5 Best Calf Machines to BLOW UP Your Calf Muscles

For most of us, the calves are among the most stubborn body parts to train and develop. Even with the best calf raise machine. That’s not surprising when you consider that they are supporting your body weight all day long.

The consequence of this is that in order to build an impressive pair of calves, you need to work them hard, heavy and regularly. 

Having a calf machine in your garage gym is the ideal way to do just that.

In this article, we reveal the 5 best home gym calf machines on the market right now.

The calves are considered by most people to be made up of two individual muscles:

The gastrocnemius

The soleus

Some experts, however, believe that there is just one calf muscle, with two separate heads. That’s because they both have the same insertion points and they also both perform the same function, which can be described as plantar flexion, or the extension of the ankle.

Biomechanics, anatomy and real world weight training experience has shown that the soleus does not have much growth potential. The soleus lies underneath the gastrocnemius (gastro), which forms the mass of the calf muscle.

There are actually two parts to the gastrocnemius. They are generally referred to as the inner and outer heads of the calf muscle. Both of them originate just above the knee and then converge into the achilles tendon, which itself connects to the heel bone.

There is a common gym belief that standing calf raises will focus on the gastrocnemius while seated calf raises will primarily hit the soleus. This, however, is another case of bro science. It seems that the main thing that determines whether the gastrocnemius or the soleus is more targeted is the speed and intensity of the exercise. That’s because the gastro is made up mainly of fast twitch muscle fibers, while the soleus is primarily slow twitch.

The gastro will be more activated when you do speed and intensity work, such as running or during heavy load movements. When you are doing low speed or low intensity activities like walking or just standing, the soleus is activated more.

It should also be noted that you cannot change the shape of your calves by the way that you do an exercise. It doesn’t matter how you position your toes while doing a calf raise.

A calf machine is a weight training implement that is specifically designed to isolate and work the calf muscles. The majority of home use calf machines are seated calf raises. With this machine you sit on a seat with a pad over your upper legs. This pad is connected to a weight stack. Your feet are positioned on a platform that allows you to lift and lower your calf muscles. Most home use calf raise machines work with weight plates that you have to load onto a centrally located pin. You will need to buy the weight plates separately.

You can also buy standing calf machines for home use, though these are more commonly added as an extra station on a multigym. There are also calf blocks that can be purchased. These simply consist of a platform without any weight attached that you can perform a non weighted calf raise. These are best for stretching and working the soleus rather than the gastrocnemius.

Who Should Use a Calf Machine?

Calf Machines are beneficial for everyone. The stronger your calves, the faster and stronger your lower body will be. If you are a bodybuilder or anyone who is working to develop a body that looks good on the beach, then you will also want to work your calves regularly and hard. Well developed calves are an immediate sign of overall strength and power.

Ideal Range of Motion & Foot Positioning

Many people make the mistake of using too short a range of motion when training their calves. Often you see guys who are really just bouncing up and down rather than extending and contracting the muscle. The main problem is that people fail to take their heels down low enough to attain a full stretch. They also don’t go up high enough. The major reason that they do this is that the weight is too heavy. Never make the mistake of overloading the machine to the extent that you are only moving through 20 percent of the muscle’s full range of motion.

Placing only the forefoot on the calf block allows you to drop down lower than the balls of your feet. Use a lower weight if you have to in order to get a full range of motion.

When It comes to foot positioning, you do not want to only have your toes on the calf block. If you did you would be at an ergonomic disadvantage. You wouldn’t hold a dumbbell with only your fingertips, so why would you try to do calf raises with just your toes on the platform? Make sure that the ball of your foot is on the platform. This will allow you to exert the most pushing force. Because the samoid bone that forms the ball of your feet is diagonal, you should have a slight inward angle of the toes, with the heel on an outward angle. This will allow you to maintain the best grip on the calf block throughout your set.

If you find that your feet begin to slip off the calf block while you are performing a set, simply pause and reposition them mid set.

How Much Weight Should I Use On Calf Raises

As we noted at the outset, you need to work your calves hard  in order to shock them to respond. There are two ways you can do this:

Using High Reps

Using Heavy Weight

In terms of calves, high reps means working within a 20-50 rep range. Heavy weight calf training means training within 80-90 percent of a person’s one rep max. This will require low reps of between 4-10.

Make sure that you do not compromise proper form for heavy weight. Be sure to use full range of motion. When performing the seated calf raise exercise, you should be resting the balls of your feet on the platform and raising up to full extension before lowering your heels all the way down for full calf extension.

Calf Machine Buyer’s Guide

A calf machine is a pretty simple device. However, there are still a number of things you should look out for to make sure that you end up with a quality piece of equipment:

Adjustability

If you are buying a seated calf raise machine, make sure that you can adjust the height setting of the pad that sits on top of your quads. This will allow you to get just the right ergonomic positioning to provide a full range of extension on the calf raise. It will also allow you to get the right distancing for your thighs to set with being squashed by the pad.

The distance between the weight plate and your knees should also be adjustable. This is especially important for taller people, who will find that their knees are banging into the weight pin as they do their reps.

Plate Pin

The pin that holds the plates should be centrally located to ensure proper balancing. It should also have the proper diameter to fit the weight that you intend to use it with. Be careful not to buy a calf raise machine with a 2 inch diameter pin (designed for Olympic plates) if you only have standard 1 inch weight plates in your home gym. If you’ve got only Olympic plates and you buy a machine with a standard 1-inch diameter pin, you will have to deal with the weights sliding around as you use them. You can, however, buy a sleeve adapter which converts an Olympic plate to a standard diameter width. Some machines, such as our top rated Deltech seated calf raise machine, provide you with a complementary sleeve adapter with your purchase.

Build

You will be loading up your calf machine with some heavy weight, so you need it to be solid. It should be constructed from heavy gauge square steel and have thick padding with double stitched, vinyl or leather upholstery that is sweat, slip and odor resistant.

Weight Capacity

We have already mentioned several times that you need to load up your calf machine with some decent poundage in order to sufficiently stimulate your calf muscles. For that to happen the machine needs to be able to handle that sort of weight. If you are using 45 pound plates, you should expect for your machine to be able to handle ten of them. That equates to 450 pounds, which is a good max user capacity baseline to expect.

Warranty

To develop impressive calves, you need to work them hard and often.

Having a calf raise machine at home will allow you to do exactly that. The best calf raise machine to buy for your home is the Body-Solid Leverage Squat and Calf Machine, which provides you with a maximum weight capacity of 800 pounds, and has the best of both worlds for squatting and calf raises. However, it is large and expensive. Our second favorite calf raise machine is the XMark Seated Calf Raise Machine, with its solid frame and high level of padding. Rounding out our top three calf raise machines for home use is the Body Solid Powerline Seated Calf Raise machine which features an angled calf block, a 3:1 weight ratio and 10 year frame warranty.