Stupid Questions Thread

[janoycresva]

I hadn't trained calves and abs in over a year (time constraints), but have recently incorporated myo reps for abs and last Friday did calves for the first time. Just used a belt, added 40kg to the belt, and did 27/15/13 reps - VERY slow on eccentric/concentric with just 20s of rest between sets.

The DOMS are unreal, I can't walk properly these past 2 days. I think it's going to interfere with tomorrow's squat!

The first time I properly trained calves I did like three sets of stair calf raises with a pause at the bottom, crippled myself for a week

[broseph]

I hadn't trained calves and abs in over a year (time constraints), but have recently incorporated myo reps for abs and last Friday did calves for the first time. Just used a belt, added 40kg to the belt, and did 27/15/13 reps - VERY slow on eccentric/concentric with just 20s of rest between sets.

The DOMS are unreal, I can't walk properly these past 2 days. I think it's going to interfere with tomorrow's squat!

The first time I properly trained calves I did like three sets of stair calf raises with a pause at the bottom, crippled myself for a week

But has anyone ever actually gotten bigger calves? I know all the usual advice, but I need to hear from someone with formerly small calves that figured out how to get them to grow like a normal muscle.

A few months of direct work on a lagging body part always shows results for me. But not calves.

[janoycresva]

I hadn't trained calves and abs in over a year (time constraints), but have recently incorporated myo reps for abs and last Friday did calves for the first time. Just used a belt, added 40kg to the belt, and did 27/15/13 reps - VERY slow on eccentric/concentric with just 20s of rest between sets.

The DOMS are unreal, I can't walk properly these past 2 days. I think it's going to interfere with tomorrow's squat!

The first time I properly trained calves I did like three sets of stair calf raises with a pause at the bottom, crippled myself for a week

But has anyone ever actually gotten bigger calves? I know all the usual advice, but I need to hear from someone with formerly small calves that figured out how to get them to grow like a normal muscle.

A few months of direct work on a lagging body part always shows results for me. But not calves.

I think mine look a little bigger but it’s not like I actually measured, also mine weren’t small to begin with and were untrained up until a few months ago

I firmly believe there’s usually some grain of truth to lifting folklore like calves being more genetically determined than other muscle groups, there’s some guy on youtube (brains and gains iirc) who trained only one calf for 2 years and saw no measurable difference between the two

[xuerebx]

I have really small calves - when I trained them 2x a week in 2021 they were 14.4" at their "biggest". I stopped working them out in mid 2022 up to last week and they were 13.4" as of prior to last week. So lost an inch which doesn't have any meaningful visual difference. Lately I've started making better progress than in the past for some reason (well this past year I've started making small changes on proximity to failure and now cleaning up technique) so I thought what the hell, let me see if I can grow my calves better with 3-6 sets per week in between other exercises.

Also as expected had to skip squats today. Yesterday and today I'm walking bow-legged, can't straighten them. Applying a heat gel and massaging has helped a bit at least.

[asdf]

But has anyone ever actually gotten bigger calves? I know all the usual advice, but I need to hear from someone with formerly small calves that figured out how to get them to grow like a normal muscle.

Gym work never did anything for my calves. But they did grow quite a bit after I started trail running and doing a lot of uphill running and hiking.

[Zak]

But has anyone ever actually gotten bigger calves? I know all the usual advice, but I need to hear from someone with formerly small calves that figured out how to get them to grow like a normal muscle.

From my experience and observation, the factors that go into having big calves are, in order:

1. Pick correct parents (far and away most important)
2. Be a fat but active kid
3. Run/ruck trails/hills

The nastiest calves I've ever seen were on my uncle, a big fat man who played various sports in his youth but I doubt ever saw the inside of a gym. The motherfucker had overinflated footballs for calves, it was unreal.

For my part, the only calf growth I've ever really noticed came from upping my running volume and transitioning to a mid/forefoot strike. I have done calf raises of various types (seated, standing, donkey) in the past, never noticed shit, even when everything else was growing.

[Hardartery]

But has anyone ever actually gotten bigger calves? I know all the usual advice, but I need to hear from someone with formerly small calves that figured out how to get them to grow like a normal muscle.

