okay welcome everyone to a new episode of technique Tuesday this week we're gonna be looking at how to train the Cavs with perfect technique but before we jump into the technique itself let's have a quick look at the muscles and biomechanics involved first so with any calf raise we're gonna be performing ankle plantar flexion so basically pointing your toes down she's gonna target both the NUMBER_TOKEN-headed gastrocnemius muscle and the underlying but actually larger soleus muscle now one important point to note is that the gastroc is a bi articular muscle meaning it crosses both the ankle joint and the knee joint so it can also flex the knee which is why it'll be active on leg curl movements and because there is some degree of ankle plantar flexion on squats and deadlifts the calves will be somewhat active there as well but the plantar flexion range of motion is actually pretty small so I think it's necessary to train the calves it directly to maximize their growth potential also because the soleus only crosses that ankle joint and not the knee joint it's probably better targeted with a bent leg calf raise while the gastroc is better targeted with a straight leg however both muscles will be active anytime you plantar flex regardless of knee position so I think using both a straight leg and a bent leg option in your training makes the most sense now there are also a bunch of creative variations on the basic standing calf raise that I like including the donkey calf raise which you can easily set up on a smith machine and it's been shown in some independent EMG data to have the highest muscle activation out of the six variations tested and I also really like the single leg calf raise for avoiding asymmetries from having one calf take over but for our purposes here we're going to be focusing on fundamental technique principles that can apply across all straight leg variations and I'm going to be using a standing calf raise machine no but I think what really matters is that you have a straight leg not that you're actually standing so you can easily do these on the leg press or Smith machine if you don't have a standing calf machine available so for the calf raise I think there is merit and training across a variety of rep ranges so anything from NUMBER_TOKEN to NUMBER_TOKEN or more reps the most recent evidence on this suggests that both the gastroc and soleus are type NUMBER_TOKEN dominant they may benefit from the use of higher reps but because we're also taking the ankle through a full range of motion with the calf Anna biomechanically strong position I think could be negligent to exclude any low rep strength work so I think splitting this up where you have at least one heavy day where you work more in the NUMBER_TOKEN to NUMBER_TOKEN rep range and then at least one light day where you work more in the NUMBER_TOKEN to NUMBER_TOKEN zone makes the most sense now with that said because it is extremely easy to cheat on the calf raise I think you really want to make sure you put proper technique above heavy loading or anything else when it comes to the calves before anything you want to do one or two priming sets where you get used to taking the calves through a full range of motion with bodyweight only to establish a mind muscle connection and get the ankle joint loosened up first at this point you'll want to make sure that you're able to fully stretch your calves
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