Hi forum
Purely aesthetic question this, but an important one to me at elast...
Have been cyclo commuting about 150 - 200kms a week for about a year now, and have been pleased to notice that my perpetually skinny legs have started to get massive - well my thighs at least. My calves, on the other hand, are still somewhat chicken-like.
Things are actually beginning to get a little bit stupid-looking, truth be told. Any tips on how to beef up my stubbornly pencil-like calves to match my thunder thighs?
Cheers in advance
Mongrel

Hi Mongrel,

Calf muscles are usually largely comprised of red (slow twitch) muscle fibers and do not react the same way to exercise as other muscles which have larger amounts of fast twitch (white) muscle fibers. It takes an extraordinary workload on calves to see significant gains as compared to other muscle groups.

Having said that, there are a huge variety of calf exercises one can do at the gym to beef them up. Standing calf raises, 'donkey' raises, and exercises which work the underlying Soleus muscle all help to build up mass over time. Stretching them regularly, as well as working the tibular anticus muscles on the shin helped me a lot.

Take a look at ballet dancer's lower bodies sometime-- the men all usually have astounding calf development.

First, calves are very difficult to build i.e. increase the size. You may be genetically predisposed to have small calves. Many world class sprinters have massive thighs and disproportionately smaller calves. If you want to build them, you have to do some type of resistive progressive weight training. The key is to blast them with a lot of weight – frequently. That is tough to do unless you belong to a gym.

I suggest joining a gym and have a trainer recommend a weight training program to compliment your cycling.

Do you have snow where you live? If so, put on a heavy pair of boots and go hiking in the snow. I did quite a bit of that one winter and had very well developed calves.

As I feared - lots of ballet in the snow... Thanks for the tips!

you're the opposite of me.....i have massive calves and normal thighs.....makes me look like freaking popeye

Same here...well, maybe not that extreme but my thighs have no muscle from what I can tell.

Lots of hiking up hills helps.

[IMG][/IMG]

What IS that??!!?

If all else fails you can always get silicon implants in your calves.

Great Post +1 You need suprisingly little 'load' but much higher 'workload' than other muscles to see your calf muscles improve significantly.

What about riding with clipless pedals VS normal pedals? I would think that would help also, since with cliples you are pulling on the upstroke. With normal pedals all you do is push down.

Won't help. Muscles need to "do work" to grow, and the calf muscle only stabilizes the foot while pedaling. Besides, the calf muscle isn't even engaged when pulling up on the pedal.

If you are in the gym then try doing a spin class...do the first 5 mins warmup seated to get your blood moving to the legs and then for the remaining 50 mins 'stand and deliver' out of the saddle...then they call 'sprint' you sprint out of the saddle, when they call 'rest' you rest out of the saddle.

Your calves will talk to you I promise.

Foghorn Leghorn - embrace it thats what I did.

Seated (for width) and standing (for depth) calf raises, that's the ticket for calf muscle growth.
8-12 reps per set is usually recommended for size.

Look at mine, youll feel better. I got these jewels from my mom. Hey they might be small but there nice and shiny! Hair sucks, If my wife would let me, Id nair my head.

All Jokes aside, I have been embarrased of my tiny calves for most of my life. For the simple fact that I have always had a small waste, no belly fat and large from the chest up. Kinda like an upsidedown pear.

Its all good tho, long as your on the bike. I checked in here on 9/04 at almost 225 pounds. Check out these pix......

[IMG][/IMG]

Have any of you guys actually tried walking regularly in snow or sand?

I'm just thinking that if I ... a woman ... can develop very muscular calves by walking regularly in the snow, men should have similar, or even better, results.

yeah, I think walking and running works the calves way more relative to the other legs muscles than biking. The last push-off motion of walking stroke uses primarily the calves. Same with running, walking up stairs, reaching for objects on a high-shelf, etc. If you want to build up the calves, you gotta do some other exercises other than just biking.

1. How many would have even periodic access to either snow or sand? Not many, I'd think.
2. Define "very muscular". I've found that women tend to overestimate their own muscularity, probably because women aren't expected to have larger muscles.

1. If they get snow in Arizona periodically, I would think anyone north of there would have snow relatively regularly. Up here in Canada we can count on it for 5 or 6 months of the year. As for sand, you can find it at any beach ... either at the ocean or at your local lake. Some rivers even have sandy shores. Walking on roads with thick gravel would do the trick too. Anywhere where the walking surface isn't solid ... where the surface gives and takes a bit more concentration to get your footing.

2. I used to be a body-builder. Almost three years of body-building didn't develop my calves like 6 months of walking with heavy boots in the snow.

Here where I live, we've had 2 days of snow so far this "winter", and that was in October! A typical winter would maybe bring 2-3 weeks of snow cover. At a latitude north of Churchill in Canada...

No beach nearby either, and very few people would live near one, no matter where they happen to live.

Gravel roads are more common, but still pretty rare, I'd say. At least the ones where the gravel is relatively loose.

The best bet for the majority would probably be a shallow bog/marsh or a wet and muddy area. But I'd still recommend the gym together with proper instructions! And a balance board or something like that.

I need do my calf raise exercise. That's what I have been told. Massive thighs and small calves. Not my choice. One compliments another.

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.

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

I've been lifting for years, I run, I bike... I've played sports my whole life and I still have skinny Calves compared to my thighs. It's genetic, my whole family has Small calves. My wife on the other hand, I would love to have her calves. Her dad had huge ripped calves that would put most pro body builders to shame. He never worked out.