not feeling new seated calf raise

[NoCalBbEr]

hey guys
I  moved to a new gym that has old and new stuff.  one of the old machine that they have is a seated calf raise with the weights on each side and not  pleaced in front of you. for some reason I don't really feel it that much. I did feel it much more at myold gym. is there a different form on those calf raise machine?? If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, its the same calf raise machine in the Jay Cutler "One Step Closer". I've done down to no added weights on the machine. another broblem I find is, I have big legs, so its a pain sometimes to get the in legs  under the pads. I do standing calf raise first.

thanks guy

[WOOO]

i personally do not feel seated calf raises at all, i think calf raises are most effective when the legs are extended and are even better with the torso bent over (like donkeys)

[Hedgehog]

i personally do not feel seated calf raises at all, i think calf raises are most effective when the legs are extended and are even better with the torso bent over (like donkeys)

Agree about seated calf raises.

The calf tip MaxRep posted has been by far the best tip I've gotten on calves.

[WOOO]

Reposting for easier readin:

 Max_Rep, about calf training.
« on: August 07, 2006, 06:45:11 pm » 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wrote this long post on the Mentzer thread about how I was able to transform my calves after twenty years of fruitless training using every conceivable combination with various calf machines using just the one-legged calf raise that Jones said was perfect enough and why he never developed a calf machine.
Anyway, like all Mentzer/HIT threads it got locked as things grew inevitably ugly.

Anyway, I didn't want the post to go to waste because it took me so long to write and might give some practical credibility to Jones' and HIT by an ordinary guy who had 13 7/8 inch calves until his mid thirties. I can email you a pic because I can't attach it here. I just got my first digital camera last week and have been photographing everything. I have a pic of my calves on my dsktop but it won't attach here. I think it exceeds the limit. The pic is of normal size but uses 1MB of space whereas the limit here is only 110KB.

Anyway here's the post that didn't make the locked thread  deadline:


Quote from: Max_Rep on August 07, 2006, 03:05:12 pm
Okay dude I'll try them. Do you hold the dumbell in the same hand as the leg you're training or the opposite hand?


Actually, to this day I can't do one strict rep with just my meager bodyweight of 195-200lbs so dumbells have never been necessary. I would do them at home with this huge dictionary that's about 8 inches thick. I put it between a doorway and use the frame edges to both balance and pull myself up for force reps and then push myself down (like doing an over head press) for negatives. I could write a book on all the variations but you really got to make them hurt. I'd just do one or two sets for each leg but each set would take almost five minutes. A typical set would start out with just the typical full range movement. All the way down but do a prestretch (as you slowly lower, just controlled not any of this super slow stuff, just before the full stretch you kind of do a bounce before coming back up. This is similar to throwing you hips out first before following with your arms when throwing a baseball. It's suppose to activate more fibers.) Then you do the whole force reps thing before you have to start pulling up your whole body but then push down against the top of the door frame for the negatives. When you can't control the downward portion of the movement you get to rest. Which means you do burns at the end. Just keep bouncing up and down at the bottom trying not to cry while psyching yourself up for the next rep. It's kind of rest pause except the rest part is the burns. So I would do positive failure, forced reps, negatives (pushing against the door frame) then maybe ten burns before I explode back up which  requires an assisted forced rep and then pushing back down for a negative and then repeat. I'd try to get about 10 of these burn/rest pause reps. Sometimes I couldn't do any more burns but would just stay in that stretched position wimpering like a girly-girl (not even a girl-man) before exploding back up. I was in the privacy of my own home so I didn't have to worry about how insane I looked. And I was free to say, "F**k, f**k, f**k, as I was in the stretching portion. And it's not just about doing forced reps, negatives, burns... you really have to make a concerted volitional effort. To take my mind off the pain of the burns I would use it to psyche myself up so I could explode for the rest pause reps. I looked at it as sort of when you hyper ventilate before extreme exertion. My hyper ventilation would be the burns. Burn, burn, burn, up and down, up and down, and then BOOM! explode to the top like your life depended on it. Forget about form at this point. Your muscles are too weak and exhausted to exceed tensile strength.

The thing is that the whole reason I started doing this was because I just gave up on calves. I wasn't going to waste my time at the gym doing them. I would just do a couple of one-legged sets at home just to keep tone and conditioning. It's only when I started to notice some change that it inspired me to take it more seriously. I first noticed veins before I started to measure them and found that they grew.

Don't be afraid to use your other feet for balance and to help you push up for forced reps and steady yourself for negatives. Eighty per cent of the time I 'd do just one set each because it just took so much out of me and since I didn't think I could duplicate that level of intensity for the next set I figure why bother.

