Do partial calf raises grow your calves better?
Resistance Training Beyond Momentary Failure: The Effects of Past‐Failure Partials Versus Initial Partials on Calf Muscle Hypertrophy Among a Resistance‐Trained Cohort
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Initial partials showed a 9.5% hypertrophy increase — but the difference from past-failure partials (6.7%) was statistically meaningless.
Previous studies suggested full ROM was superior, and past-failure partials were thought to be a powerful hypertrophy hack — yet neither dominated, and the 'winner' had almost no support.
Practical Takeaways
If you want to maximize calf growth, try alternating between initial partials (start stretched) and full-ROM + past-failure partials — both work well.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Initial partials showed a 9.5% hypertrophy increase — but the difference from past-failure partials (6.7%) was statistically meaningless.
Previous studies suggested full ROM was superior, and past-failure partials were thought to be a powerful hypertrophy hack — yet neither dominated, and the 'winner' had almost no support.
Practical Takeaways
If you want to maximize calf growth, try alternating between initial partials (start stretched) and full-ROM + past-failure partials — both work well.
Publication
Journal
European Journal of Sport Science
Year
2025
Authors
Stian Larsen, N. Ø. Sandberg, B. Schoenfeld, A. B. Fredriksen, B. S. Kristiansen, Milo Wolf, Roland van den Tillaar, P. Swinton, H. Falch
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Claims (5)
If you're someone who lifts weights, doing partial reps either at the start of your set or after you've failed a full rep can help your calf muscle grow bigger over 8 weeks.
A statistical analysis found only very weak evidence that doing partial reps at the start of a workout might build slightly more calf muscle than doing them after you're exhausted — but the data doesn't strongly support either way.
Doing calf exercises with a deeper stretch at the start might help your calf muscles grow bigger than doing them with a shorter stretch, because the stretched position could put more tension on the muscle.
If you're someone who lifts weights and you do calf raises using only part of the motion for 8 weeks, your calf muscles might grow a little more than if you do full-range reps plus extra partials at the end—but the difference is so small that we can't be sure it's real.
Both workout routines made people lift the same total amount of weight over time, so if one built more muscle than the other, it wasn’t because they did more volume — something else must be going on.