August 1, 2005

Warning: This is an extremely intense training program. Before undertaking any exercise program like this one, please consult your physician.

The "Surefire Calf Routine"

When people think about their legs, they often just think about their thighs. However, about half of the leg rests below the knees, with the largest muscle group in this region forming the calves. So, while shapely thighs are necessary for a good physique, so too are well-built calves to give your legs a "complete" look, particularly if you are partial to wearing dresses, skirts, or shorts.

The shape and size of the calf muscles are largely due to genetics and it’s here, frankly, that some people were just born lucky. Take bodybuilding and figure star Emmanuela Pintus, for example. Emmanuela has amazing calf development, yet she tells me that they were well developed long before she ever went to the gym. Emmanuela was obviously born with a propensity to have large, shapely calf muscles, and they developed not through strenuous, forced exercise, but naturally through the exercise she did as she grew up.

But does that mean that when it comes to having good calves you’re out of luck if you weren’t born with them? Not necessarily. I developed this routine due to the number of people who aren’t genetically blessed the way Emmanuela was, and say to me, "How do I make my calves grow?" It’s easy, if you train them right.

Training them correctly, though, has one caveat: in order to improve those calf muscles you’ll probably need to do far more strenuous and painful exercise than you would have to do on any other muscle group. Be warned!

The calves are tightly wound muscles that endure all your day-to-day walking and other activities and, as a result, are incredibly resistant to weight training. Because of this, a few sets here and a few sets there just won’t cut it. Enter what I’m now calling the "surefire calf routine" – a high-intensity calf workout that I’ve used to induce growth in the most stubborn calf muscles, often with startling results in as little as a month. I’ll warn you, though: this routine is extremely difficult and extremely painful. One person who tried it cringed for weeks whenever she saw a set of stairs, since her calves were so tender. Another woman, a national-level fitness champ in fact, could hardly sleep, since her calves were so sore. If you don’t want muscle pain, please don’t do this, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you do try this, please be very, very careful since pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. When training, there’s the right type of pain and then there’s the wrong kind of pain. Inexperienced people often don’t know which is which. It’s quite possible to overdo any muscle-building program and cause injury.

The "surefire calf routine" is derived from a short blurb that my favorite trainer, Vince Gironda, once wrote. In that article, Vince stated that he found it advantageous to follow a calf-training workout with weights on one day with a much lighter "pump" workout on the next. In other words, one "heavy" day followed by a "light" day – or in the case of this workout, two "light" days.

Vince also found that calves were "high-rep" muscles, meaning you have to do more reps than with other muscles. In general, Vince recommended about 20 reps per set, which I’ve found ideal, too, although I have had people go as low as 15 if they couldn’t possibly handle 20 reps.

With that said, the most extreme version of the workout I’ve used on people goes like this:

• The calves are worked six days per week. For the sake of this example, let’s say Monday to Saturday.
  
  
• One Day 1, Monday, you do six sets of 20 reps of a chosen calf exercise – say, standing calf raises. A single weight is chosen for all sets (that’s right, the weight used doesn’t vary as you move through your sets) and the first four sets should be fairly hard, but the last two sets should be extremely hard. In fact, on sets five and six you might not get 20 reps at first (but when you do get 20 reps fairly easily, you increase the weight – always remember, progressive resistance). It should go without saying that your form should be perfect. Take just a 30-40 second rest between sets. Done right, you’ll be finished in about five minutes.
  
  
• Day 2, Tuesday, is your "pump" day. You don’t even have to go to the gym for this one. Standing on stairs or on a small block, even in front of the TV if you want to, do three sets of 100 reps (providing you can do that many – work up to that if you must), with only your body’s weight as resistance. This should be a nice, smooth up-and-down motion to pump the calves and get blood flowing thoroughly through the muscles. Take a one-minute rest between each set. Again, you should be done in about five minutes.
  
  
• Day 3, Wednesday, is a repeat of Day 2.
  
  
• On Day 4, Thursday, you repeat the workout in the gym that you did on Day 1 using the same weight, increasing the weight when six sets of 20 reps becomes too easy.
  
  
• On Day 5 and 6, Friday and Saturday, you repeat Day 3 and Day 4.
  
  
• On Day 7, Sunday, you rest.
  
  
• On Monday, you start all over with Day 1 again.

As I said, what I outlined above is the most extreme version of the workout that I’ve given someone. And while some may feel that six sets on the weight-training day isn’t much, I found that it’s not necessary, nor desirable, to do more. If you’re doing the six sets of 20 reps perfectly, you’ll feel it!

On the other hand, while some advanced athletes may be able to handle a workout like this, many won’t, and there are ways to implement the routine less strenuously, and with good results, too.

For example, instead of six sets of 20 reps, the reps could be reduced to 15. Also, six sets is a lot for some people, especially with just 30 seconds of rest between. Therefore, someone might choose to start at just three sets and work up to six sets. They might even just do three sets of 15, then work up to three sets of 20, and then finally work up to six sets of 20. When the person finally reaches six sets of 20, they’ll know that their calves have improved.

The "pump" days are tough, too, and here some modification can be made if it’s too strenuous. Someone could take a day’s rest after Day 2, in other words just one "pump" day instead of two, and then go back to the Day 1 workout after a full day’s rest after Day 2. In time, a person can work up to two pump days as I’ve outlined above.

As you can see, there are many iterations of the "surefire calf routine" that can be implemented to get great results – as with many things, there’s no right or wrong answer. The real keys to the routine are what Vince found: 1) calves are "high rep" muscles, and 2) the "pump" days following weight-training days can yield superior results.

Finally, as I’ve said many times in this article, be very careful employing this exceedingly difficult routine, but if you choose to do it and you get results, let us know how it all worked out. Who knows, you might develop calves as good or even better than those of Emmanuela, even if you weren’t born with them.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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