Chicken Calves!

[jayrock25]

Anybody know the physiology behind calve muscle growth and overall body growth? I have the skinniest calves in the world and consistently crush legs once per week with good rest in between. My quads have become larger, along with the rest of my body over the years, but my genetically cursed chicken leg calves remain skinny..despite me beating THEM up TWICE a week...anybody share my plight or have any input on the subject? If so, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Lee]

Be overweight for you're entire life or get into strongman lifting. Calves typically only grow under extreme pressure and overuse. I honestly attribute my large calves to being overweight basically my entire life. Other than that, doing extremely heavy core lifts, like deads and squats, will make them grow. Other than that, genetics has you at barrels end when it comes to your calves size.

 

[TheOak84]

you need to train your calves until the pain is so unbearable, you shit yourself right there in the gym. 3x10 will not be enough, in this case.

 

[Azinine]

you need to train your calves until the pain is so unbearable, you shit yourself right there in the gym.

Talk about going till failure...

 

[life_is_good]

i do calves 2-3x/week and my reps are till i feel like im gonne die. usually cant walk for a few seconds.

 

[dopename]

Be overweight for you're entire life or get into strongman lifting. Calves typically only grow under extreme pressure and overuse. I honestly attribute my large calves to being overweight basically my entire life. Other than that, doing extremely heavy core lifts, like deads and squats, will make them grow. Other than that, genetics has you at barrels end when it comes to your calves size.

I haven't thought about it but you are probably right. I had been a fat ass for most of my life and I rarely train calves and mine are almost 18"!

 

[Ceros]

Your calves throughout your life experience super high reps, with little weight ( walking/running ). So I've found that, like what was said, blast them! kill them! I find the hip sled works the best. Do weights that will make you fail at around 50 reps, and I mean really fail, do stuff that seems unbearable. Basically you need to do something that they're not used to in order to induce stimulus, which I've found is really heavy, hardcore lifting!

 

[MuscleFr3ak101]

Do heavy Calf raises your calf is hard to grow because you use them constantly every day thats why you have to go heavy on that specific body part if you want them to grow.

 

[brad34]

Reminds me of a funny story, about a month ago my friend had way to much to drink at the bar and decided to storm out and walk home 6 miles (up/ down hills, etc.) well his calves were so sore he could barely walk for several days after..I vote for the "overtrain" method.

 

[str8nubin]

you need to train your calves until the pain is so unbearable, you shit yourself right there in the gym. 3x10 will not be enough, in this case.

This is true

Do a search on ef for:

Nelsons calf routine

Omegas calf routine

That have been posted on the boards here. They both ruined my shit. I saw some results from omegas routine in literally 1-2 weeks

 

[Lee]

Best routine I've used for calf size is doing sets of 20-25 with the highest weight you can squeeze out, and try to hit 100 reps total. Normally I would use 5 plates on seated calf raises and try to get 30 reps on my first set, and then just do as many reps as I could for each consecutive set with at most 30 seconds of rest between sets.

 

[mad_monkey59]

I am unconvinced by your word 'training', what do you mean by that?

I imagine your training is different to my training, hence your calves being those of KFC variety.

Change your routine, change your diet and 'lift heavy ass weights'

 

[SouthernLord]

I have but some nice size on my calves in the past couple of months. I hit them twice every eight days and I just do one set of ten. I hold the full stretched position for 15 seconds each rep. Talk about time under tension!!! I started with a 10 second stretch and now I am able to do 15 seconds with the same weights. I rotate seated calves, hip sled calves, and standing calves. Does this sound familiar to anyone?? I also walk for 30-45 minutes every other day on an incline. That helps too.

 

[ceo]

DC's method working for them calves?

Quite a shocker the first time you did it huh? Talk about humbling.

 

[SouthernLord]

DC's method working for them calves?

Quite a shocker the first time you did it huh? Talk about humbling.

It works. They are sore as we speak lol. It was very tough at first to get the full 10 second stretch.

 

[pappad]

The nice thing about my 6 year break from the gym and getting fat was my calves are much bigger than when I used to train hard. There is always a silver lining!!! LOL

 

[youcancallmedaddy]

Be overweight for you're entire life or get into strongman lifting. Calves typically only grow under extreme pressure and overuse. I honestly attribute my large calves to being overweight basically my entire life. Other than that, doing extremely heavy core lifts, like deads and squats, will make them grow. Other than that, genetics has you at barrels end when it comes to your calves size.

I have found that to be true, I was 350lbs at one point and now am 250ish and a fairly solid lifter with 19" calves. I will admit genetics plays a role in it but so does my workout; which is four sets of reps until I can't stand the burning with six plates on the calf raise machine twice a week. Ours has a 2.5 mechanical disadvantage so that's equivalent to about 675lbs I guess.

 

[skyflyer231]

Personally I think I've just accepted that I have chicken calves, and come to terms with the fact that I'm not willing to put in the time or effort to attain decent looking calves

LOL, props to bodybuilders though for finding ways to overcome things like this.

 

[chaos13]

my calfs never really started to grow untill i started trainingthem every other day. usally do 4 sets of calf raises (12-16 reps), supersetted with standing raises(25-30 reps).

 

[conundrum]

there is always calf replacement surgery if you can afford it...I thinks around $7,000.

My calves suck too. I been doing sets of 75-100 reps each time twice a wk...Their growing, but slowly