Dumbbell Single-Leg Calf Raise

Muscles involved:

Calves:

• Soleus
• Gastrocnemius
• Plantaris (not present in everyone)

When training the calves, you can use the following rule of thumb:

Bent legs train the soleus. Straight legs also engage the gastrocnemius.

When training the calves, you should primarily consider a few properties of the gastrocnemius and soleus. These properties determine the effectiveness of different calf exercises. One of the most important differences is between exercises with (nearly) straight legs and exercises with bent knees.

The soleus crosses only the ankle joint. Therefore, it does not matter to the soleus whether the knee is bent or straight.

The gastrocnemius consists of two heads that end in the same attachment as the soleus: the Achilles tendon, which crosses the ankle joint. However, both heads attach to the thigh bone above. The gastrocnemius therefore crosses two joints: the ankle and the knee. This means that the possible contribution of the gastrocnemius can be influenced by bending or straightening the leg.

With the leg straight and the foot at a normal angle, as when standing, the gastrocnemius can produce maximum force. When the leg is bent, the gastrocnemius is already partially shortened. If you want to push off with the foot from that position (plantar flexion), the muscle can no longer produce maximum effort. The opposite happens when the leg is straight and you point your toes toward your face. The gastrocnemius is then overstretched to produce maximum effort.

If you want to train the calves as completely as possible with a single exercise, you should therefore do this with (nearly) straight legs.

Feet pointing straight forward

EMG measurements show that it is best to keep the feet pointing forward. Do not point the toes inward or outward. Pointing the toes outward appears to reduce the contribution of both the inner and outer parts of the gastrocnemius by almost 10%. Pointing the toes inward has this effect only on the inner part of the gastrocnemius.

Pointing the feet straight forward results in the highest activation of both heads of the gastrocnemius

Train heavy or light?

The soleus, which lies deeper than the gastrocnemius, can be considered the workhorse of the calves, responsible for prolonged but low-intensity efforts such as remaining upright and walking. The soleus can therefore consist of up to 90% slow-twitch muscle fibers.

The gastrocnemius also contains many slow-twitch muscle fibers, accounting for half to three-quarters of all muscle fibers.

You can train fast-twitch muscle fibers by training explosively and/or heavily. You then also target the muscle fibers with greater growth potential. However, you also target a relatively small number of muscle fibers.

Doing more repetitions and training with lighter weight targets the largest number of muscle fibers in the calf muscles. For most people, performing the exercise with body weight only on one leg will also fall into this category.

• Calf press
• Standing calf raise machine
• Smith machine calf raise
• Standing calf raises