Tequila Joe

Quads, glutes & cardio are obviously the most important to being a powerful cyclist but how much do calve muscles contribute?

I’m on the road on business this week. Since there is nothin' to do in the evenings and it’s cold out, I hit the corporate gym really hard 2 nights ago. I worked on cardio & legs only with heavy weights.

After warming up and stretching, as usual, I found that I could Squat the whole stack of weights quite easily on the Universal gym. I could also do the whole stack of weights quite easily on Quad Extension too. BTW: This was kinda funny. The two muscle heads that were in the gym at the time, although both built like linebackers, could not squat as much as I could. After I was done, they tried squats at the weight I had set. They realized how heavy it was, gave me the “WTF?” look, then promtly reduced the weight and continured.

Anyway, when it came to calf raises, I sucked big time. I couldn’t do much more than 100 lbs + my body weight as the calves burned like someone lit them on fire. Today, I can barley walk as my calves are so tight that they kill me every step. (Going down stairs makes me want to cry like a wee girl) The quads are only a little sore.

I’ve experienced no problems whatsoever the entire season. It is obvious that I do not use calves nearly as much as quads.

Do I have really wimpy calves or are there other cyclists with the same experience?
How much do calve muscles contribute to overall cycling power?

T.J.

I would say that they only contribute <5% because for me, it only stablizes the ankle while the quad/glutes do 95% of the work.

AnthonyG

Well I had major operations on my feet as a baby leaving without any ankle movement and consequently puny calves because they have nothing to do and I used to race reasonably succesfully in my teens. Calves would help, paticuarly with your ankling technique but there not the most important muscle.

Regards, Anthony

DannoXYZ 

Calves are important to the extent that they transmit force from the glutes & quads to the foot. The also contribute power of their own in the the lower half of the stroke when you point your toes. But if you had only X amount of time in the gym, I'd work on glutes, quads and hamstrings before calves.

Tequila Joe

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I don;t think I point my toes as much as I should when I ride seated. I do use calves a bit more when climbing outta the saddle. I think I use them to hop up a bit for my next downstroke just before I pull up on the other pedal.

Anyhow, thanks for the input, I better leave the office for dinner now .... it will take a while to hobble to the hotel.

Cheers!
T.J.

timmhaan

i think it's fair to say that your calves will be as strong as they need to be. as your quads, glutes, hams become stronger from riding your calves will follow. as a supporting muscle when you do squats, leg press, etc. you are also working your calves a little at the same time.

Fox Farm

I use the Tiger machine and do calf squat lifts at the end of a set of full squats. They are always a killer but I have large calves.

mingsta

I had a similar experience. I worked out with my cousin when I was on holiday and found that I could squat the whole rack, despite weighing only 147 pounds, but sucked at all the other leg excercises. I've noticed that a lot of the pro's have very muscular calves, just check out that Marcel Wurst dude who does the bike reviews on on ProCycling, it looks like someones slapped a load of steaks on his legs and painted them flesh, so they must be doing something. Maybe its hard to do squat raises because the range of motion is greater than when cycling.

CapeRoadie

The transmission of force from the lower back/core, glutes, hamstrings and quads to the pedals and bike doesn't happen UNLESS the calf muscles (gastrocnemius and soleus) are equipped to handle that force. You don't want the calves to be the limiting factor in your cycling success. The calf muscles are EXTREMELY important in cycling.

Squats, step-ups and lunges all work the calves. They work the low back/core, glutes, quads, hamstrings and upper back as well. I wouldn't skip those exercises. I'd work on the glutes, quads, hamstrings, low back/core while I work the calves, in the least.