Right now I just piddle with the seated calf machine at the gym and do one leg raises on the stairs leading to the stretching room at the 24HR on Crenshaw/PCH. I just do 15 reps for each leg and leave it at that. I don't train my calves with that intensity anymore because I don't want them to grow anymore because they're a bit out of porportion and people comment of them regularly. I can't tell you how odd it is to say that especially since I use to be so self-conscious of how skinny they were before. I measure them at 13 7/8 inches.

Now if I can only figure out a practical way to work with that type of intensity for the rest of my body.

[bmacsys]

Seated calf raises suck.

[Montague]

hey guys
I  moved to a new gym that has old and new stuff.  one of the old machine that they have is a seated calf raise with the weights on each side and not  pleaced in front of you. for some reason I don't really feel it that much. I did feel it much more at myold gym. is there a different form on those calf raise machine?? If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, its the same calf raise machine in the Jay Cutler "One Step Closer". I've done down to no added weights on the machine. another broblem I find is, I have big legs, so its a pain sometimes to get the in legs  under the pads. I do standing calf raise first.

thanks guy

Are you using enough weight?
Recent literature suggests that the upper calf (gastrocnemius) responds best to lighter weight with more reps, while the lower calf (soleus) responds best to heavy weight with low reps.



Standing raises – or any kind of calf raise where the knees are straight – target the upper calf.
Seated/knees bent position activates more of the lower soleus fibers.

If you aren’t already, try adding enough weight to reach failure at about 6 reps, and see if that helps any.

[NoCalBbEr]

I use to do up to 6 plates on seated calf rfaise and be able to do  15 reps but current I've been just going for more contraction..so I just do  a plat and a helf and do 25-50. but the machine feels really weird. I just can't get the right feel of it. I have  fairly good calfsbut the outer needs to get wider

[Bluto]

we dont have that machine just the standard one. i feel that one for sure. i do 10 sets of 6 reps.

[WOOO]

you can also do seated calve raises the old fashion way.  sit on a bench and put a piece of 2x4 under the balls of your feet and then load a heavy dumbbell or a few plates on your knees

[Mike]

you can also do seated calve raises the old fashion way.  sit on a bench and put a piece of 2x4 under the balls of your feet and then load a heavy dumbbell or a few plates on your knees

Done that...

Montague, do you a copy of that literature, I'd be interested to see the studies.

[Montague]

Mike,
I believe the study results I originally read were published in MD in 2006.
Here are a few links to some other articles that suggest similar ideas regarding standing vs. seated and the areas they target:

http://www.extique.com/askrob/calf-training.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/beast46.htm

Many articles on bodybuilding.com suggest using a variety of weights and reps for both straight and bent legged calf raises.

I’ll try to find the magazine article for you, though. It was comprehensive, specific, and if I’m not mistaken, listed works cited, as most of MD’s articles usually do. Hopefully, I still have it.

I remember being a bit surprised when I first read it because I always thought that the lower calf fibers were primarily Type I / slow twitch,  and thus would respond better to higher reps.
http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/postcalvesflash.php

[Master Blaster]

Reposting for easier readin:

 Max_Rep, about calf training.
« on: August 07, 2006, 06:45:11 pm » 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wrote this long post on the Mentzer thread about how I was able to transform my calves after twenty years of fruitless training using every conceivable combination with various calf machines using just the one-legged calf raise that Jones said was perfect enough and why he never developed a calf machine.
Anyway, like all Mentzer/HIT threads it got locked as things grew inevitably ugly.

Anyway, I didn't want the post to go to waste because it took me so long to write and might give some practical credibility to Jones' and HIT by an ordinary guy who had 13 7/8 inch calves until his mid thirties. I can email you a pic because I can't attach it here. I just got my first digital camera last week and have been photographing everything. I have a pic of my calves on my dsktop but it won't attach here. I think it exceeds the limit. The pic is of normal size but uses 1MB of space whereas the limit here is only 110KB.

Anyway here's the post that didn't make the locked thread  deadline:


Quote from: Max_Rep on August 07, 2006, 03:05:12 pm
Okay dude I'll try them. Do you hold the dumbell in the same hand as the leg you're training or the opposite hand?


