Full range.....fact or fallacy?

[vinylgroover]

Guys, i changed the way i worked my calves recently and have experienced excellent results.

The change amounts to using partial reps or strongest range reps if you like and the results have been very encouraging. I don't break parralel on any exercise, and isntead focus on the contraction at the top. For years i have been working calves in a full range of motion with no results.

If it works for calves, can it work for other bodyparts. I have not read extensively on the theory of strongest range reps. Does anyone else here believe in the effectiveness of strongest range reps as opposed to working a muscle through it's full range of motion?

 

[Zander1983]

Rocking calf raises work great for me. Barbell on your back, standing flat on the ground with your feet relatively close together, you push off the balls of your feet and - like you've been doing - focus on the contraction at the top of the movement. Reverse the movement, but rock back onto your heels as your toes lift off the ground towards you.

 

[casualbb]

I don't think partial-range stuff is really all that helpful except in breaking through sticking points in compound motions.

Scientific fact: eccentric motions cause muscle damage and stimulate growth. Logically, the more you limit the range of motion, the less eccentric you get.

Now, obviously you don't need to work a muscle through its entire anatomical range. The standard barbell bench press maybe hits only 1/2 of the pectoral range. It really isn't so black and white an issue, but do try to do all your stuff full-range. Going partial isn't going to help much.

-casualbb

 

[vinylgroover]

I don't think partial-range stuff is really all that helpful except in breaking through sticking points in compound motions.

Scientific fact: eccentric motions cause muscle damage and stimulate growth. Logically, the more you limit the range of motion, the less eccentric you get.

Now, obviously you don't need to work a muscle through its entire anatomical range. The standard barbell bench press maybe hits only 1/2 of the pectoral range. It really isn't so black and white an issue, but do try to do all your stuff full-range. Going partial isn't going to help much.

-casualbb

It helped my calves. I honestly got nowhere doing full range for calves. I suddenly change to partials and within weeks i'm getting growth......i didn't change anything else in my routine other than going from full-range to partials. I have been doing this for 2 months now and still getting growth.

Is that just a coincidence?

 

[casualbb]

Do you do stretch partials, or partials near the contracted state?

-casualbb

 

[vinylgroover]

Do you do stretch partials, or partials near the contracted state?

-casualbb

i'll bring my feet back so that they are parralel with the platform, no lower.....so stretch partials i guess.

 

[casualbb]

That would make sense then. The calves are not unique in how they work as muscles, but they are unique in that, among the body's muscle systems, they are never allows to decondition. Unless wheelchair-bound, every human is up walking every day, making their calves tough, resistant to growth (The Repeated Bout effect, if anyone remembers).

On the HST-boards others have noticed this: when they restrict the range of their calf presses or calf raises and raise the weight correspondingly, they can usually sustain growth. You are totally correct! I would, however, hesitate to apply this restricted range to any other exercise except possibly shrugs. The calves are also unique in that the motion they facilitate, the toe press, allows the body to use the most possible weight when the muscle is in a stretched position. Most other motions, squatting, pressing, curling (not pulling, though) can sustain the most weight when the constituent muscles are in the contracted position. This excessive stretch as well as the correspondingly high weights used in a limited-range calf press can be helpful in stimulating new growth.

So why not apply it to pulling stuff too? Well, those are complex compound movements. In working only the last few stretch inches many muscles will have been neglected.

Good job on getting your calves to grow, btw. A lot of people have trouble with that

-casualbb

 

[Tarheel]

For bodybuilding, I think a longer range of motion is often better.

But for powerlifting, its often good to work your sticking points (shorter range of motion, using suspended GMs, board presses, rack pulls, etc.)

 

[JOKER47]

For years i have been working calves in a full range of motion with no results.

That was the problem.

A change was way overdue from the sounds of it.


Joker

 

[coolcolj]

calves have like 3-4 inch rom -

tha extra inch won't make that much of a diffeence, but see those chicken leg dudes that do quarter squats with 405+lbs?.....

amen