From my experience and observation, the factors that go into having big calves are, in order:

1. Pick correct parents (far and away most important)
2. Be a fat but active kid
3. Run/ruck trails/hills

The nastiest calves I've ever seen were on my uncle, a big fat man who played various sports in his youth but I doubt ever saw the inside of a gym. The motherfucker had overinflated footballs for calves, it was unreal.

For my part, the only calf growth I've ever really noticed came from upping my running volume and transitioning to a mid/forefoot strike. I have done calf raises of various types (seated, standing, donkey) in the past, never noticed shit, even when everything else was growing.

Working on ladders should be in there man. I spent my summers hauling bricks and mortar up and down ladders and sometimes scaffolding from 12-18. I have never worked my calves separately in the gym and I have never suffered from White Man's Disease. My Dad built a lot of chimneys, we did insurance work all summer tearing down and rebuilding them - especially the crazy old Victorian ones which meant 40-60 foot by ladder all day. Calves enjoy abuse as much as triceps.

[DCR]

Pushing a heavy sled / tank / whatever does far more for calves than actual calf exercises like standing or seated raises.

If one doesn’t have access, I’d do unilateral work. IME, unilateral raises, holding a DB for added weight, have more of an effect than loading up the bilateral calf raise machine.

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like. Yeah you shouldn’t bounce up and down, but outside of that the key is just to do a lot of sets and especially a fuckton of reps.

[Philbert]

Pushing a heavy sled / tank / whatever does far more for calves than actual calf exercises like standing or seated raises.

If one doesn’t have access, I’d do unilateral work. IME, unilateral raises, holding a DB for added weight, have more of an effect than loading up the bilateral calf raise machine.

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like. Yeah you shouldn’t bounce up and down, but outside of that the key is just to do a lot of sets and especially a fuckton of reps.

A relatively sedentary person (walking 2,000 steps/day) is doing 1,000 reps of unilateral body weight calf work. A forefoot striker with a 48" running stride is doing over 2500 reps per side, and shock loading the eccentric, on a 4 mile run. With this kind of volume being normal, it is not surprising that adding 100 or so unilateral body weight reps a week does nothing for size. You need either an increase in load for the daily thousands of reps (the fat active kid approach) or an increase in time under tension, range of motion, and/or load for a very high rep count (the hauling bricks up a ladder/carrying shingles up a pitched roof/pushing a sled approach)

[DCR]

Pushing a heavy sled / tank / whatever does far more for calves than actual calf exercises like standing or seated raises.

If one doesn’t have access, I’d do unilateral work. IME, unilateral raises, holding a DB for added weight, have more of an effect than loading up the bilateral calf raise machine.

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like. Yeah you shouldn’t bounce up and down, but outside of that the key is just to do a lot of sets and especially a fuckton of reps.

A relatively sedentary person (walking 2,000 steps/day) is doing 1,000 reps of unilateral body weight calf work. A forefoot striker with a 48" running stride is doing over 2500 reps per side, and shock loading the eccentric, on a 4 mile run. With this kind of volume being normal, it is not surprising that adding 100 or so unilateral body weight reps a week does nothing for size.

Of course. See: fuckton of reps.

You need either an increase in load for the daily thousands of reps (the fat active kid approach) or an increase in time under tension, range of motion, and/or load for a very high rep count (the hauling bricks up a ladder/carrying shingles up a pitched roof/pushing a sled approach)

Right. The only item in there with which I take issue, solely based on my personal experience, is time under tension, to the extent accomplished via slow eccentrics / pauses or the like. Never did a damn thing for me. If we’re talking accomplishing it via reasonably controlled, piston like reps, and a fuckton of them, then I’m on board.

[TimK]

Of all the muscles in the body, calves probably get more volume with higher intensity (% of their max) throughout everyday life than any other. So my guess is they tend to be closer to their genetic limit than other muscle groups even before any direct training, hence why they seem to respond poorly in comparison.

[xuerebx]

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like.

Coincidentally, an interesting (well, if you like nerdy stuff) discussion over on the SBS sub-reddit on this topic:

[DCR]

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like.

Coincidentally, an interesting (well, if you like nerdy stuff) discussion over on the SBS sub-reddit on this topic:

Thanks for sharing this. My n=1 experience may not be worth much, but it absolutely tracks with this.

[Philbert]

Pushing a heavy sled / tank / whatever does far more for calves than actual calf exercises like standing or seated raises.

