You have two major calf muscles: gastrocnemius and soleus. Although your gastrocnemius performs powerfully during high-intensity calf movements, the soleus helps you push off the ground every time you take a walking step. Standing calf raises work your gastrocnemius, but if you want to develop the soleus as well, you must work bent-knee or seated calf raises into your workout routine.
Target the Right Muscle
The soleus isn't readily visible from the outside -- it's the two-headed gastrocnemius, which lies over the soleus, that gives your calf its characteristic wide-on-top shape. But both the soleus and gastrocnemius tie into your Achilles tendon, and both power plantar flexion, also known as pointing your toes or lifting your heels. Your soleus takes over almost completely when your knees are bent, so whether you're doing duck walks or sprint starts, this small, often neglected muscle can be the key to reducing your rate of injury and maintaining proper performance and body mechanics.
Basic Technique
To do a standing calf raise, you simply stand up straight and point your toes, lifting your heels off the ground and balancing on the balls of your feet. Bent-knee calf raises work the exact same way, but with your legs bent at the knee. You could even do them balancing in a squat or a single-leg squat, but there are a number of apparatus you can use to perform this exercise with less risk of losing your balance. The same basic rules you'd follow for straight-leg calf raises apply to bent-knee raises too. Exhale as you lift, keep the motion smooth and controlled, and don't confuse this exercise with a chance to stretch -- wait until you're done exercising to do static bent-knee calf stretches to improve your flexibility.
Apparatus
You'll probably find a lever seated calf-raise apparatus in the free weight room of most gyms. It looks like a small padded seat with downward facing knee pads in front of it, and a bar pointing straight up from or to the front of the knee pads. You load weight plates onto the protruding bar for resistance, sit down in the seat and place your knees beneath the pads, then lift your heels against the plates' resistance. But you can also use other equipment for bent-knee calf raises, from laying a padded Smith machine bar across your knees to holding dumbbells or weight plates on top of your thighs.
Considerations
Your soleus is smaller than your gastrocnemius, and in the world of muscles, size equals ability to lift weight. So start with a significantly lighter weight for your soleus than you'd use for standing calf raises, and increase the weight gradually as your soleus gets stronger. Doing calf raises with explosive movement is also a common error -- although this is a valid technique for general power training, it's also a good way to overload your soleus and provoke a calf injury. Keeping the motion smooth and controlled throughout helps ensure that you're lifting an appropriate amount of weight.
Member Comments