by SisterRayVU » Wed Jul 17, 2013 12:52 am
Honestly, if you know about horizontal/vertical planes of motion, you're ahead of 90% of gym bros. I tend to be very pull heavy just because I think it's 'healthier' and everyone focuses on push since those are most of the mirror muscles and shit, but anyway...
If your calves attach high, like that means there is a big gap from your ankle to the bottom of your calf, you need to train your calves like any other muscle (low rep/high weight, increase minimum amount each workout). You'll actually see growth from this (which means they probably don't insert there since you would see growth from pretty much anything). If your calves attach lower, like close to the ankle, you're fukked. There's really nothing you can do to grow them naturally. Genetically speaking, high rep or low rep isn't going to do much though you should focus on high rep. If they attach sort of middling, do high rep anyway.
Calves are really hard to grow. Every other muscle group, you can pretty much say 'lift heavy, increase the minimum amount each work out, eat a lot, sleep' and you'll see significant progress, but with calves, they're actually limited by genetics. To be fair, your pecs are also limited by genetics by in a very different way and for most dudes lifting, it's not worth going into the different heads of your pec muscle and when incline is worthwhile for size or how to adjust the lift.
Honestly, if you aren't going consistently 2 or 3 times a week and committing to your lifts/eating, growth is gonna be slow no matter who's encouraging you to lift for whatever price. But if you can make it out 2 or 3 times a week and if you can push yourself on rows and chin ups and OHP, if you can eat enough bean energy and calories, you will 100% see growth. Anyone telling you to 'burn out' on 'accessory' exercises is espousing bro-science. I could go into it but just trust that it's better to lift OHP or bench heavy for your triceps than it is to burn out on pull downs or something. The major difference is that if you bench and OHP heavy, you'll work out for like 20 minutes. If you do that and add triceps extension and skullcrushers, you're in the gym for 45 minutes+ but the thing to consider is whether you actually benefit from that or if your trainer does when they get to book you a bit extra.
That said, trainers who actually know how to lift are invaluable because you can watch videos on form and shit for an hour but it's not the same as some dude actually knowing his shit talking you through your reps. I'm just naturally wary because so many don't know good form, don't know what your muscles are actually supposed to do, and all that shit. It may very well be different in Yuro/theUK tho.