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Carve Out Your Killer Calves

One of the keys to looking good and well-built is looking proportionate. This means a well-developed upper body supported by a pair of chicken legs is not the most attractive thing to look at. If you have this problem, here's are three exercises for your calves that you can do to balance things out.

 

One-Leg Calf Raise Start: Stand with the ball of your nondominant foot on the edge of a step or wooden block that’s several inches high. Hook your other foot around the back of your nondominant heel. Hold on to a banister or anything sturdy to stay balanced. Finish: Let your nondominant heel drop as low as it’ll go off the step. Then change direction and push off the ball of that foot until the heel is a couple of inches above the step.

Seated Calf Raise Start: Sit at the end of a chair or bench with your legs bent 90 degrees at the knees. Place the balls of your feet on a wooden block or a couple of phone books. Hold some weight—a couple of 1-gallon water bottles or a sack of sand or fertilizer, for example—on top of your knees. Finish: Lower your heels as far as they’ll go, then slowly raise them as high as you can.

Explosive Calf Jump Start: Bend your knees and squat straight down until your thighs are halfway to parallel to the floor (in a quarter-squat). Finish: Quickly and explosively jump into the air as high as possible, concentrating on pushing off with your calves rather than with the larger hamstrings or quadriceps. As you land, immediately descend into a quarter-squat and jump again.

 

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