Calve Raises

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The muscles of the Calves act to stabilize the ankles and feet as well as provide the power to push forward. The calves work to lift the heel when you run, walk and jump. If you are trying to increase your vertical jump, you need to strengthen your calves. There aren’t a lot of exercises for the calves since there is basically one motion. It is a 2-step process to build the calves. One is to do stretches to loosen and lengthen them, the other is to do calve raises to strengthen them. Strengthening the calves will help in exercises for other sections of the body and ultimately enable lifting more weight.

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Calve Raises

Legs — **One Legged Standing Calve Raises**

Calve Raises help contract the calve muscles as well as the muscles in the foot. These muscles typically don’t have pockets of fat around them so they are easily discernible by flexing the feet. Calve Raises can be done with or without weights and can be done either standing or sitting. It is one of the exercises that can be done multiple ways. To perform the standing calve raises, take hold of dumbbells in both hands, raise your heels as high as you can and hold for a second. To complete the motion, lower your heels without letting them touch the ground (This is one rep; holding the heels up for 12 seconds could also be considered as 12 reps). For sitting calve raises, weight resting on the knees is pushed up and the same motion is performed as in standing form. Deviations of this exercise include raising both heels, one legged calve raise, and alternating calve raises.