For beginners, lifting heavy weights a few times or lighter weights many times both make your calf muscles about 15-18% stronger after 8 weeks.

If you train your calf muscles to the point of exhaustion, it doesn't matter if you use light weights for many reps or heavy weights for fewer reps—you'll get just as strong either way over eight weeks.

If young, healthy guys lift weights for 12 weeks, their muscles get stronger at moderate speeds — like kicking or swinging — and they can generate 13% to 32% more force, no matter how they did the lifting.

Adding a short, weighted stretch between your workout sets might give your calf muscles a small strength boost compared to just resting, without hurting your overall workout progress.

When you train one muscle at a time (like leg extensions), you get a bit better at holding still with that muscle—more than if you train big compound moves like squats. But either way, you get way stronger at moving than holding.

Doing leg exercises with both legs at the same time for 12 weeks makes you stronger at lifting with both legs together, while doing them one leg at a time makes you stronger at lifting with each leg separately.