Monster calves, fitness guys want them, but it’s a point of discouragement for most people that they cannot figure out why their calves will not grow. Theres a few things at play when looking into why calves will or will not grow, and the first is genetics. Some people just naturally have larger calves than others. I remember when I used to play flag football, there was a guy that used to play with us, that was very normally sized as an individual, but had calves the size of my head. He did not work out, but just naturally had steaks attached to the back of his legs. It just happens for some people and usually calves are a tough muscle group to work.
Calves are a Type II muscle fiber, which means they are the same as your abs and forearms. Could you imagine having big abs? That would be awkward. When you think of the natural use of these muscles, it makes sense why they are structured as they are, because they perform so much action. Calves are walked on all day, so coming into the gym and doing 200 reps of light weight with them, as most people do, will not cause them to grow. You are just stimulating them just as they are used to. So, to make calves grow, it is an issue of heavy weight first. Think about it, in order to achieve muscle overload and actually have calves grow, you have to have them do something they are not used to in order to improve themselves. That being said, first progressively hit calves heavy for a rate of ten to twelve reps.
After calves have reached the point where they can no longer hit heavy weight, now is when they are hit with high reps. The muscle is now overloaded and even a little weight, with a higher rep scheme will cause it to grow. That being said, not everyone can have monster calves, but using this formula, they can be improved upon.