The Study
Different Foot Positioning During Calf Training to Induce Portion-Specific Gastrocnemius Muscle Hypertrophy.
This study tried to see if pointing your toes in different directions while doing calf exercises makes different parts of your calf muscle grow. Because we only have a short summary and not the full report, we can't be completely sure how the study was done or if the results are just due to chance. It gives us a hint about what might work, but we need more complete research to be sure.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
This study tested if pointing your toes differently while doing calf raises changes which part of your calf muscle grows more.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 540 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1The differences are statistically significant and show that small changes in exercise form can target specific muscle areas.
- 2After 9 weeks, pointing toes outward grew the inner calf muscle by 8.4%, while pointing toes inward grew the outer calf muscle by 9.1%.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Year
2020
Authors
J. Nunes, B. D. V. Costa, Witalo Kassiano, Gabriel Kunevaliki, Pâmela Castro-e-Souza, A. Rodacki, L. S. Fortes, E. Cyrino
Related Content
Claims (4)
Doing specific calf exercises for nine weeks can make the calf muscles bigger, but exactly how much they grow depends on how you position your feet during the workout. This shows that small changes in your exercise form can target different parts of the muscle differently.
Changing the way you point your feet while doing calf raises can target different parts of your calf muscle. Pointing your toes outward mainly builds the inner part of your calf, while pointing them inward mainly builds the outer part. This gives you a simple way to shape your calves exactly how you want them.
If you do calf raises with your toes pointed outward, you'll build more muscle in the inner part of your calf compared to pointing your toes inward or straight ahead. After nine weeks of training, this outward toe position led to an 8.4% muscle growth, while the other positions only added 3.8% and 5.8%.
When doing calf raises, pointing your toes inward builds more muscle in the outer part of your calf than pointing them out or straight ahead. Over nine weeks of training, this inward position can increase that specific muscle by about 9%, while other toe positions only add around 5-6%.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.