kuiten staat onder benen, sinds dit een onderdeel van je benen is :)

Q: Do you have any suggestions on how to make stubborn calf muscles grow?

A: Pause at the bottom. The achilles tendon has an incredible ability to return elastic energy, it's an adaptation that makes walking more efficient. It's also why guys with no calves can bounce the entire weight stack without really doing any muscular work: they are just storing and returning elastic energy through the achilles.

So try starting every repetition of your calf work with a 2-4 second pause in the bottom, as this will dissipate stored elastic energy. You will feel the difference in how hard the calves are working almost immediately (don't be surprised if you have to drop your work weights considerably). That's because you're finally making the muscles do the lifting, instead of just relying on recoil.

After that suggestion, I think the other mistake people make in calf training is not going heavily enough. The calves have a tremendous mechanical advantage as a consequence of a short lever arm. And the gastroc (part of the calf that forms the 'diamond') is primarily fast twitch. This means heavy loads and low reps. Hitting the soleus is generally better done with higher reps. One of my favorite routines is the following

A straight legged calf raise (leg press calf raise works well): warmups and then 5 sets of 5 with a 2-3' rest between sets. Each rep should be done from a 2-4 second stop, take 2 seconds to raise the weight, hold for 2 seconds, 2 or more second eccentric. Go heavy on this, when you can get all 5 sets of 5 with the same weight, raise the weight at the next workout.

A bent-legged calf raise: 2-3 sets of 12-15 with a 1.5' rest. Again, start each rep from a 2 second dead stop. Go 2 seconds up, 1 second pause at the top, 2 seconds down. When you get all 3 sets of 15, raise the weight.

Do this workout twice per week or every 5 days (at least) while eating to gain weight and see what happens.

Oh yeah, don't be mad at me when you can't walk for 2 days afterwards.

Written by Lyle McDonald