23-24″ in the off season and  22″ in contest condition, Erik probably owns the biggest calves in the bodybuilding world today. While growing up, Erik Fankhouser played many sports, such as wrestling, track and field, and football. Often times he would hear comments like “popeye” and other discussion about how large and freaky his calves were. “If I could just get my biceps to match my calves, I’ll be happy,” The House says.

Here is an excerpt from AnimalPak.com, where Erik Fankhouser gives a little insight to those who are wanting to build bigger calves.

“When you want to increase the size or shape of a body part, you must prioritize that body part. This is called “sculpting”. The first thing you need to do is evaluate your calves… Yeah, so take a good hard look in the mirror and find those sticks you call calves. There are many different types of calves. Different types of calves need different forms of sculpting. If the calf fairy gave you real high skinny calves, you need to do different exercises than those with the long, no shape calves. “

Erik also states that his calf training is hit with different types of intensities as well as different types of routines.

  

Off-Season Calf Training

In the off season, he trains his calves twice per week. The pace of his reps in the off season consist of a four second count on the negative portion of the rep, and a two second count on the positive, or contracting portion of the rep. From experience, he states that he has noticed his calves respond better to higher repetitions.

The preferred exercises for Erik are the seated calf raise and the reverse calf raise. He does his reverse calf raises on the leg press machine, being conscious not to let his heels slip off the sled part of the machine. He states that on a regular calf raise he could do approximately 2000 pounds for three sets of fifteen reps, and by using this exercise he is able to get an equal contraction only by using 1/4 of the weight.

Pre-contest Calf Training

For precontest calf training, the period leading up to a bodybuilding competition, The House trains his calves every other day, working out all parts of the calves every other day. During this time he chooses one exercise per part and trains that specifically with only two sets, each consisting of 100-150 repetitions per set!

“When you do this right you should not be able to walk out of the gym without a limp. Precontest you are also doing cardio work which hits your calves. Doing this should rip your calves up and show the hard work you put in the off season pushing all that heavy weight. Calf training works differently for everyone, so you have to experiment to see what works for you. But this is what I do for my 24” cows.”

 

 

Training information sourced from www.animalpak.com

 

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