There are a lot of weight trainers who focus most of their lifting efforts on building their upper bodies. However, for a complete physique you need to build the muscles of the legs, including the calves. The calves aren't one of the largest muscle groups of the body by any means, but building them will help you create a proportionate physique.

The size of your calf muscles depends a lot on your genetics. You've almost certainly seen people who've never exercised and still have huge calves and people who weight train and run regularly who don't have very much calf size at all. However, if you don't have naturally large calves you needn't worry. All it will take is to follow the best calf workout routines consistently.

To get a response in muscle growth from the calves you need to really train them hard with best calf workout routines. They are a very dense muscle and you constantly use them when you are on your feet. The calf muscles also recover much faster than most other muscle groups so you can perform workouts for them more often to force them into growth. To get the calves to grow you should also do higher rep sets than you do for other muscles. It's very important to get a full stretch and strong contraction when during best calf workout routine exercises. Getting a good stretch in the calves will help lengthen the muscles and will give them more potential for growth. Once you've done as many full reps as possible you during a set of a calf exercise you should do some "bouncing" reps to really burn the muscles out.

The best calf workout routines need to have you performing exercises to build both of the major muscles of the calves - the gastrocnemius and the soleus. To train the gastrocnemius you need to do straight legger calf exercises. To target the soleus muscle that lies underneath the gastrocnemius you need to do seated, bent-legged exercises. If you train both muscles intensely you'll have a better chance of building calf size.

Standing calf raises and leg press calf raises are the best straight-legged calf exercises. You can find a standing calf raise machine in any gym. To perform the exercise you just put your shoulders under the pads on the machine and lift the weight up using the calf muscles. Raise up as high as you can to get a strong muscle contraction and try to stretch the calves at the bottom of each rep. You can also do straight-legged calf raises on a leg press machine. this is a nice alternative to use. If you do your weight training at home you can do standing calf raises by putting your toes on a sturdy block and raising your heels.

For optimal calf development during your best calf workout routines, you need to do seated calf raises. Most gyms have a machine that will allow you to sit down and put your knees under a pad so you can perform seated calf raises. Like with straight-legged calf exercises you should lower the weight until your calves are fully stretched and raise it until you have a strong contraction. Go for some short "bouncing" reps to burn out the muscles. You can put a towel on your thighs while seated and place a weight on the towel if you don't have access to a seated calf raise machine.

To build the small muscles on the fronts of the lower legs dueing the best calf workout routines you can put your heel on a block raise your toes up. If you want you can put a small weight on your toes for more resistance. This will also help prevent shin splints.

Another way to build your calf muscles is to jog or run during your cardiovascular workouts. Sprints will really burn your calves out. Jump roping will also help.

If you perform these exercises as part of the best calf workout routines you'll build bigger calves in no time.

This is one of the best calf workout routines and follows a light, medium, and heavy workout scheme. You should perform this routine on your leg training day after you've done your quadriceps and hamstring workouts.

Light calf workout (25+ reps on all sets)

2 sets of standing or leg press calf raises

2 sets of seated calf raises

2 sets of toes raises

Medium calf workout (15-25 reps on all sets)

3 sets of standing or leg press calf raises

3 sets of seated calf raises

2 sets of toe raises

Heavy calf workout (10-15 reps on all sets)

4 sets of standing or leg press calf raises

4 sets of seated calf raises

3 sets of toe raises