Calves can be one of the toughest muscle groups in your body to effectively build. These exercises will help you target both major muscles of the calves with a variety of movements and equipment.
You'll perform a targeted superset of an exercise that gives you maximum STRETCH (the Donkey Calf Raise) with an exercise that gives you maximum CONTRACTION (the Standing Calf Raise) of the calf muscles. This combination will absolutely TORCH your calves from top to bottom.
This technique is one of the best I've found for forcing the calves to respond...and I'll warn you up front. It's VERY painful. You're going to be doing a "normal" Seated Calf Raise exercise in a very specific pattern.
You may not realize this but the Leg Curl machine is actually one of THE best machines for developing your CALVES on...find out how...
Calves can be stubborn...I know mine are. However, there ARE tricks you can use to make calf exercises a LOT more effective. This is one of the BEST ones that I've found.
The Donkey Calf Raise is one of the best exercises you can do for developing your calves. It puts maximum stretch on the calves under load (more so than standing or seated calf raises because of your body position). This method allows you to use the Safety Squat Bar to effectively perform the exercise without a machine.
This calf raise setup allows you to spot yourself on EVERY phase of the standing calf raise exercise and totally match the strength curve of the movement.
This calf raise setup allows you to spot yourself on EVERY phase of the standing calf raise exercise and totally match the strength curve of the movement.
This setup for the Donkey Calf Raise uses a Smith machine and a bumper plate on your back to make the bar placement MUCH more comfortable. This allows you to perform the exercise with total focus on your calves and not on how the bar feels on your back.
It's like the 12 Days of Christmas with AWESOME training instead of birds...
Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, he’s known around the world as the "Mad Scientist of Muscle” for a reason.
An expert in kinesiology, physiology and anatomy, Nick helps people just like YOU create the body you want, especially when nothing else seems to do the trick.
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