Actually, to this day I can't do one strict rep with just my meager bodyweight of 195-200lbs so dumbells have never been necessary. I would do them at home with this huge dictionary that's about 8 inches thick. I put it between a doorway and use the frame edges to both balance and pull myself up for force reps and then push myself down (like doing an over head press) for negatives. I could write a book on all the variations but you really got to make them hurt. I'd just do one or two sets for each leg but each set would take almost five minutes. A typical set would start out with just the typical full range movement. All the way down but do a prestretch (as you slowly lower, just controlled not any of this super slow stuff, just before the full stretch you kind of do a bounce before coming back up. This is similar to throwing you hips out first before following with your arms when throwing a baseball. It's suppose to activate more fibers.) Then you do the whole force reps thing before you have to start pulling up your whole body but then push down against the top of the door frame for the negatives. When you can't control the downward portion of the movement you get to rest. Which means you do burns at the end. Just keep bouncing up and down at the bottom trying not to cry while psyching yourself up for the next rep. It's kind of rest pause except the rest part is the burns. So I would do positive failure, forced reps, negatives (pushing against the door frame) then maybe ten burns before I explode back up which  requires an assisted forced rep and then pushing back down for a negative and then repeat. I'd try to get about 10 of these burn/rest pause reps. Sometimes I couldn't do any more burns but would just stay in that stretched position wimpering like a girly-girl (not even a girl-man) before exploding back up. I was in the privacy of my own home so I didn't have to worry about how insane I looked. And I was free to say, "F**k, f**k, f**k, as I was in the stretching portion. And it's not just about doing forced reps, negatives, burns... you really have to make a concerted volitional effort. To take my mind off the pain of the burns I would use it to psyche myself up so I could explode for the rest pause reps. I looked at it as sort of when you hyper ventilate before extreme exertion. My hyper ventilation would be the burns. Burn, burn, burn, up and down, up and down, and then BOOM! explode to the top like your life depended on it. Forget about form at this point. Your muscles are too weak and exhausted to exceed tensile strength.

The thing is that the whole reason I started doing this was because I just gave up on calves. I wasn't going to waste my time at the gym doing them. I would just do a couple of one-legged sets at home just to keep tone and conditioning. It's only when I started to notice some change that it inspired me to take it more seriously. I first noticed veins before I started to measure them and found that they grew.

Don't be afraid to use your other feet for balance and to help you push up for forced reps and steady yourself for negatives. Eighty per cent of the time I 'd do just one set each because it just took so much out of me and since I didn't think I could duplicate that level of intensity for the next set I figure why bother.

Right now I just piddle with the seated calf machine at the gym and do one leg raises on the stairs leading to the stretching room at the 24HR on Crenshaw/PCH. I just do 15 reps for each leg and leave it at that. I don't train my calves with that intensity anymore because I don't want them to grow anymore because they're a bit out of porportion and people comment of them regularly. I can't tell you how odd it is to say that especially since I use to be so self-conscious of how skinny they were before. I measure them at 13 7/8 inches.

Now if I can only figure out a practical way to work with that type of intensity for the rest of my body.

Can anyone condense this into a few short sentences? I guess I'm a little slow in the head, but this is like the third time I've tried to read that and each time my eyes start to cross eachother and tear up. My calves suck and I always hated one leg standing raises so mayber there is a connection there. 

[slaveboy1980]

hey guys
I  moved to a new gym that has old and new stuff.  one of the old machine that they have is a seated calf raise with the weights on each side and not  pleaced in front of you. for some reason I don't really feel it that much. I did feel it much more at myold gym. is there a different form on those calf raise machine?? If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, its the same calf raise machine in the Jay Cutler "One Step Closer". I've done down to no added weights on the machine. another broblem I find is, I have big legs, so its a pain sometimes to get the in legs  under the pads. I do standing calf raise first.

thanks guy

simply dont do the seated calf raises. standing calf raises are much more important as they hit both gastrocnemius and soleus..whereas seated calf raise mostly hits soleus (because knees are bent)

do standing calf raise, donkey calf raise, calf press in leg press machine....that should be enough!

[slaveboy1980]

Can anyone condense this into a few short sentences? I guess I'm a little slow in the head, but this is like the third time I've tried to read that and each time my eyes start to cross eachother and tear up. My calves suck and I always hated one leg standing raises so mayber there is a connection there. 

the "secret" to good calf stimulation  is to get a good stretch when doing them and not bouncing in the bottom position (to take away the very strong spring effect that can be achieved by the calves and the achilles tendon)

also start brushing your teeth standing one one leg on your toes..and alternate.
when at home walk around on your toes alot.
as it has been said many times the calves can be trained frequently, so train them 2-3 per weeks. and sometimes daily (in gym and/or at home)

[pumpster]

Seated calf raises suck.

Wrong; they're less important but do emphasize a different part of the calf than standing, the outer and lower areas. For full development both should be done.