If one doesn’t have access, I’d do unilateral work. IME, unilateral raises, holding a DB for added weight, have more of an effect than loading up the bilateral calf raise machine.

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like. Yeah you shouldn’t bounce up and down, but outside of that the key is just to do a lot of sets and especially a fuckton of reps.

A relatively sedentary person (walking 2,000 steps/day) is doing 1,000 reps of unilateral body weight calf work. A forefoot striker with a 48" running stride is doing over 2500 reps per side, and shock loading the eccentric, on a 4 mile run. With this kind of volume being normal, it is not surprising that adding 100 or so unilateral body weight reps a week does nothing for size.

Of course. See: fuckton of reps.

You need either an increase in load for the daily thousands of reps (the fat active kid approach) or an increase in time under tension, range of motion, and/or load for a very high rep count (the hauling bricks up a ladder/carrying shingles up a pitched roof/pushing a sled approach)

Right. The only item in there with which I take issue, solely based on my personal experience, is time under tension, to the extent accomplished via slow eccentrics / pauses or the like. Never did a damn thing for me. If we’re talking accomplishing it via reasonably controlled, piston like reps, and a fuckton of them, then I’m on board.

I was not clear. When I am talking about time under tension, I am talking about standing on a ladder for 4 hours out of the day, or standing on a 7/12 pitch laying down shingles for six hours, or something like that. I would not expect messing around with time under tension in the context of a few hours per month of gym work to do anything.

[Renascent]

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like.

Coincidentally, an interesting (well, if you like nerdy stuff) discussion over on the SBS sub-reddit on this topic:

Thanks for this. Got some reading material for the inevitable lull in the office tomorrow.

[DCR]

Pushing a heavy sled / tank / whatever does far more for calves than actual calf exercises like standing or seated raises.

If one doesn’t have access, I’d do unilateral work. IME, unilateral raises, holding a DB for added weight, have more of an effect than loading up the bilateral calf raise machine.

I never got shit from oft recommended stuff like super slow eccentrics, pauses at the bottom and top, and the like. Yeah you shouldn’t bounce up and down, but outside of that the key is just to do a lot of sets and especially a fuckton of reps.

A relatively sedentary person (walking 2,000 steps/day) is doing 1,000 reps of unilateral body weight calf work. A forefoot striker with a 48" running stride is doing over 2500 reps per side, and shock loading the eccentric, on a 4 mile run. With this kind of volume being normal, it is not surprising that adding 100 or so unilateral body weight reps a week does nothing for size.

Of course. See: fuckton of reps.

You need either an increase in load for the daily thousands of reps (the fat active kid approach) or an increase in time under tension, range of motion, and/or load for a very high rep count (the hauling bricks up a ladder/carrying shingles up a pitched roof/pushing a sled approach)

Right. The only item in there with which I take issue, solely based on my personal experience, is time under tension, to the extent accomplished via slow eccentrics / pauses or the like. Never did a damn thing for me. If we’re talking accomplishing it via reasonably controlled, piston like reps, and a fuckton of them, then I’m on board.

I was not clear. When I am talking about time under tension, I am talking about standing on a ladder for 4 hours out of the day, or standing on a 7/12 pitch laying down shingles for six hours, or something like that. I would not expect messing around with time under tension in the context of a few hours per month of gym work to do anything.

Gotcha. Agree, that would be ideal. One can build calves in the gym otherwise, but it takes real doing and as you said, 100 reps a week isn’t gonna do it - not even close.

[TornAlien]

Answering your first question, I don't really warm up. Usually I walk to the gym which takes 10-15 minutes and that's the only warm up I have.

[EggMcMuffin]

what exactly does "going crazy" on the bench press mean to you? 5 paragraphs, double spaced

[Hardartery]

what exactly does "going crazy" on the bench press mean to you? 5 paragraphs, double spaced

Got some parameters for that?

[EggMcMuffin]

what exactly does "going crazy" on the bench press mean to you? 5 paragraphs, double spaced

Got some parameters for that?

Friendship ending with lifting, now running is my friend. Most running programs call for cross training two days out of the week, so looking for ideas on what to do with upper body. Deadlift is slowly going back up to old strength levels having just done an LP (which is mind boggling given that I've lost 17lbs) but I have really been neglecting my upper body...