huge caves too. Kind of nasty now that I think about it.

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you should isolate the calfs because you utilize them everyday so unless you isolate them and train them hard most people wouldnt gain size there

34

[quote]elano wrote:
Yeah, ive even noticed morbidly obease women have huge caves too. Kind of nasty now that I think about it.[/quote]

and they also have huge thighs, guts, gunts, and arms, what’s your point? lol

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[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i totally agree your walking weight influences your calf size. fat people dont have big calves by luck its from suspending the weight of their 300lb+ ass all day.

which is also the basis on why i think training calves has much more to do with the weight being used and less with the reps being performed. maybe 70% weight 30% reps, but dont hold me to it.[/quote]

I think fat people normally have bigger calves because they are simply more likely to gain weight everywhere, including the calves.

36

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i totally agree your walking weight influences your calf size. fat people dont have big calves by luck its from suspending the weight of their 300lb+ ass all day.

which is also the basis on why i think training calves has much more to do with the weight being used and less with the reps being performed. maybe 70% weight 30% reps, but dont hold me to it.

I think fat people normally have bigger calves because they are simply more likely to gain weight everywhere, including the calves.
[/quote]

You can’t deny that there are some fat people out there who don’t train with ridiculously muscular calves.

The sickest calves I’ve ever personally seen were on a skinny, probably 150 lbs. cyclist, so I do think there are non-direct things you can do for them but who wants to ride their bike that much?

I pretty much gave up direct calf work when I got tendinitis in the bottom of my feet. I blame running more than the calf work for it, but it just became to painful.