unilateral calf training... weird

[The Dude]

I made the post about my asymmetrical calf development so in addition to giving the left calf preference as far as IGF administration I also decided to train calves unilaterally... I was in for a surprise!! I got up to doing 4 plates per side on the smith and doing calf raises on a block with that for 35 or so. I tried 1 leg at a time and could only do a 25 per side for 9 reps on the left and although the right was stronger I stopped there. WTF??? What's wrong with me??

 

[highside]

Watch your ankle on the smaller calf. I have had tons of problems with one calf being smaller. I have almost fixed it. I had a sports medicine doctor help me out a few months ago. He had me do calf raises. He caught it right off the bat. When I was doing them for about the last 1/4 of the raise my right ankle would fold over. It was not enough for me to ever notice. He explained for the last quarter of the push, about 75% of the weight was on my left calf. I do single leg calf raises on some lifts also and the smaller one was way weaker. I have almost caught it up now. I try real hard and watch my ankle all the time to make sure I am not letting it bend over. The ankle was weaker for some reason and doing it.

 

[saudades]

When you change to a unilateral exercise, you remove the synergistic component of the muscles working together. If you think one side by itself could lift half the weight you were using, this is never the case. A lot of supporter/stabilizer muscles come into play normally, thus the additional strength when the two work together.