If you're like most men and women who do weight training, you've probably noticed that you can't get your calf muscles to grow, no matter what you do. Don't worry. It's not just your imagination. American sports scientists observed that although strength training can cause calf muscles to get stronger, those same efforts had no effect on the actual size of the calf muscles. Study The researchers got a dozen men and a dozen women to train their calf muscles on a machine like the one shown below, three times a week for eight weeks. The subjects trained using a weight with which they could just manage 9-13 reps. Each training session consisted of four sets. The subjects in the control group did no training. The researchers measured the strength of the subjects' calf muscles before and after the training period. They measured the circumference of the calf muscles using a scan. Results The subjects who had trained their calf muscles gained strength. The men built up slightly more strength than the women did, but the difference was not statistically significant. The calf circumference did not increase as a result of the training. On the scans the researchers were able to see that the training had led to an increase of one millimetre in the triceps surae calf muscle of both the men and the women. This effect was not statistically significant either. Conclusion "Eight weeks of heavy-resistance training involving the triceps surae muscles elicits similar significant increases in isotonic muscle strength in both men and women without concurrent increases in muscularity", the researchers wrote. Bummer.
I was blessed with massive calves. Rarely worked them out because they were already way out of proportion with the rest of my body. They've shrunk a little as I'm in my mid 40's now, but still look good in shorts On the flip side, I've been an incredibly hard gainer with my chest my entire life. I've had to relentlessly pummel away just to get decent size/strength and if I take some time away from the gym, the gains are wiped away so quickly. Genetics give and take.
Baron, you mad that I posses calfs sculpted by the gods of Mt. Olympus while you have no such thing? Are you mad... brah?
That's why it seems like the sport of professional bodybuilding is so ridiculous sometimes. At the end of the day, it's really just a comparison of good gene distribution across the physiques. It's not like anyone on the stage is really outworking anybody else.. or outdrugging anybody else, or outplanning anybody else. Most of the top 20 guys used the same handful of three or four coaches. I think it also explains why a Mr. Olympia can win it so many consecutive time is a row. If he's got the best genetics of the group, there's almost no way he can lose until age and/or injury eventually catches up to him.
Baron, with all due respect for their hard work in the gym, the Mr Olympia are ugly physiques... bloated bellies. You could photoshop their heads on each other and wouldn't be able to tell the difference.... contrast with the early days of Steve Reeves and friends. Speaking of being genetically gifted, it's clear that Reeves was, but it's definitely possible for someone with poor genetics to gain respectable (and sustainable!) size. I went from 165 in my early twenties to 195 (6'1) in my thirties training once a week, no drugs, not even protein powder. Incidentally my calves never grew doing the types of exercises mentioned above, but they did grow when I started walking. I'm in the high rep school on that one
"Growth aids" aside, genetics are the principal determinant of outcome with any reasonable workout routine, and perhaps more so with calves than any other muscle group. But I wonder why the researchers chose seated calf raises, which stress the soleus muscle underneath the calves more than the calves themselves. http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Soleus/LVSeatedCalfRaiseH.html
I have no first-hand knowledge of this stuff, but I read that the combination of steroids and growth hormone increases the size of internal organs which create the bloated look. So you end up with all kinds of size, including that which you don't want. I also don't know why bodybuilding went down the sheer size rabbit hole. As far as I'm concerned, Frank Zane had the best physique. There are others who came close but, aesthetically, he was peerless in his prime. Those were the innocent steroids-only days.
Frank probably cheated too yeah, this is quite obvious to anyone who has seen him in his off-years. He is very small boned like me, small wrists (6.5-7 inches) but was well acquainted with proper nutrition as a chemistry teacher (and who knows what else...) But yes, that was a much superior and more sustainable look than the sad show that bodybuilding became in the last 20-30 years. Someone posted a vid showing some modern day guys like Flex Wheeler, Tom Prince, Kevin Levrone etc going from being on gear to off.... face-palm... Even Bob Paris shrunk back to dweeb size, it's just not sustainable. I think the max potential of a natural bodybuilder (the way it should be) is 180-190 cut at 6 feet, possibly 200 max if you're a genetic freak. The key to a good look is the shoulders/arms to waist ratio. That's one of the key aesthetic differences between the old school and modern guys, their bloated organs/waists utterly destroy the look. It doesn't look healthy at all, and it isn't healthy. Just look at the health issues Tom Prince went through from destroying his liver. Same for Arnold and the rest of them. They all paid a heavy price for fame... even Zane wishes he hadn't lifted heavy in his youth to save his joints. Too late now.