# calf



## superstar19 (Jul 15, 2004)

i am looking to develop the medial head of my gastrocnemius, and i hear that the best thing for them is the donkey raise, is there any other exercises that work this muscle as well as the donkey raises????


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Just hit the diffrent heads.

Donky's are good and in my opinion are best, (but who am I)

I would get full range and a really good stretch at the end.

Lots of fast twitch fibers in the Calves.

Lots of fascia too.

I would go heavy then do a dropdown set for reps then stretch the heck out of your calves while you still have the blood pumped in them.

This will stretch out the fascia.

You can point your toes in or out for variation.

But the full stretch up and down will make this better.

If you bend the knees then you will lose some stretch.


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## superstar19 (Jul 15, 2004)

is it possible to do donkeys without the use of the machine but with free weights instead???


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Yah, the original donky calf raises used you and another guy. He sat on your but and you put somethng on the floor behind a table and you leaned over the table and the guy sat on your butt for weight.


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## GoldenArrow (Mar 30, 2004)

You can do them one legged with no extra weight maybe..?



> If you bend the knees then you will lose some stretch.


If you bend the knees, you're not training gastroc's...


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## Killerkeane (Nov 9, 2003)

donkeys look tremendously dodgy to me, ruins the hard man look


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

GoldenArrow said:


> You can do them one legged with no extra weight maybe..?


Excellent, a thinker! Good going.


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## philipebrown (Nov 26, 2003)

calfs actually have a higher percentage of slow twitch fibres due to their nature of being used all the time which is why most people have skinny calfs, to your calfs you are doing constant cardio all day long and not powerfull explosive fast twitch movements, which is why they are a stubborn muscle to develop.You have to work them a lot!!!


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

I have to double check but I just read an article on this.

Sprinters use their calves alot, in fact their heels dont even touch the ground.


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## philipebrown (Nov 26, 2003)

yes scott, but in between doing sprints, they walk all day long using their calves which is a slow twitch movement. Dwain chambers, ben johnson and LInford christie still dont have big calfs compared to their upper bodies and theyre all on gear too lol.

Im talking by bodybuilding standards, sprinters dont have 17,18,19, inch calfs!

Hill walkers and ramblers who do lots of high intensity incline walking and climbing have huge calfs, have ever noticed that? but even this excercise is slow twitch, aerobic movements.

Maybe the key to getting big calves is sheer volume. If the calf has a majority of slow twitch fibres then theyre the ones you gotta stimulate (also understand the need for training both fibre types holistically but you know what im getting at)


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Fat people have the biggest calves and they do no slow twitch movements. These people are generally lazy.

I feel that it is the load on the calves that make them.

I think it is weight and not volume.

I did read in an article that the calves did have more fast twitch and the most fascia in the body.

It supports the whole body.


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## philipebrown (Nov 26, 2003)

nope, sorry mate, were gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. big fat people still walk around a lot and walking is a slow twitch movement. Yes, a bigger load will make a difference but i think what we are talking about is volume, no of reps and sets.

Arnie was reported to have done 22 sets on calfs alone in the high rep range when he wanted to make them bigger, also it seems that you have to train them more frequently too.

Weve both read different articles. mine comes from a book called strength training by i forget who. if ive got time ill dig it out and post it.


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Thats cool Philipbrown, this is good to air things out. My calves are big and i dont even work them at all.

I just noticed that when I cycled my calves would get too pumped to walk. If I was in a hurry, it looked like I was crippled


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## philipebrown (Nov 26, 2003)

yeah, doing cardio while on a cutting cycle was murder on the calfs, 10 mins on the treadmill and i couldnt walk


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## balzak (Jul 22, 2004)

wow, I'm in this situation, and I was wondering if it would be safe to do cardio again (if I didn't it would break my routine), today even though my calves hurt so bad.


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## philipebrown (Nov 26, 2003)

yeah keep it up as long as you can buddy, youll know when it hurts too much and youll have to stop. maybe do the stationary bike instead


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Stretch them out too this will help things.


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