The Study
Does Performing Partial Repetitions Beyond Momentary Failure Enhance Muscle Hypertrophy in Volume-Load-Equated Calf-Raise Resistance Training?
This study is like a fair test where each person used one leg for one type of exercise and the other leg for a different type. It shows that both ways work about the same for building calf muscle when you do the same total amount of work, but one way gets more results per set.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Some people do extra small calf raises after they can’t do full ones anymore. This study checked if that helps muscles grow more when the total work is the same.
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 560 / 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.
- 1Yes, the growth is meaningful—it’s a solid gain for 10 weeks of training—but doing extra partial reps didn’t make muscles grow more overall, just more efficiently per set.
- 2Both ways made calf muscles grow 8% in 10 weeks.
- 3But doing extra small reps after failure helped each set work twice as well (0.16% growth per set vs 0.08%).
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
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 (10)
If you keep doing partial calf raises after you can't do any more full ones, you might grow your calf muscles more.
When resistance training is performed closer to muscular failure, muscle growth is greater due to higher total workload and longer duration of muscle contraction during each set.
In untrained young men, muscle growth in the calves is the same whether training uses partial range-of-motion repetitions beyond failure or full range-of-motion repetitions to failure, as long as the total amount of work is identical.
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.
Performing calf raises with a partial range of motion in a dorsiflexed position produces about 30% more force in the gastrocnemius muscle per repetition than full-range movements, leading to a stronger stimulus for muscle growth.
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.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.