Target Exercise Details (Calf Workouts for Men)
Body Part: Legs
Target Muscle: Calf
Equipment: Dumbbells
Category: Exercise for men
Most of the bodybuilders these days have become obsessed with adapting exercises to build calf muscles for men at home, because the way they finally shape up is really attractive and shows the strength of that person with toned muscles.
Adopting calf workouts for men not only helps in balancing your appearance, but it is also a key to gaining the ability to withstand huge weights from any type of exercise.
In addition, it plays an essential role in any sports activity such as cycling, running, football and basketball which makes it necessary to practice calf’s for these sports because it make easy for you to perform them.
Before jumping directly into the details of the exercises, it is best to understand the structure, components and benefits of the calf muscles, it will help you to realize how to exercise in the right way, in order to build the calf muscles properly and avoid wrong movements to protect ourselves.
Calves Muscles Anatomy
There are several names for these muscles (Calf or Calves) both are often common and used names.
Calf Muscles help propel you forward and upward in fiery or highly responsive activities. The two main muscles involved in any calf exercise are the Soleus and Gastrocnemius.
The Gastrocnemius muscle is the main muscle that you can clearly see in a person’s calf, it is Located at the back of the calf, It will look thick and well toned if you exercise it.
On the other hand, Soleus is hidden deep inside. Both muscles work together for the functions of moving and supporting the leg and helping you flex your foot.
Benefits of Calf Muscle Workouts
There are many benefits to calf exercises for men, which target the lower leg and blast your powerful muscles. Here is a list of the main benefits:
- The calf muscles are responsible for the plantar flexion of the ankle joint. The plantar ankle flexor can stabilize the ankle under loads and running.
- Calf exercise may avoid calf pulls in the day. When you lift large weights in an exercise, your calf receives the most attention.
- Calf muscles provide stability to your knees and ankle joints.
- Calf exercises increase short sprint speed with response pace.
- Toned calves are always attractive. In bodybuilding competitions, calves are of paramount importance. Calf exercises give you better body shape for your legs.
Safety Equipment
Before starting the exercise, it is recommended to use knee pads when performing any leg exercise, be it the thigh or calf. To reduce the occurrence of any dislocation of the bones in your knee or damage to muscle tissue.
How to Warm Up Your Calf Muscles?
The last step, and definitely before starting any muscle building, is to warm up the muscle fibers before an intense workout, to avoid any muscle tension.
So you can warm up your calf muscles simply by climbing the stairs in your home. You can do this warm-up by going up and down in 10 steps, then repeating it for 3 sets. An alternative to the staircase could be a chair.
You can read more detailed warm-up using Calf Stretch, to make your muscles flexible from any stress or tension before starting your routine.
Best Calf Muscle Building Exercises for Men at Home
1: Jump Rope
(Equipment: a Rope)
This is a simple exercise, not a comprehensive exercise. All you need to perform this exercise is a good quality rope.
How to Perform a Jump Rope Exercise?
The trick in jumping rope is the rhythm itself, you first need to practice without a rope, just stand with a straight back and a tight core, then with respect to your feet, stand with one foot forward on the ball of your foot and the other foot stand on your toes and send it back, then start to Jump, and continue to switch feet while jumping, forward and backward.
The idea behind this rhythm, is to jump not too high, and reduce the body weight on your feet when landing by distributing it between two different places on the foot when switching between the toes and the ball of your foot, not just on the toes, to avoid injury.
Now to practice the rope, grab the rope with your fingers instead of your palms with a loose grip, a loose grip will help your jump well and looks naturally.
Keep your elbows the same width and close to your body at all times. Begin by placing the rope behind you and bringing it over your head, then rotate the rope, while raise yourself slightly until the rope is just past your feet.
Make sure to adjust the length of the rope according to your physical dimension and height or else the exercise will result in unhelpful strain as it will get stuck in the feet over and over again.
The simple trick If the rope is too long, you can simply wrap it around your hand, a few times, on both ends of the rope, until you reach the length that is right for your body.
This calf exercise can help improve endurance and full-body coordination.
Repetitions
Repetition is key in learning any exercise.
