Calf Muscles Exercises Tips

calf muscles exercises are that part of the body building exercises that most people just throw in at the end of a workout once a week or so. This is a wrong approach because in order to develop strong and huge calves,you need proper calf exercises performed in the right manner to.

You must give your calf muscles the proper attention as they are no different than any other part of your physique.

When performing any calf exercise ,there are two main calf muscles that you should be concerned with :the gastrocnemius and the soleus calf muscles.

The soleus is a flat and wise muscle that lies beneath the gastrocnemius. The gastrocnemius itself is a muscle that extends from your knee joint to your ankle joint.

Both muscles contract in order to extend the feet and toes, but the soleus calf muscles can only fully contract when your leg is bent as with exercises such as the seated calf raise.

The different calf muscles exercises

Standing and Seated Calf raises
This calf weight lifting exercise is a basic calf workouts that works your gastrocnemius muscles. Whenever you perform standing calf weight lifting exercises you must see to it that your legs stay locked at the knees. If possible, try to use a standing calf raise machine for this type of calf weight lifting exercise. If not, then you can do the calf weight lifting exercise while holding a dumbbell in one hand and balancing yourself with the other.

Building calf muscles by standing with your toes on the block of a standing calf raise machine and your heels hanging off the end of the platform. Lock your shoulders under the pads, place your head between the shoulder pads and straighten your legs, lift the weight clear of the support.

Keep your body straight and do not hunch . Keeping your legs straight, then lower your heels and the weight as far as possible toward the floor. After that rise up on your toes as far as possible until your calves are fully flexed.

Hold the such a position briefly, then slowly lower the weight back to the starting position.

The calf muscles exercises that you perform in a seated position with your legs bent will target the soleus muscles. Calf weight lifting exercises such as this are by far the best way to develop your soleus muscle.

Sit on a seated calf raise machine and place your toes on the bottom cross piece, locking your knees under the pads so that the pads rest on the lower part of your quads. And place your feet about shoulder width apart with your toes pointing forward.

Lower your heels,slowly, as far as possible towards the ground. After that press up on your toes until your calves are fully contracted. Flex hard at the top then lower the weight back slowly to the starting position. And repeat

Keep your calves working with a steady controlled motion and do not try to rock back and forth.

Donkey calf raises: Calf weight lifting exercises are excellent for working your gastrocnemius muscles with some work being done by your soleus muscles.

Standing Bar Bell Calf Raise

This is the best calf muscles exercises and alone would be enough to completely exhaust your calves.

For this exercise to build calf muscle you must stand in a squat rack and bring over a block to stand on. Then place a medium heavy bar bell on your shoulders and stand so that your toes are on the block but your heels are over the edge. The motion consists of slowly lowering your heels off of the edge of the box and then using your calf muscles to push yourself back up until you are standing on your tip toes.
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