Brendan Meyers is a YouTuber known for coming up with some intensive bodyweight routines. These are workouts that challenge you to pull off some truly impressive moves and that test your explosive strength, your core stability and more. Better yet, the routines are built out of just a few exercises performed back-to-back for intense, efficient training that will yield great results in no time at all. He calls them his ‘Spartan’ workouts – and it’s easy to see why.
If you’re struggling to build your calves then, why not see what Brendan has to say on the subject? Here is his Spartan superset for the calves that can be performed anywhere with a slightly raised platform. This could mean a curb outside your home, it could mean a step, or it could even just mean a thick book laid on the ground.
Calf Jumps
You’re going to be starting with calf jumps. Here, you’re launching yourself into the air using only your calves. This means that your legs shouldn’t be bending at all and it should be simply the act of going up onto your tiptoes that is launching you up into the air.
You’ll be standing by a curb and then jumping up onto the higher surface and back down. If you’re using the correct technique, then even covering just this very small distance should be enough to provide some challenge for you.
Performing about 10 repetitions should be enough.
One Legged Calf Raise to One Direction
Here you’re going to be performing calf raises with one leg, while moving out to one side. The easiest way to do this is to stand facing along the direction of the curb, while leaning to one side against a wall, tree or lamppost. You’re then going to lift yourself with a calf raise and as you do, you’ll also be pushing slightly in one direction to the left or to the right. This will help to train either the inside or outside edge of the calf.
Perform 15 reps on each leg, on each side for a total of sixty reps.
Calf Raise
You can then finish with ‘regular’ calf raises on the curb. This is perfect to place at the end of our three-move superset as you’ll be somewhat exhausted from the previous exercises at this point. Having ‘pre-exhausted’ your calves with the jumps and the one legged raises, the ‘normal’ raises will serve as a nice finisher that will help to finish off the last remnants of any strength and energy you have in your legs. Perform to failure, or for about 20 reps.
Remember, this is a superset. That means you’re performing all these exercises back-to-back with no rest and then starting again from the beginning at the end. Three total supersets is a good workout but of course, the more the merrier! See if you can go for four or five repetitions.
And the great thing about this is that it’s really quick – meaning you have plenty of time left for your other leg muscles.
