If you want to grow the inner part of your calf muscle, doing straight-leg calf raises might work better than seated ones.

Doing calf raises with your knees straight (standing on toes) makes the inner part of your calf muscle grow more than doing them with your knees bent (seated), because the muscle is stretched more.

Doing calf raises with your legs straight builds more muscle in the back of your lower leg right after your workout than doing them with bent knees. In a study of young women, straight-leg raises increased muscle size by nearly 9%, while bent-leg raises actually caused a tiny decrease.

Doing calf raises while standing up with your knees straight builds more calf muscle than doing them while sitting down with your knees bent. Research shows that keeping your legs straight during the exercise leads to much bigger muscle growth over a few months.

The outer part of your calf and the deeper calf muscle don’t grow better with either straight-knee or bent-knee calf raises — they respond similarly to both.

Doing calf raises with your legs straight causes your calf muscles to swell up much more right after the workout than doing them with bent knees. In a study of young women, straight-leg raises increased calf thickness by 14.5% right away, while bent-leg raises only increased it by 7.0%.