Originally posted by Diesel
IMO, Calves should be done twice a week. As far as exercises, Standup, seated, and donkey raises are all good. Another thing I do is single leg raises with no weight.
Also, I know some will not agree with this, high reps is best. Think about it. Out of all the muscles in your body, your calves are the most abused daily. Low reps, no matter how much weight you are pushing will not completely break down the muscle.
I will partially agree and partially disagree Diesel.
The soleus, which is the muscle worked doing seated calves, responds best to high reps, but not the gastro. The soleus is the muscle that is stressed any time the knee is bent at all. It is made up of mostly slow twitch fibers, thus it takes high reps to thoroughly work it. The gastro has mostly fast twich fibers and responds better to a moderate rep range, like most other muscles. When I say high reps for the soleus, I'm talking like sets of 50 on the seated calf.