Downward Dog uses the strength of your arms and legs to fully and evenly stretch your spine. It stretches your hips, hamstrings, and calves as it strengthens your quadriceps and ankles. It opens your chest and shoulders and tones your arms and abdominals.
Building calves seems to be one of the most elusive body building goals for those who want to get some shape to their legs. More times than not – the reason why all those calf raises being done are ineffective is because the muscle is not being worked to its full potential. By doing a standing calf raise where you are focused on getting the ankle FORWARD as well as up, this is the key to shortening and thus contracting the muscle correctly and to start getting some progress with them! You won’t need a lot of weight (Body weight is often enough for single leg calf raises!) to start but as you get better, you can add small increments of weight by putting a dead ball on one shoulder or holding a weight in one hand while the other hand holds onto a something for balance and support.
A simple calf stretch that can be done on any step – provided the step is deep enough to allow you to drop your heels low enough! You can do this stretch both feet at a time or you can do one foot at a time to really get that targeted stretch for each calf.
This is an easy calf stretch that can be done anywhere there is a step. This stretch helps target the Gastrocnemius part of the calves.
This variation on the leaning calf stretch targets the second muscle that makes up your calves – the Soleus muscle. It sits behind the Gastrocnemius muscle and is more of a longer sheath of muscle compared to the somewhat bulked up look of the Gastrocnemius.
An easy stretch that can be done practically anywhere there is something you can lean into. By straightening out the back leg and keeping that heel on the ground, we can get a great stretch through the calf muscles of that leg. In particular the Gastrocnemius muscle which is that mango shaped muscle we generally see as the calf muscle.