Most people do not know that the hamstrings are both knee flexors and knee extensors, and that the prone hamstring curl does very little to work the powerful upper hamstrings, so important in cycling. Another ignored muscle group are the anterior tibialis mm (shins). My trainer built an apparatus for building that muscle, important in the upstroke of the pedals.

bikebugmenot

You remind me of my experience at Golds Gym several years ago. There were some very muscular guys (their arms look as thick as my legs) working around me when I was doing leg presses. I did some couple of warm-up reps at 100lbs and 200lbs. Then just to see what my legs can still do, I moved the pin to the maximum weight (which I think is 1,000 or 1,200 pounds). I can see/hear a couple of the guys snickering (I think they were saying among themselves something like, "yeah, right". After doing two sets of 10 reps, one of the snickering guys said "Oh sh*t!" As I walked off to work on some other machine, the same guy said something like "If he can do it, I can certainly do it." He could barely lift it all the way up before letting the weight smash all the way down... I was quite surprised that guy couldn't do it because his leg diameter look at least 50% thicker than mine. The good thing is that those guys didn't snicker at me after that... Of course I'm much weaker these days...went from my prime of 180lbs with mostly muscle mass to 165lbs now with just some muscle...so I guess that why wussies like me need to ride a triple... And to answer your question, I don't know how much they contribute to riding, but I notice that the more I try to spin (not mash) big gears, the more well defined my calves look-->they don't seem bigger or anything like that...just looks more toned.

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Your calves will always have to keep up with the other muscles. And they get worked out when you do quad exercises. You just don't have to isolate and work on calves specifically as much. Not many people are having their heels brush the ground on the downstroke due to weak calves..

Any pictures of this shin-torture devices?

gcasillo

As a toe-pointer and big ankler myself, I'm trying to improve the flexibility of my hammies. They've always been pathetic compared to my quads.

garysol1 

So if you only had time at the gym to use one leg machine.....what would it be? What machine will work the most used cycling muscles at once? I am thinking leg press machine but not sure.

Tequila Joe

Leg press... definatly. Quads & glutes at the same time and apparently it is good for calves too.

T.J.

garysol1 

Do you go more for weight or more for reps....or somewhere in between?

gcasillo

Definitely, leg press. Squats put the kibosh on my knees and lower back. Everybody is different with regards to weight and reps. While I typically favor higher reps in other lifts, I like less reps of more weight for leg presses.

AngryRooster

If I only had to the leg press, I would (and do) use heavy heavy weights and low reps. I use the gym not to build endurance but strength and power. the bike is for endurance. I also have skinny calves but work them whenever I work legs.(once a week) I just don't want any weak links in my legs.

Tequila Joe

Reps.

Squats 5 Sets 25, 25, 20, 15, 15 @ 160 lbs + body weight

I was sqatting more before 3 sets x 10 reps @ 250lbs + body weight but didn't feel that I was getting as good of a workout than doing lower weight and higher reps.

T.J.

Chicocreole

I got into cycling as a way to cut weight for bodybuilding - Cycling is like crack i got addicted

Calve work Sucks - but so don't centuries and big hills

You have to do calves I do calves five days a week for the last month and I am very happy with my results so far. Cycling builds calves also so I am sure that is contributing.

Calves are filled with nerve endings and veins so when you work them they hurt - No pain no gain. Alot of big guys have trouble building calves for this reason. don't just do one set you have to do calves all the time or they will stay small.

If your of african decent like I am - you have to work the all the time X2 Africans have a higher attaching calve muscle, great for sprinting and dunking - bed for building massive calves

Chicocreole

I meant - bad for building massive calves

garysol1 

Your to quick. I did not have time to rag on your spelling....LoL

Patriot

I found a good way to do a little extra work on the calves while riding, is to put the bike into higher gear while climbing a long steady hill, then dance on the pedals with a little ankling. It really burns after a short while from putting all your body weight into it.

pedex

the burn is from lack of riding and lack of out of the saddle work, it goes away with practice, and ankling during high efforts is a recipe for a bad case of achilles tendonitis

Tequila Joe

He ain't kidding! Ouch!

T.J.

Chicocreole

Keep working on them - you'll GROW to love the pain