Muscular-Fitness

The first and most important thing to remember when considering how to get big calves is to complete a full range of motion for every rep. A full range of motion means starting with the calves completely stretched to their capacity and then contracting your calves to the maximum point finishing the rep on your toes. The calves are notoriously difficult muscles for most people to build so in this article I will give some tips on how to get big calves that you can immediately start to incorporate into your next calf workout.

One of the most important things to remember in regards how to get big calves is to always take your shoes and socks off before you start training your calves. The reason you want to train your calves with bare feet is to allow yourself the full range of motion and really feel all those muscle fibers in your calves stretching and working hard during each repetition. When you train your calves wearing shoes you can still workout ok but when you try calf training in bare feet you will immediately understand what I am talking about when you feel the calf muscles so much more completely. In fact it is almost impossible to get a full stretch or contraction wearing shoes.

As you move through each repetition while training your calves, really put your mind in the muscle and feel the calves as they stretch at the low point and flex hard at the top point of the rep. I like to hold the stretch at the bottom for about a second and again hold the contraction for about a second at the top. The calves get a lot of work holding up your bodyweight while standing, walking around, sitting down and getting back up but rarely do they get a full stretch and a full contraction so this is ultimately how to get big calves. If you give them a full stretch and contraction and train them just like any other body part they will grow.

I believe one of the main reasons why very few bodybuilders get big calves is simply due to laziness. Training the calves does not take a lot of work, in fact I would recommend training calves for 3 sets x 20 reps using 2 different exercises for each calf workout. So this is a total of 6 sets and I would recommend performing these 6 sets either twice or three times per week at the end of your workouts. To perform 6 sets with about a one minute break in between each set is only going to take you between 10-15 minutes for each calf training session and this is a very small price to pay to get big calves. Alternate your calf training between seated and standing calf exercises.

If you can get into the habit of training your calves 2 or 3 times per week they will grow. I would also suggest using higher reps around 20 or more to really get a deep burn in the calves. The calves are used to a lot of work every day so they need extra stimulation, more so than most other bodyparts that you probably don’t use much in your daily life. By making a commitment to yourself for just 3 months by training your calves hard and heavy at least twice per week I think you will be surprised by how much your calves will grow.

When I first started bodybuilding my calves were quite skinny but once I started training them consistently, they began to grow quite fast. The other good thing is, once you build them, it is much easier to maintain them to keep the size, unlike most other body parts that shrink as soon as you skip a few workouts. Get into a good training habit for the next three months and as you notice some new calf growth you will surely begin to enjoy training your calves as they start to develop and look good.