To jump rope, start one jump for 30 seconds, then do 3-4 sets, resting 20 seconds between each set.
Be persistent and you will get a good pace with time.
2: Barbell Seated Calf Raise
(Equipment: barbell, a piece of the block on which you will raise your feet)
How to perform barbell seated calf raise?
Place a block in front of the bench. Sit on the workout bench and place the barbell on your thighs.
Place your toes on the block and your ankles down on the floor. This is the starting point for this exercise.
Slowly raise your ankle to the maximum and return it at the same speed. By doing this, your calves will be stretched and pumped.
Try to get as much stretch as possible. This is one of the best calf exercises that you can do with minimal effort and maximum result.
You can replace the barbell with dumbbells if you wish, by placing them on each thigh, the idea being to have enough weight while lifting your ankles off the floor, to put pressure on the calf.
Repetitions
The recommended amount of reps is 6 for the calf exercise.
3: Dumbbell Jump Squat
(Equipment: a Pair of Dumbbells)
How to Perform Dumbbell Jump Squat?
Hold a pair of dumbbells in each hand, Then stand upright with your feet shoulder width apart, making sure your palms are facing your thighs.
Keep your neck in a neutral position and most importantly, keeping your back straight, Begin into a squat position by pushing your buttocks and hips back, and Continue until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then jump.
Once you land, touch the ground with the toes and balls of your feet and come to your bottom position from the jump, return to the starting position with the help of your heels. Make sure to keep your hands completely straight throughout this entire process.
Your quads, glutes, and abs will also be affected by this exercise. It is one of the best calf exercises at home and to enhance the balance of the body.
Repetitions
You can repeat this exercise for (3) Sets of (7) Reps each.
4: Standing calf raise with Dumbbells on elevated surface
(Equipment: a Pair of Dumbbells, Workout box)
How to perform Standing calf raise on elevated surface?
This exercise affects the calf muscles, which are the most significant in terms of overall size and shape.
First, place a piece of blocks or an exercise box if you have it on the floor as shown in the image above. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand on the block with your toes on the edge of the block and heels down on the floor if possible.
Then raise your heels firmly, lift until you are standing fully and your body weight focused on your toes, pause here for a moment In this position, let your calves muscles stretch here and feel the pump in them.
After holding this position for a moment, gently lower your heels to the initial position while feeling the stretch in the calf muscles.
One tip for doing a better elevated calf exercise is: Raise your heels as high as you can while standing on your toes and Bring your heels back as low as possible.
Repetitions
We don’t do a lot of repetitions in this exercise but make sure you do your best for 4-5 reps.
5: Donkey Calf Raise
(Equipment: A piece of a block placed on the floor to stands on it)
How to perform a Donkey Calf raise?
Place a piece of the block on the floor as mentioned in the previous exercise, Place your toes on the edge of the block and heels down on the floor.
Lean forward and hold on to a stationary object eg. a bench as shown in the photo above, this is your starting position.
Start by gently raising your heels to the maximum stretch and then pause for a moment. Now lower the heels to the starting position to be on the floor.
If you find that your weight is not too challenging, you can increase the weight by carrying more weights with a rope around your waist or placing them on your lower back. (But be careful)
This calf workout for men is very powerful and will stretch the calf to its fullest, so work out slowly and warm up the muscles beforehand.
Repetitions
The recommended amount of repetitions for this donkey calf exercise is 4 to 6 reps as your calves get pumped. Make sure to stop when you raise your heels to maximum to avoid any injury.
Conclusion
As you can see, the calf muscle plays an important role in our core balance and strengthens the lower body, and it works as an important part for runners affecting their speed and quick response reaction especially on the micro marathon range.
Other than that, once the calves are trained and toned, they provide a great body look and shape, which bodybuilders are very struggle to gain.
Finally, starting straight calf exercises without preparing the muscles for warmup will not get the maximum benefits of the exercise and expose you to injury, so you can start by warming up tight calves and then start building and working out.
Challenging enough to Boost your Body to the Next Strength level!
There is still (much) more! In the following article, we will tackle different Muscles Exercises.
You’ll be happy to see more body muscle building results over time.