Try These Calf Training Tips in Your Next Workout
Calf training tips are a dime a dozen. If all those tips were so effective, why are 97% of the people in the walking around with 10 year-old-girl calves?
Most people don’t get too excited about calf training. I can see why. You bust your butt training them, stacking on the plates and repping out, and in the end, nada; NOTHING to show for it. Having skinny, non-shaped calves is the pits. The calves can be the most challenging muscle to respond.
Regardless of your hours and years of calf training in the past, you can learn how to train them and get them to grow. In this short information piece I’m going outline some calf training tips you should apply to get your calves to respond and grow.
Learn How to Use Correct Form
Your calf training form is absolutely critical for your overall calf development. Most people just pile on the plates and bounce up and down with no rhyme or reason. This is pointless and it just shows that you are a novice.
You have to put a little if your mind into your calf training to create the mind-muscle connection. Position yourself on the calf raise machine. Now, rather than just lifting the weight, focus on the calf muscles, an using the calf muscles ONLY, raise your body, contracting your calves HARD at the top. Using your calf muscles ONLY, lower your body and get the full stretch.
You can calf raise erratically all day, but do it the way I just mentioned and your reps will be much less because your calf muscle is actually working, and working hard.
Watch Your Tempo
Your tempo is your rep speed. You see, most lifters train erratically, lifting fast and pretty much out of control. Your muscles need time under tension (TUT). With a paced tempo that controls your rep speed, you can get the proper TUT needed to stimulate growth.
Example of a 2-1-2 tempo: Use 2 seconds to lift the weight, 1 second at full contraction, and 2 seconds to lower the weight.
A decent tempo for calf training can be anything that slows down your rep speed down such as 2-1-2, 2-2-3, or any other paced pattern you can come up with. They key is to slow down your rep speed.
Lower Your Poundage
Most people have bad form and no tempo because they are using too much weight on calf training. You don’t need to stack the plates to the ceiling to stimulate your calf muscle. Don’t believe me? Just look at that guy with 6, 45-pound plates, jerking them up and down. His training resembles a jack rabbit mating. His calves looked the same way last year, 2 years ago and they will look the same in the future if he keeps training like that.
The muscle stimulation comes through proper form, FULL range of motion, and poundage that allows you to complete each rep with proper tempo.
Feeling The Calves Do The Work
Most people training calves don’t feel them actually working. That’s because they have no mind-muscle connection, they don’t have any tempo, and are using too much poundage. How can they feel the calves work when they have to use all the other muscle groups in their body to hoist the weight up, only to let it fall back to the stating position and repeat? That’s not training, my friend.
You have to really put your ego aside when you train calves, Use a 10 pound or 25 pound plate for a change. Connect with your calves, allow your CALVES to lower and raise the poundage. Keep a paced rep speed and for Christ-sake and use a good FULL range of motion for once.
Stop Bouncing
Bouncers are for night clubs. No bouncing when doing calf training, or any other exercise for that matter. Bouncing just shows you are lifting too heavy and that you are out of control. It’s a sure sign that you don’t know what you are doing and it’s a good way to get injured. Just stop it.
“Too many people try to train calves by bouncing weight on top of their knees during seated calf raises. That won’t get results. Train calves with slower reps, more volume, and long duration.”
Doing 12 reps, 4 sets of bouncing reps didn’t accomplish one damn thing. It was a waste of time. Instead, try 12 reps and 4 sets of correct form, using the mind-muscle connection, a paced speed, with lighter poundage, allowing your calves do the work and not other muscle groups by not bouncing.
One More Thing Regarding Calf Training Tips…
I hope these calf training tips can help you get moving forward on your calf development. I know old habits are hard to break, but they can be broken with the right information and the proper calf training protocol.
