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Our Clients
Did It
You Can Too!
Why is it so much easier to
build your upper body than
your lower?
Calves. It is said that you either have
them or you don’t. If you ask any gym rat
or bodybuilder what the most difficult
body part to develop is on an individual
they will all undoubtedly say it’s the
calves. A common myth says that since
you walk around and use the calves
more than other muscle groups they
simply don’t respond like other muscles.
Another common myth says that since
the calves are largely made up of slow
twitch (endurance) muscle fibers they
don’t have the capacity to grow.
There is some truth to the above
myths. Yes, you DO use your calves a
lot…more so than most of the other
muscles in the body. Yes, the soleus
(a flat calf muscle that lies underneath
the larger and more bulbous
gastrocnemius muscles) has a larger
percentage of its fibers being geared
towards endurance. Both of which
may make building the calves more
difficult. However, I am here to tell
you that isn’t exactly the case.
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You will hardly see a man who trains in
the gym skip bicep or chest day but
when it comes to calf training they either
treat
it
as an afterthought or they ignore them
all together. Step one is to make your
calves a priority. If calf development is
important to you then don’t skip calf
workouts EVER. Now that we have that
established keep reading…I am going to
share some very effective calf training
tips and techniques with you. Through
my two decades of professional training I
have identified 3 calf training techniques
that work on EVERY PERSON I have ever
tried them on.
If nutrition is good and the rest of the
exercise programming is good (for more
on exercise programming click here)
then applying the following 3
techniques will make a huge impact on
your calf development. Seriously…make
calf training a priority today and apply
the following training techniques and
the vast majority of you will experience
significant calf muscle growth within
months.
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3 TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE GREAT CALVES
TECHNIQUE 1: EMPHASIZING
THE STRETCH AND THE
SQUEEZE
Every time I see someone training calves in the gym I wince at the
HORRIBLE form I see. Bouncy, short choppy reps EVERYWHERE. If I had a
dollar for every full rep of calf training I have ever seen in my 20 years as
a fitness professional I wouldn’t have enough money for a matinee
movie with my girlfriend. For some strange reason people think short
reps are okay when it comes to calf training…WHY?? Short incomplete
reps aren’t ideal for ANY body part let alone the stubborn calves. Train
them with a FULL range of motion.
Now that we are clear lets also EMPHASIZE full range of motion. When
you get to the top of the rep squeeze hard and get your heels as high
as you can…push and squeeze until you cant go any further. When you
lower the rep allow your calves to stretch...and HOLD the stretch. Let
those heels drop and feel the muscles BURN. Yes, it will hurt like a son of
a bitch. In fact if you squeeze and stretch every rep of your calf exercises
this way expect some soreness…they do create more muscle damage.
Also expect a pump like never before. Speaking of pumps…
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6
TECHNIQUE 2: UTILIZE BFR
TRAINING
Occlusion training aka blood
flow restriction training (BFR)
aka KAATSU training is easily one
of the biggest breakthroughs
in muscle growth training I
have seen in my entire career.
It works and it’s backed by
DECADES of research.
pump went away. He also
noticed that after doing this
repeatedly over the weeks his
calves GREW in muscular size.
Over the years he researched
these phenomena and by 1973
he had fully developed the
techniques of KAATSU training.
My MindPump co-host IFBB
Physique Pro Adam Schafer first
introduced me to BFR training
in 2015. He told me that if I
tied my arms off (above bicep &
triceps, at armpit) with knee
wraps while training that they
would grow fast. I thought he
was crazy until I looked up the
history and science…then I was
truly intrigued.
Since then numerous studies
have been done on BFR training
and each study shows
dramatically accelerated muscle
growth and
KAASTSU training: (what BFR
training was originally called)
was discovered by Dr Yoshiaki
Sato in 1966 while attending a
Buddhist ceremony in Japan.
While kneeling in the temple he
noticed that after an hour or so
his calves would get “pumped”
with blood. Once he stood up
and massaged his calves the
7
3 TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE GREAT CALVES
strength with no side effects when done
properly. It is now used by physical
therapists and is quickly becoming one of
the favorite techniques of bodybuilders for
developing weak body parts.
As you do more reps waste build up tends to
overcome the flushing out and you feel a
burn. Well multiply that by 10 with BFR. The
burn is intense but the waste buildup sends
a strong muscle building signal.
Here is how it works…when you occlude or
restrict blood OUTFLOW from a muscle you
amplify the
“pump” effect. Just like you get with a
normal pump, blood rushes to your muscles
except this time the speed of blood outflow
and amount of blood outflow is restricted.
