Does doing extra calf raises at the bottom help muscles grow more?
Does Performing Partial Repetitions Beyond Momentary Failure Enhance Muscle Hypertrophy in Volume-Load-Equated Calf-Raise Resistance Training?
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Adding partial reps after full-ROM failure didn’t increase total muscle growth—even though it increased work per set.
Many believe that pushing past failure with extra reps should lead to more growth. But here, despite greater effort and more reps, total gains were identical when volume was matched.
Practical Takeaways
Try doing 2–3 sets of full calf raises to failure, then continue each set with small partial reps at the bottom until you can’t do any more.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Adding partial reps after full-ROM failure didn’t increase total muscle growth—even though it increased work per set.
Many believe that pushing past failure with extra reps should lead to more growth. But here, despite greater effort and more reps, total gains were identical when volume was matched.
Practical Takeaways
Try doing 2–3 sets of full calf raises to failure, then continue each set with small partial reps at the bottom until you can’t do any more.
Publication
Journal
International Journal of Exercise Science
Year
2026
Authors
Amirali Goli, Parsa Attarieh, João Pedro Nunes, Saman Nehegadar, Saaed Khani, Mohmad Fashi, S. Ahmadizad
Related Content
Claims (6)
If you keep doing partial calf raises after you can't do any more full ones, you might grow your calf muscles more.
If untrained guys do calf raises and keep going with shorter movements after they can't do full ones anymore, their muscles grow twice as fast per set compared to stopping at failure with full movements — as long as the total workout load is the same.
If untrained young guys do calf raises twice a week for 10 weeks and go all the way to muscle failure, their calf muscles get 8% thicker — adding extra partial reps after failure doesn’t help more if the total workout load is kept the same.
If you're a guy new to calf workouts, doing extra partial reps after hitting failure on full calf raises doesn’t give you more muscle growth — it’s just as good as sticking to full reps, and both methods boost calf size by about 8% in 10 weeks.
If untrained guys do calf raises that only go partway up after hitting failure on full calf raises, they can do about 64% more reps without increasing overall workload—because the shorter movement is easier on the muscles.