Now I’ve always felt movement better for calves than exercises ie walking is better than calf raises. Incidentally the two people I know with the largest calves do just that. One walks and runs stupid mileage , the other hikes as often as possible. Both have calves that would make a mass monster bodybuilder jealous.
If you’re going to do something other than pedestrianism it’s best to make it hard contractions and/or a crazy hard pump. Bodyweight calf raises with very hard squeezes or for stupid high pump inducing reps always did more for mine than any weighted gym exercise.
Right now my calves feel worked. Particularly in a way that I’ve never felt before. It’s good, and I can’t believe I hadn’t done this earlier.
So what have I been doing the last few days?
Heavy pushes. It’s movement, pedestrian,so it’s better than a lift, and it has the potential to be quite heavy. I combined all the methods. pedestrianism, hard contractions, and high reps.
So far I’ve done a variation for 4 days in a row:
Day 1. Prowler with 245lbs plate weight walking
Day 2. Pushing my car
Day 3. Prowler 1000lbs plate weight
Day 4. Pushing my cousin’s (small) pickup
While I started doing this with the intention of it being new quad/ham/glute stimuli, with cardio effect, I quickly learned how efficiently it worked my calves.
I imagine that I’ll be seeing some new calf growth from it, in addition to the more important aforementioned effects.
If your calves are a weak point I’d highly recommend you try this. Push something heavy, it’ll have huge benefit.
If you have a sled push it as heavy as possible, if you don’t grab a buddy and the largest car/truck/thing that goes(ha), throw it in neutral and push that. Your body will thank you.
-J