Calf Stretches
An explosion of growth!

Weighted calf stretches will always be done after your calf exercises on the WLC program. You will go straight to your stretching immediately after your set of whatever calf exercise you have chosen. Depending on your WLC program, you may do more than one calf exercise.

I currently continue to focus on my calves because they've always been a weak area of mine. I have almost put three inches on my calves naturally using the principles and guidelines I've provided you with on the WLC Program. I'm only an eighth of an inch from putting 3 inches onto my calves. I continue to focus on them until they are up to par with the rest of my body. I'm almost there!

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Calf stretches will do something amazing to your calves. As you may already know, I started out with chicken legs before lifting weights. I was embarrassed for anyone to see my legs. I have worked so hard to build my legs that I can now be proud of them. Stretching my calves helped me to go from just below 14 inch calves to almost 17 inch calves at this time. I'm less than an 1/8 inch away from 17 inch calves. It's been a long and hard road for me to get there, but I've finally got some respectable legs.

Once I started stretching my calves, the growth really started to happen. I went for years trying to figure out how to build my calves. I figured it out and explain it to you right here on weight-lifting-complete.com. Stretching your calf muscles after you perform your calf exercises is a huge part of the WLC program that you do not want to leave out.

Since my calves have always been the weakest part of my body, I always prioritize them in my WLC cycles. I will continue to prioritize them until they are the same size as my arms. I am almost there. When prioritizing them, I work the front, side, and rear calves with 3 separate exercises each and every workout. After each exercise, I stretch them in 3 different ways.

1. Gastrocs Stretch
2. Soleus Stretch
3. Tibia Stretch

You can find some good variations on stretches for your calves. I've found 3 stretches that I love and haven't changed them for a long time. The gastrocs stretch will be a standing stretch. The soleus stretch is a seated stretch. And the tibia stretch will most likely be kneeling. I like to kneel on my flat bench and sit on my legs. I've included a second tibia stretch in case you don't want to perform my favorite one!

I take one of my calf blocks and place against the power rack so that it can't move while I put force against it. I place one foot at a time up against the calf block for the best stretch possible. Once I have both in position, I grab onto the power rack and really put some force into the stretch.

I'll tell you one thing that might happen with this calf stretch. You may start shaking some during this stretch after you've completed a tough set of calf raises the WLC way! Keep pushing thru, though, as you'll be greatly rewarded later. You should be able to get a great stretch in your gastrocs from this position.

To properly stretch your soleus, you're going to want to be in a seated position. I set up my decline bench and a calf block under the smith machine for my seated calf stretch. You could use a barbell as a replacement if you don't have a smith machine. Either one will work. The image below shows the set up.

Once I'm in position, I unrack the smith machine bar from the rack and push downwards with my arms as shown. The picture shows that I'm not using any extra weight, but during my WLC workouts I like to add a progressive amount of weight from workout to workout. Over time, you can use some pretty large weights on WLC. This stretch will help build the soleus like nothing else!

This is a simple stretch to perform, but one that may have you cursing me. After you perform a tough set of some variation of reverse calf raises, you'll go straight to a bench or somewhere else you can perform this tibia stretch. All you need to do is make sure you're feet are in the position shown in the image. Trust me, you'll know when you're in the correct position. You'll feel a great stretch in your tibia. This will add slabs of muscle to your tibia. If you want impressive calves, work the entire calf region. Include a tibia stretch.

This stretch takes on the same position as a quad stretch, but I don't want you focusing on your quads. Really concentrate on pulling the top of your foot to get a good stretch in the front region of your lower leg. This is your tibia muscle. You will feel the stretch. I really like this stretch, but prefer the one above due to its ability to stretch both tibia's at once. The stretch shown below takes twice the time since you have to do one leg at a time.

I am constantly finding new methods of building great calves. If you want to stay updated to my findings and want to know the best methods I've found over the years, please don't hesitate to subscribe to the Weight Lifting Complete Blog and the E-Zine for WLC. You will be the first to know these methods for calf development once you subscribe. I am here to help. There's no need to go thru the learning process that I went thru. I tell you what works and how to implement techniques into your WLC program.

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