Standing Calf Raises

Calves · Machine

How to do it

Standing with the balls of your feet on a step and heels hanging, knees straight (not locked). Lower the heel until you feel a full stretch, pause a beat at the bottom, and rise to the very top of your toes with another squeeze. With the knee straight it works the **gastrocnemius**, the muscle that gives shape. The universal mistake is fast half-range bouncing: that trains nothing.

Variants

The drawing shows one way of doing it, and the technique above describes that one. Almost every exercise has variants — standing or seated, the grip, the bench angle — and is still the same exercise: if you do it another way, write it in the exercise note and you will have it every time you train it.

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