![\"calfmuscles\"](\"https:\/\/blog.brianschiff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/calfmuscles.jpg\" "\\"calfmuscles\\"")
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Some people love their calves, while others hate them. \u00a0Ever see people piling on the weight at the gym (barbells, seated calf press machine, etc.) attempting to build shapely calves? \u00a0Or maybe you see people performing calf raises on a box with their feet in, straight ahead and out. \u00a0The question has long been this: is there any real benefit to doing them beyond the neutral or straightforward position to get maximal activation and strength gains?<\/p>\n
Why is this important? \u00a0Well, beyond muscle tone, this question has physiological ramifications with respect to performance and rehabilitation. \u00a0Consider, for example that as knee flexion angles increase, the medial gastroc becomes increasingly disadvantaged regardless of the ankle position. \u00a0This suggests inherent functional differences in the muscle architecture and activation patterns of the medial and lateral heads of the gastroc.<\/p>\n
In a study just published in the March 2011 Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, <\/em>Riemann et al. investigated the impact of all three positions on gastroc activation. \u00a0They used 20 healthy subjects (10 male and 10 female) with no history of a calf injury and all had prior resistance training experience.<\/p>\n In the study, all subjects performed 1 set of 12 repetitions with 130-135% body mass that included holding a 16-kg Olympic weightlifting bar. They were all barefoot and performed the calf raises with the feet pointed straight ahead, pointing in (hip internal rotation) and feet pointing out (hip external rotation).<\/p>\n It should be noted that subjects were instructed to point their feet inward and outward as far as they were comfortable. \u00a0The subjects were given 30 seconds to perform the repetitions with a 1\/0\/1 cadence. \u00a0 So what did the study find?<\/p>\n The authors point out that concurrent knee and ankle rotation likely affected the activation patterns seen in the study. \u00a0Some factors to consider before fully adopting this information for all populations are:<\/p>\n The takeaway here is that there may be some solid rationale for choosing different angles for calf strengthening depending on what head of the gastroc you want to target. \u00a0Clearly, calf strengthening is important with respect to running and power sports. \u00a0Many people forget the gastroc\/soleus complex also serves to brake or slow the motion of the foot during the transition from foot flat to mid stance with gait as the lower leg moves forward over the foot, while playing a role in pronation control as well.<\/p>\n It is unclear if these differences lead to altered training adaptations or whether the results apply to other training methods (machines and seated press as examples). \u00a0Load and the height of the block (3.81 cm here) needs further study as well. \u00a0For me, I will be curious to see how rehabbing my patients with gastroc\/soleus weakness and\/or injury is impacted by moving to a more selective strategy such as this since I have not done so in the past. \u00a0Have thoughts on this?? \u00a0Let me know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some people love their calves, while others hate them. \u00a0Ever see people piling on the weight at the gym (barbells, seated calf press machine, etc.) attempting to build shapely calves? \u00a0Or maybe you see people performing calf raises on a box with their feet in, straight ahead and out. \u00a0The question has long been this: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,31,8,12,26],"tags":[172,170,171,173],"class_list":["post-877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-knee","category-rehab","category-running","category-training","tag-calf-injuries","tag-calf-raises","tag-calf-strengthening","tag-heel-raises"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"calf-diagram1\"](\"https:\/\/blog.brianschiff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/calf-diagram1-300x195.jpg\" "\\"calf-diagram1\\"")
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