If you want to swell your entire calf muscle, straight-leg calf raises work best. But if you specifically want to target the deeper soleus muscle, bent-leg calf raises are the better choice.

For young women who want to work all three muscles in their calf (the two parts of the gastrocnemius and the soleus), doing calf raises with straight legs works better than doing them with bent knees.

If you're a young woman doing calf raises, bending your knees while lifting will make your soleus calf muscle swell up more right after the workout than keeping your legs straight. This happens because the bent-knee position targets that specific muscle more intensely during the exercise.

When young women want to strengthen their soleus muscle (the lower calf muscle), doing calf raises with bent knees works better than doing them with straight legs.

Doing calf raises while standing builds more lower leg muscle than doing them while sitting. Over three months, standing raises increased overall calf muscle size by 5.6% compared to just 2.1% for seated raises, mostly because the main calf muscle grew more with the standing version.

When young women do calf raise exercises until they can't do any more, doing them with bent legs makes the calf muscle grow about twice as much as doing them with straight legs.