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Old 01-09-07 | 05:47 AM
  #24  
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Bockman
Castiron Perineum
 
Joined: Jul 2004
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From: Taking a tip from Siu Blue Wind, I too am typing a lengthy passage of text down here to demonstrate the enormous amount of space available should one wish to use it-- in sharp contrast to the avatar text above this part.

Bikes: '06 Salsa Campeon, '84 Cannondale R1000, 80's Nishiki Ariel

Leo has a point-- to a degree, how large we can develop muscles is largely predetermined genetically. Look at your parents' legs to see some idea. If you have 'high insertions', that is, your Gastrocnemis very quickly ties into the achilles/soleus bundle, then you will pretty much always have that condition to fight against-- although as I said earlier, stretching and massive overloading of the muscles can help.

With regard to weight training, you need to go super heavy and perform the movement SLOWLY and through the full range. If you think about it, your calf muscles are already insanely strong-- just one of them can easily lift your own body weight (as seen if you do a single leg calf raise). So, you can overload the muscles' capacity by lifting many times your body weight in standing calf raises, and by going very heavy in seated calf raises.

You can always get calf implants, too

Originally Posted by LeoZ
Could possibly be due to the fact that you have short calves (shin bone thingy)..

Anyway, why do you want to build calves in the first place?? I thought that skinny calf look was cool? A sign of a true pro...i.e muscles are super efficient.

I actually shy away from weights as i have shortish calves and don't want them stumpy like i've seen other riders. Ideal shape for me would be Paolo Savoldelli's legs or like soccer player calves or 200m sprinter calves, but alas i have shortish calves compared to the rest of my body.
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