Seated Calf Raises Don't Grow Your Calves?

Seated Calf Raises Don't Grow Your Outer Calves

Have you heard this recently?

If you haven't, that's great. 

But now you have.

Sorry.

People are making this claim now.

And like many other pseudoscientific claims, it's based on a single study, published in December 2023.

Here's the study summary:

• Population: 14 untrained participants (7 men, 7 women).
• Length: 12 weeks.
• Each subject did one exercise per leg (one leg seated calf raise, the other leg standing calf raise).
  • This is known as a within-participant comparison model, and it's very helpful because it removes confounders across individuals - like lifestyle, stress, sleep etc - from results.
• The participants worked up to 5 sets of 10 reps per session, with 2 sessions per week on non-consecutive days.
• The results: the gastrocnemius (outer calves) grew substantially with the standing calf raise, but barely at all with the seated. The soleus (inner calves) muscle grew about the same in both conditions, but slightly more in the seated calf raise.

Based on the results, it makes sense to say that seated calf raises don't grow the outer calves...right?

Wrong!

Why?

Reason #1 - Exercise Execution

Exercise execution is the foundation of any training study.

Yet I seldom hear people talking about the way that the participants performed each exercise.

Below is a photo of how the average participant performed each calf raise (credit: Kinoshita et al):

These are the shortened positions of either variation.

What do you notice?

The seated variation actually achieves a plantar-flexed (open-ankle) position, while the standing variation ends close to a neutral ankle position.

In other words, in terms of the resistance challenge of each exercise, we're comparing a lengthened partial - done at a long muscle length - to a shortened partial - done at a shortened muscle length.

In simpler terms...

No shit, you're not going to see much outer calf growth from the seated raise when you do it this way.

If that description didn't make sense to you, imagine you compared the followed two exercises:

1) A partial (top-half) seated leg curl where you're maximally stretching your hamstrings.

2) A partial lying leg curl (in the shortened part, where your foot is close to your butt) where you're not barely lengthening the hamstrings at all.

I.e, you're comparing two scenarios that use two completely different ranges, with two completely different challenges.

Given these differences, imagine how different the 1 rep maxes of each exercise are...

You're comparing a position of high strength to a position of low strength.

This is what the participants based their load selection on, by the way - they worked up to 70% of 1RM for 10 reps each session after several introduction weeks.

The loads are comparable to the difference between a half squat and a full range, ass-to-grass, paused-squat.

If you could half squat 405, you might be able to full squat 275-315?

I mean, just look at the load on either machine....

Yes, there are differences in the machine's mechanics, but likely not enough to make that much of a magnitude difference.

My speculation: if you equate for range of motion and alter load selection to match it, growth in the outer calves would be far more significant than the results here show.

Create a situation where you can get more, and you will.

Create a situation where you can get less, and you will.

Reason(s) #2 - Gross Extrapolation

If you don't know what a gross extrapolation is...

It's a broad, unsupported claim made based on limited or specific data.

The claim about the outer calves not growing on seated calf raises is a good example.

What factors make it a gross extrapolation?

• The participant population - they are untrained, and there are 14 of them. Would this apply to trained lifters, or lifters who had been doing both variations already? Would it apply on the same scale if you doubled or tripled the number of participants?
• The exercise execution piece - I won't harp on that more.
• The timeline - this study was 12 weeks long, which is a solid amount of time to see growth. However, there are 52 weeks in a year. 12 weeks is less than 1/4th of the year. Do these results extrapolate out longer than 12 weeks? What if someone has been training for a decade with these movements?
• Proximity to failure - the participants were instructed to follow a 5x10 protocol at 70% of 1RM from weeks 3 and beyond, which means they didn't increase the load throughout the study (at least, not that I read). Does this represent a real world scenario? Even by week 6-7, the sets must not have been particularly difficult. If you train a seated calf raise to failure, do you still not see much gastrocnemius growth?
• Load selection - this is difficult for any study to work around...but doing a 1RM test on any exercise in untrained participants is a nightmare. How miscalculated or inappropriate were the loads? Especially given the differences we discussed earlier between the seated and standing ranges/challenges? What if you compared true longer length partials for both? 

The list could probably go on, but that's all I could think off the top of my head. 

I assume the point here is clear.

It's fine to make speculation about research.

It's important to make speculation about research.

But it's just as important not to speak too confidently and to make claims that you can't support. 

A final note: I won't for a second deny the results of the study.

The results were the results.

The outer calves grew more with the standing calf raise than with the seated.

And I'm fairly confident that even if you accounted for all the exercise variables I described, that the outer calf would grow more from the standing vs seated calf raise.

But this is all within the context of a vacuum.

And exercises don't exist in vacuums.

So even then, we don't have a crystal clear idea of how this plays out in the real world.

Would a combination of standing and seated calf raises make sense? For both muscle growth and joint/connective health?

I think so.

I also believe there's a synergistic effect when we train muscles through their entire contractile length.

Both in terms of hypertrophy and strength, but also long-term health of our joints and connective tissues.

But that's just speculation ;)