This stimulates muscle growth in a few
different ways.
Lastly the low oxygen levels in an occluded
muscle recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers
and since fast twitch muscle fibers are the
ones that GROW the most you see faster
improvements. There
is also evidence that BFR training may
“train” some of your slow twitch fibers to act
like fast twitch fibers resulting in MORE
growth potential.
One way is through cell signaling. The
extreme pump causes cell swelling which
tells the muscle cells to “grow.” This happens
to a smaller effect with a regular pump but
with a BFR pump its amplified.
BFR is a simple but effective technique
HOWEVER it must be done properly. Use the
wrong apparatus or tie off a muscle too tight
and you could cause problems. Use BFR
training once or twice a week for best results.
Click HERE for a demo on BFR training.
The second way is through the waste build
up that occurs. When you exercise waste by
products build up and get flushed out with
each rep.
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TECHNIQUE 3: TRAINING
FREQUENCY
When you train a muscle with
sufficient intensity in the gym
you are in essence sending a
signal to the body. Training is a
stress on the body and the body
aims to ADAPT to this stress by
becoming more resilient and
STRONGER. The stress of intense
exercise causes some muscle
damage which is why you get
sore and this is likely why you
adapt from it. That being said it’s
important to note that recovery
and adaptation can be TWO
SEPARATE THINGS. Sound crazy?
Read on…
Think of how many times you
have hammered a body part in
the gym and gotten really sore.
You rest and wait a week to hit it
again and when you do you’re
EXACTLY where you were before.
Why?? It’s because you waited
too long!!!
There is actually something that
happens in the body that is a
We all like to think of muscle
recovery as the process by
which our muscles build but this
is false. Recovery is HEALING
while ADAPTATION is building.
Although they can and often
do happen simultaneously
they aren’t interchangeable.
Damaging muscle sends two
signals to the body…one is to
recover while the other is to
adapt. This is a problem because
often they may have different
time-lines.
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good measure of whether or not muscles are building. It's called muscle protein
synthesis and it rises quickly after a workout and peaks at about 48-72 hours…and
then it DROPS FAST. That’s right, the muscle building signal drops until its back to
baseline EVEN IF YOURE STILL SORE AND RECOVERING.
The way around this is to train more often and hit the muscles more FREQUENTLY
before that muscle-building signal flattens out again. I know what you are
thinking,…”I don’t have that much time or energy!!” Well I’m here to tell you that
you DON’T need more time or energy.
I’m not asking you to add more volume at all. I’m asking you to add FREQUENCY.
Take the total amount of sets that you do with your calf training and simply split it
between three workouts. In other words, if you train your calves once a week for
12 sets a week on Monday; then split it between Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
In other words do 4 sets each of those days.
Now you will spike that muscle building adaptation signal on Monday and right
before it starts to drop you spike it again on Wednesday and so on. This
means you are ADAPTING all week long, aka BUILDING. This simple technique
doesn’t just work on calves by the way. It works with all muscle groups! Use it for
lagging body parts or if you want to maximize full body muscle growth do it for
everything.
There you go. Be consistent with your calf training and apply the above techniques
and you will be surprised. Your calves are probably not stubborn at all, they just
needed the right stimulus.
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SAL DI STEFANO
Sal was 14 years old when he
touched his first weight and from
that moment he was hooked.
Growing up asthmatic, frequently
sick and painfully skinny, Sal saw
weightlifting as a way to change
his body and his self-image. In the
beginning, Sal’s body responded
quickly to his training but then
his gains slowed and eventually
stopped altogether. Not one to
give up easily, Sal began reading
every muscle building publication
he could get his hands on to find
ways to bust through his plateau.
He read Arnold’s Encyclopedia of
Bodybuilding, Mentzer’s Heavy
Duty, Kubrick’s Dinosaur Training, and every
muscle magazine he could find; Weider’s Muscle
and Fitness, Flex, Iron Man and even Muscle Media
2000. Each time he read about a new technique
or methodology he would test it out in the gym.
At age 18 his passion for the art and science of
resistance training was so consuming that he
decided to make it his profession and become a
personal trainer. By 19 he was managing health
clubs and by 22 he owned his own gym. After
17 years as a personal trainer he has dedicated
himself to bringing science and TRUTH to the
fitness industry. Sal is co-founder and highly
instrumental in the creation of a revolutionary
muscle development system know as: Muscular
Adaptation Programming Systems or MAPS.
FIND OUT MORE HERE
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Slow
down.
Calm
down.
Don’t
worry.
Don’t
hurry.
Trust
the process.
MIND PUMPMMEDIA
3 techniques
to achieve
great calves