 First question is from B. Cape 25. Is it possible to build the calves or is it genetic? Oh I'm gonna go ahead and throw this to you guys You know what they've actually done studies on this workers first off genetics have a huge influence on all Muscles of your body in terms of how effectively or how well they build or respond to exercise It's not more or less for calves, right? That's the that's the question is it is there are calves special in the sense that they're More resistant to building or growing and no they've actually done studies on calves and found that that's not the case Here's what's probably the case What's probably the case is it's most likely that the calves are the most skipped body part That people have in their training and that's just a fact like most dudes that work out consistently if they were to If somebody tracked how many times they skipped a body part I would I bet you calves are number one legs are probably number two and core is probably number three I would guess and so when you do all those years of training You know if you train your calves like you did your chest through your shoulders you probably would see I think I could make a case that they are Unique and in the sense that I think of all the muscles that are challenging for someone to build They're the ones it's most commonly that people do not take through full range of motion That's another good. That's a good point and somebody like been choppy reps, right? Right, but been could Pekolski likes to talk about how you know most muscles that are underdeveloped on somebody They have a a poor connection to that muscle at the end range of motion So the the full and full flexion right of like your calves Which is standing all the way up on your tippy toes and ask yourself unless you're playing basketball jumping rope or doing sports How often do you get all the way up up on your toes like that and I just think heels on the weekends And I think that if you for most your life You don't do that and then you go in the gym and you go to train that that you just don't have that full range of motion And just like what we say about squats like you get so much more bang for your buck taking the body through its full range of motion So I would make the case that Most people have a limited range of motion on their calves people don't they don't get the stretch Yeah, they don't get the squeeze that's right part of that reason is because I I think if you start training your calves The potential to be able to be able to use a lot of weight is really high Oh, I could put so much weight on the standing calf machine Yeah, but then they start to cut the rep short and when I see people working out calves in the gyms I almost never see full stretch full squeeze It usually looks like this kind of yeah short kind of pumping motion now Of course genetics play a role, but again they play a role in all your muscles I don't think there's a special actually again studies actually confirm this there is no special You know reason or case for calves being somehow more stubborn than other body body parts, you know speaking, you know generally Now what kind of genetics influence your calf growth? Well, there's you know muscle fiber type and density There's also muscle belly length. This is a big one. What you'll notice is a lot of athletes have shorter calves and Partially because shorter calves probably helps with locomotion and agility Longer calves you'll see in sports that involve more sturdy bases So you'll find these in strongman athletes and weight lifters and stuff like that Long calf bellies you have bigger area to grow So, you know, if you have short calves, you could build them all you want You end up getting ending up with this short kind of naughty looking calf muscle Well, I also think like a lot of the explosive movement, you know plays a factor in that with some of these athletic endeavors where you are on the forefoot a bit and you're moving very Explosively just like in sprinting you see the difference between, you know, those, you know that muscle physique versus, you know More of an endurance athlete But yeah, I I think about that because it is definitely a genetic factor But also to what you're doing in volume Like so if I'm when I was Training all the time in athletics I was always trying to make sure that I was on the balls of my feet and Was, you know able to move laterally and you know forward and back, you know with with, you know explosive type of Force yeah, yeah, again, if you look at people's routines, you'll see like 15 sets for back for the week and you know 12 sets for biceps for the week And you look at calves it's like three yeah or six or it's the one that they skip and they don't treat it Like they're actually trying to build just the calf I'm totally guilty of this a hundred percent and there was a period of time where I actually Placed a very spin like I this was a realization that I had or at least I was being honest with myself And I said, you know what I'm gonna be super consistent. I'm gonna ramp up the volume I'm gonna focus on the stretch focus on the squeeze I'm gonna do lower reps and higher reps and different angles and it was like a good year and a half of Really consistent calf training and I gained like an inch and a half on my calves and I thought oh my calves don't respond I mean the truth is I just don't focus on them as well You know the the best hack I ever had for that there was and I think it was about a year and a half almost two years It was during when I was competing I Decided because that was an area of insecurity for me as my calves So I decided I was going to work out in shorts year-round So I had to face that in security and my one and it also would motivate me to do calves first in my workout So it's like okay if I can get in the door and get to that calf machine right away I get them pumped up so they don't look so bad, but the and it Made a huge difference in my calf size because and it really had nothing to do with the the hack that I found that It was that I was training my calves first. Yeah, and every almost every workout They were getting attention and just I'd never paid that much attention to them before And so I saw the greatest gains in that in that time period and realized like okay I don't have just terrible calves Just I haven't put the the effort into training them and then doing things like really taking them through full range of motion And slowing the repetition down. Also. I never back then but or before then I always trained like high reps Similar to like what people do with abs. I was not training. I wasn't strength training my calves I wasn't doing putting the substantial little yeah I actually started doing five by five loaded like you know seeded and standing calf raises and the combination of full-range of motion Doing the heavy load and then prioritizing them in the front of my workout in a year's time I made some pretty good gains on my calves better than I was making in any other muscle group So I think that's probably a lot of it for most people is they just don't give it the same attention You know machine two things gave me gave me the biggest gains one was a donkey calf machine Love that because of the stretch you get at the bottom It's gnarly and the squeeze is pretty gnarly there as well And then the other one was blood flow restriction Wow did that make a difference with my calves? And I think it's just because blood flow restricted training works better on the limbs anyway and man If you you use that knee wrap below the knee right above the calf and then did do no weight and just Rep out the pump and the burn you get in your calves is just so intense and I saw a difference doing that Yeah, hey if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe