Outer Thigh

[AlexDavis43]

It annoys me when people say that because it goes against conventional wisdom. Why can’t you grow every single muscle apart from your calves. Makes no sense.

There was a study on bodybuilders vs other athletes (iirc). Some muscles respond much better than others to training. Like rear delts were much larger relative to calves in bodybuilders compared to other athletes.

Just to say, not all muscles respond equally well to resistance training.

Yes. You are correct.

Mine just do not grow like other muscles.

Example, traps. Inject steroids. Do one heavy set of shrugs, once a week. No other direct work, just whatever indirect work it gets from rack pulls and whatever. Traps grow from one set of shrugs. I actually cut way back on them when I saw pics from vacation and thought, oh, those look out of balance to the rest of my body.

Calves. Low sets, high sets, high reps, low reps, I mean, they grow, but barely. I used to train front calves in addition to back calves (tibialis anterior) using bands when I was a competitor to try and give my sticks below the knees just a little more girth.

Everybody has genetically gifted body parts. Some are more extreme than others. I would think it stands to reason that other folks have genetically cursed body parts. Calves seem to be a common one.

Well then my calves must be cursed. I tried calf injections for a while but didn't make much difference. Nothing like people with "gifted" calves.

 

[malfeasance]

calf injections

 

[MrGTO]

I didn’t have great calves when I was younger so I worked on them a lot over the years. I found that high reps and heavy weight worked best for me. Standing calf raises with a huge stretch would have me crippled for a week. My quads are hard to grow and I haven’t found the secret yet. I’m currently trying super high reps with a weight I can get 30+ reps on. For outer sweep I heard Dorian say to do the Hack squat with feet close together and toes out I have been doing that and I definitely have more burn in my outer quad so I’m doing a few months with high rep leg press, hack squats with toes out and leg extensions with split squats thrown in

 

[adrenalytic]

Someone around here posted the other day about former fat people having the best calves. As a former land whale, that struck hard with me. I have great fucking calves and I barely ever work them - like maybe 3 sets a week tops. I guess carrying around 45% bf for decades left a positive mark.

 

[HeatherSwanson]

Pics of what? Me?

Most people on here would say I’m skinny without a pump. 6.1

Trying though.


View attachment 323553

You're quite lean, you're doing great!
Legs are looking good too.
I saw a post last week and my legs feel skinny now and trained them 2 times since then. This has made me feel like even more legs needed on my end.

 

[eery]

There was a study on bodybuilders vs other athletes (iirc). Some muscles respond much better than others to training. Like rear delts were much larger relative to calves in bodybuilders compared to other athletes.

Wouldnt that come down to how much they stimulate that muscle in the sport? what athletes does direct muscle work for the volumes bodybuilders do for example?

 

[bananafeet]

My 2c re legs and calves specifically:

My theory is due to the fact the legs are used to being loaded continuously - the calves even more so. It takes quite a bit to get them out of homeostatis.

I'm guessing it's probably due to the fibre composition (and leverage) with some muscles in the legs being majority red fibre (type 1).

So that's why I've been doing metabolic style training for the last 4 months on my legs. It seems to be working for me.

That being said, it's rather petulant of me to think I've figured out something people have been arguing about since 1950.

Type 1 fibres are recruited first and in order of loading the nervous system continues until it hits the entire muscle. So I'm guessing it would be quite tricky to stimulate properly a muscle group with a predominance of red fibres and a shitty leverage.

Anecdotally my calves have never been so sore as this style of training. I think my calves are actually decent but I fatmaxxed for several years and I am on my feet literally all day...

 

[AlexDavis43]

Wouldnt that come down to how much they stimulate that muscle in the sport? what athletes does direct muscle work for the volumes bodybuilders do for example?

The examples I remember are: 1) bodybuilders train calves specifically, but on average don't have bigger calves than other athletes; and 2) bodybuilders train rear delts specifically, and do have bigger rear delts than other athletes.

Maybe I jumped the gun with this conclusion: some muscles don't respond well to direct training (eg, calves) while others do (eg, rear delts).

I don't remember if this was in the study, but I'd add traps. Doesn't matter how much you train them, only if you're on gear or not xD