I’m on a mission to grow my stubborn calves. One of the training protocol I will be including in my calves workouts is called Intraset Stretching, aka Intermittent Stretch Overload.
A study conducted at the University of Tampa, led by Jacob Rauch and Jeremy Silva, found that the group who performed Intraset Stretching on the Seated Calve Press doubled the muscle gains of the group who didn’t use the Intermittent Stretch Overload protocol.
Silva, J.E., Rauch, J., Lowery, R.P.,…..and Wilson, J.M. (2014) Weighted Post-Set Stretching Increases Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy. National Strength and Conditioning Conference, Las Vegas Nevada.
In this study they did 5 sets of calves on the Leg Press machine. One group rested (the blue group ) and one group did weighted 30 sec stretching between sets (the yellow group ).
They began with a weight that they could lift for 12-15 reps. One group rested for 30 seconds while the other group held the stretch for 30 seconds. Then they repeated the process 4 more times, reducing the weight by 15% after each stretch.
This was my first attempt at the Intraset Stretching protocol. I used a Horizontal Leg Press machine, only did 4 sets, went too light, and made drops in weight that were too big… about Intraset Stretching For Stubborn Calves: Double The Muscle Gains
