Calves are hard to get if natural is not on your side. Go play volleyball. Do donkey raises. Work one leg at a time. Negative work is good for calves.
[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Also, in these last three months how much did your strength change on the standing and seated calf raises? [/quote]
I hit a plateau on the standing calf raise.
Weight did not moveup for the last 3 weeks.
I’ll change my approach on the standing raises. Maybe add some jumping squat superset, and/or doing leg-press raises (kind of donkey, no ?), try higher reps… I don’t really feel my calves on the standing machine.
I’m “happy” with the seated raises, feeling AND weight progression are good. So I’ll keep going on this one.
Thanks to everybody for your help.
Mathieu
[quote]mat_angus wrote:
I don’t really feel my calves on the standing machine.[/quote]
Seriously, dude?
Then this is something that you should’ve corrected 8 or 9 weeks ago. It makes no sense whatsoever to have been doing an exercise you didn’t feel targeting the intended muscle. Either choose a different exercise or learn how to feel the muscle working.
Sorry but it is difficult for me to explain my problem in English.
I meant : I do not feel the standing calf raises using the 6-8 reps range.
Last year, I tried the Luke Sauder calf routine. And my calves got a good burn, both on the high volume day and low volume day (and ‘low’ volume mean 3 drop set of 30 reps !).
So…maybe higher reps are better for me on the standing calf raise machine.
Mathieu
[quote]mat_angus wrote:
Sorry but it is difficult for me to explain my problem in English.
I meant : I do not feel the standing calf raises using the 6-8 reps range.
Last year, I tried the Luke Sauder calf routine. And my calves got a good burn, both on the high volume day and low volume day (and ‘low’ volume mean 3 drop set of 30 reps !).
So…maybe higher reps are better for me on the standing calf raise machine.
Mathieu
[/quote]
I don’t understand how you could NOT feel your calves working in that rep range, or any rep range even up to 30 (which is totally unnecessary IMO).
my sets for standing calf raise typically run to 8 reps. by the end of each set, my gastrocnemius muscles are shaking when I squeeze them hard at the top of the rep.
I think you have an issue with mind-muscle connection here as I think Chris is alluding to.
I am going to share my ultimate calf secret with you guys.
Recently at my gym, I saw some HYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGE bouncers struggling to calf raise the entire stack on the donkey calf-raise machine.
I went in there, put 3 plates on it and did it like 20 times (535). I know there’s people that could calf raise 1,200 out there, but 535x20 at my gym just floored everyone.
I never train calves.
My other lifts could be described as intermediate at best.
How did I do it?
By being OBESE as FUCK For 5 years. Seriously, just walking around when you’re 300 pounds and 50% BF is EPIC calf training. Even today at 200 (with 20 lbs more muscle then back then), my calves are still completely out of whack impressive and all I do is run hills. I perhaps hit my calves on power cleans, but I’m not even sure.
Want big calves? GET FAT 
Also good: You never lose the ability to eat like a Fat f–k. Ever. I can still throw back 8,000 cals in 1 meal and not blink. Never had an issue putting on muscle once I cardio’ed the fat into oblivion.
Working calves DC style really worked for me. It is painful though.
Also, prowler work.
Last thing. Learn to engage your calves more when walking.
Samir, I feel you, I am 6’5 and have weighed almost 280 now at 240 and my calves are still solid and I never specifically train them, I do ATG squats which get them a little bit but weight is certainly going to help but it’s not necessarily ideal.
When and if you do any running for your cardio, jog, sprints, whatever, land on the balls of your feet and not your heel. You should be doing this anyway, but this will hit your calves more than you’d believe. Google “pose running” to see what I mean. Once you try it, you might be surprised at how fast you actually are. I know I was.