Forearms and Calves

[TylerDurden]

Ive read countless articles on forearms and calve training and i was wondering what you guys think. I think one general common factor is that it can be hard to add mass to them. I was even watchin an episode of the simpsons where they looked into the future, milhouse was jacked, but the best line was when he said "does lisa not like me cause of my skinny calves? their the hardest part to add mass!" replies appreciated

 

[Old and Grey]

Pull ups and hammer curls for forearms. You can make big changes in your forearms.

I wouldn't waste a lot of my workout energy on calves. You aren't going to make overly drastic changes in them if you are lifting natural.

 

[semajes]

I seem to remember Bryan (in the FAQ, I believe) talking about the need for training calves extremely heavy. They are very resistant because we are walking around/using them all the time, so you will need to train with lots of weight, lots of volume, and use exercises that emphasize stretch.

 

[Old and Grey]

I remember that the Ahnold once said his calves never grew until Reg Park had him double his weight for calf raises from 500 pounds to 1,000 pounds. I also remember he worked his calves once for 9 hours straight and claims that he maintained 1/2" of growth as a results of that. I wonder how he slept that night though?

 

[HPgeno]

Holy Cow! I wonder how he got out of the gym. After 9 hours they must have had to carry him to bed.

 

[imported_domineaux]

1) I moved from standing calves w/db

2) to standing calves machine.
I had to move from the standing machine because it was very hard on my shoulders. Yoy can also cheat with your upper legs without knowing it, doing standing raises.

3) I now use a seated calf machine. I'm using 5 ea 45# plates.

I do raises with my feet straight ahead and then I turn my feet out 45 degrees. I'm doing three sets on each.

It's easy to cheat this exercise, because you can bounce the weights easily in such a short distance of travel.

My calves are going great now. I've found that isolation on the calves is best.

Here's a link to a seated calf machine

The one at the gym is better, but you get the idea.

 

[imported_dkm1987]

Quote[/b] (Old and Grey @ April 29 2005,4:43)]I remember that the Ahnold once said ...... he worked his calves once for 9 hours straight and claims that he maintained 1/2" of growth as a results of that. I wonder how he slept that night though?  

Vince must have been his coach.

 

[Jester]

I use about 240kgs for each calf atm (doing negs), and 5RM for concentrics is about 220kgs. They're at 17 inches, not much in the way of fat and flexed they look pretty good, not overly vascular yet but look decent and tight.

My experience for calf training is:

Go heavy, do several sets, train frequently.

So push your RMs, make sure you train them the way you train your bis and chest and back i.e. with focus, good range of motion, controlled form.

 

[Nemesis7884]

i asked bryan once about calves training and he recommended me to train em heavy and with more volume then the rest of my body, but not with higher reps (therefore same reps as the other muscles) i always do 1-2 extra calves sets and end up with a calve volume of 150-200 reps a week...this seems to work so far...
what was especially amazing is that my calves seem to grow the most during 5s

 

[semajes]

Quote[/b] (Nemesis7884 @ May 03 2005,1:58)]what was especially amazing is that my calves seem to grow the most during 5s

This makes sense since the 5s are the heaviest. This is a muscle group you really have to work hard.