[WOOO]

Wrong; they're less important but do emphasize a different part of the calf than standing, the outer and lower areas. For full development both should be done.

you're generalizing in the opposite direction

some people think that seated calf raises work a different part of the calf muscles just like there are some people who think that dirrent types of curls work the biceps differently...

the reality is much more personal.  like anything else, some people get more out of one exercise for a specific bodypart then they get from another exercise.

people need to learn what works for them, usually this is based on body type, age, genetics and experience.

seated calf raises hurt my knees and i do not feel much from them in my calves, my prefered calf training method is donkeys (see below) but i often use the smith machine and have someone turn the bar onto my back and lean against an incline bench:

[pumpster]

Standing are better but it's clear they emphasize different areas therefore do both if the idea's to maximize development.

[Mike]

Mike,
I believe the study results I originally read were published in MD in 2006.
Here are a few links to some other articles that suggest similar ideas regarding standing vs. seated and the areas they target:

http://www.extique.com/askrob/calf-training.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/beast46.htm

Many articles on bodybuilding.com suggest using a variety of weights and reps for both straight and bent legged calf raises.

I’ll try to find the magazine article for you, though. It was comprehensive, specific, and if I’m not mistaken, listed works cited, as most of MD’s articles usually do. Hopefully, I still have it.

I remember being a bit surprised when I first read it because I always thought that the lower calf fibers were primarily Type I / slow twitch,  and thus would respond better to higher reps.
http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/postcalvesflash.php

Thanks Montague

[NoCalBbEr]

you're generalizing in the opposite direction

some people think that seated calf raises work a different part of the calf muscles just like there are some people who think that dirrent types of curls work the biceps differently...

the reality is much more personal.  like anything else, some people get more out of one exercise for a specific bodypart then they get from another exercise.

people need to learn what works for them, usually this is based on body type, age, genetics and experience.

seated calf raises hurt my knees and i do not feel much from them in my calves, my prefered calf training method is donkeys (see below) but i often use the smith machine and have someone turn the bar onto my back and lean against an incline bench:

I always throught that standing calf/donkeys where your  legs are straigth, work one muscle and seated works the other muscles. there's two muscle that make up the calves.  In a lot of people  that's 3.

I  that there are some exerise that hits a  part of a muscle that  others can't i.e hammer calfs. but I guess you can play with the grips of the hands and feet placement to put stress of an area

[Master Blaster]

the "secret" to good calf stimulation  is to get a good stretch when doing them and not bouncing in the bottom position (to take away the very strong spring effect that can be achieved by the calves and the achilles tendon)

also start brushing your teeth standing one one leg on your toes..and alternate.
when at home walk around on your toes alot.
as it has been said many times the calves can be trained frequently, so train them 2-3 per weeks. and sometimes daily (in gym and/or at home)

With one monster set only, to ultimate failure?

[pumpster]

Seated calf raises suck.

Cut out the trolling; your posts are always superficial and unfunny, the words of someone with anger-management issues.

[Luv2Hurt]

If your calves suck and wont grow get better genetics cause all the training in the world will not make much difference.  Cant change high insertions.  God knows I know 

[pumpster]

If your calves suck and wont grow get better genetics cause all the training in the world will not make much difference.  Cant change high insertions.  God knows I know 

This is a good but partial answer. Yes it's true that genetics rule at the end of the day, on the other hand if you don't try a little of everything, as i've mentioned by including seated, you really aren't gonna know whether you've really touched on every possibility. Exactly what Schwarzenegger experienced in suddenly forcing them to growth after he might've thought the same thing you do.

[pumpster]

you're generalizing in the opposite direction

some people think that seated calf raises work a different part of the calf muscles just like there are some people who think that dirrent types of curls work the biceps differently...

the reality is much more personal.  like anything else, some people get more out of one exercise for a specific bodypart then they get from another exercise.

people need to learn what works for them, usually this is based on body type, age, genetics and experience.

seated calf raises hurt my knees and i do not feel much from them in my calves, my prefered calf training method is donkeys (see below) but i often use the smith machine and have someone turn the bar onto my back and lean against an incline bench:

Actually you're proving my point that you have to try various things, in your case donkeys or for someone else seated. I've been saying this for years.-each exercise can do something different.

[Luv2Hurt]

This is a good but partial answer. Yes it's true that genetics rule at the end of the day, on the other hand if you don't try a little of everything, as i've mentioned by including seated, you really aren't gonna know whether you've really touched on every possibility. Exactly what Schwarzenegger experienced in suddenly forcing them to growth after he might've thought the same thing you do.

Yes I agree with you gotta try everything you can and every little bit does help, cant give up.  I have been able to make small improvements in my calves doing a variety of excersises.

I still think Arnie may have got implants, but am not sure