yea. i dont think ive ever done direct work.
im going to start thou. i want 22 inch ones!
People who are bashing the way Dante says to do calves have NO idea of the hell it is.
Its 2 seconds top contraction,5 seconds down, and 15 seconds on the stretch. This is one repetition!!
More than 20 seconds each rep!
10 reps = 200 seconds = 3 minutes and something of non stop work. For the people who like to know the TUT… well this is some hellish TUT!
The reason you do one set of calves that way, is because you CANT complete another set if you do it right.
I tried to do a second set… only one time i was able…to do 7 reps.
When I’m in that brutal 15 second stretch, it is almost as if I go into a mini-meditation to deal with the pain and relax into the stretch. Don’t, like I did, make the mistake of using too much weight. Let go of your ego and do it right. It has been working for me.
Same here, I close my eyes and drift away in my own world to try to get rid of the pain. As stupid as it sounds it’s a pretty cool experience in my opinion.
My calves aren’t huge but I get occasional complements on them. Usually I’ll work them first on calf days, which is 2-3 days per week. On standing calf raises I will keep my knees bent slightly throughout the exercise. I saw pics of former Mr. Olympia Chris Dickerson (greatest calves ever,IMO) doing them this way and it seems to work for me.
I will also change up the workouts as others have said. One day I’ll go very heavy in rest/pause fashion and another day is for high reps. Calf presses on a leg press machine sets them on fire. Donkey calf raises are probably the best exercise for calves. Another thing I do is to ‘roll’ up on the balls of my feet instead of a simple up and down movement.
My gain isn’t building mass at the moment, but I’ll give you some common rules that I have found while researching how to build calves.
THese are the common themes:
Vary rep ranges
Each back-to back workout should be different
Train ata higher frequency than other bodyparts (1 guy even said train them everyday , the only time you shouldn’t train calves was when they were sore!)
Hope that helps
- PHoenix Theory