Understanding Your Calf Shape and How to Build Muscle
Nutrition & FitnessFitness

Understanding Your Calf Shape and How to Build Muscle

Understanding Your Calf Shape and How to Build Muscle
Delmaine Donson/iStock
By
Jodi "Jato" Thornton
Updated on July 31, 2025
by

If you’ve ever compared your calves to the calves of another, you’re not alone.

Due to genetics and environmental factors, all parts of your body will differ from those of other people. But because of ongoing cultural commentary around “strong calves,” you may find yourself focusing particularly on shortcomings in this area of your body.

Here we’ll explore which muscles make up the calf, how body type influences the shape of the muscle, and ways you can work with your genetics to tone this part of your body.

What Makes a Calf?

When you reach down and grab your calf, it might feel like one big muscle. But your calf is formed by an interplay of muscles known collectively as the triceps surae.

Poke the big bulgy muscle on the back of your calf and you’re touching the gastrocnemius muscle that runs from the back of the knee to the Achilles tendon just above your heel. The word “gastrocnemius” literally means “belly of the leg,” and if you want shapely calves, you’ll want this belly to be bigger.

Below the gastrocnemius muscle is the soleus muscle, which is attached to the shin bone and the Achilles tendon. This muscle plays a crucial role in flexing the foot, and its contractions help blood make its way back to the heart.

 If you’re doing exercises in front of a mirror, you might see this muscle popping out to the side of your shin bone.

The Role of Genetics in Calf Shape

Genetic factors play a major role in the development of our muscles, potentially influencing between 40 and 50 percent of muscle fiber proportions.

 Muscle fiber proportions are often studied as a measure of power in a particular muscle group, but they often influence the size and shape of the muscle as well.
Your calf shape can also depend on the length of the calf muscle belly relative to the connective tendons that fasten the muscle to the bone.

An Exercise to Build Your Calves

If genetic factors impact about half of your calf shape, that means you still have a lot of room left to grow.

You may be familiar with the popular “calf raise” exercise, or if you work out at a gym, the standing calf raise machine with shoulder pads. Both movements involve standing with your knees slightly bent, pressing up on your toes and lowering back down.

There are ways to intensify this exercise, by doing a calf “jump.” You set up the same way as for regular calf raises, but you bend more into your knees at the first part of the motion, then explode up onto your toes as if jumping. Your feet shouldn’t actually leave the platform — you’re just making the explosive movement. Brace your core while doing this exercise to minimize spinal compression.

For maximum calf size, work up to using more weight on the calf-raise machine than you can squat.

How to Build Definition in Your Calves

As is the case with many muscle groups, a lack of definition in your calf muscles may have less to do with strength than with your body fat composition.

A healthy, balanced diet filled with highly nutritious foods, such as in-season fruits and vegetables, whole grains, raw nuts, and lean protein sources (including beans and tofu), can help you get the energy you need to build muscle while trying to lose weight.

The Takeaway

  • Your calves are made of two main muscles — the gastrocnemius and the soleus — and while genetics play a significant role in their shape, you can still develop and tone them.
  • To effectively build your calf muscles, prioritize them in your workout and elevate your calve raises with increased power.
  • For definition, focus on reducing overall body fat through a healthy diet.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Calf Muscle. Cleveland Clinic. December 2023.
  2. Dalip M et al. The Relationships Between ACTN3 rs1815739 and PPARA-α rs4253778 Gene Polymorphisms and Athletic Performance Characteristics in Professional Soccer Players. BMC Sports Science Medicine and Rehabilitation. September 25, 2023.
  3. Tendon (Sinew). Cleveland Clinic. April 2025.
Meet Our Experts
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Sylvia E. Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT

Medical Reviewer

Sylvia Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT, is an internationally recognized nutrition expert who is relentlessly passionate about helping people fall in love with creating and enjoying delicious, safe, and nutritious foods.

As a food and nutrition communications professional, Dr. Klinger is a global nutrition professor, award-winning author, and the founder of Hispanic Food Communications.

She is on the board at Global Rise to build a formal community nutrition program as part of an ambitious initiative to create a regenerative food system in Uganda in partnership with tribal and community leaders. This program included an extensive training session on food safety and sanitation that displayed cultural sensitivity and various communication strategies and incentives to spread these important food safety and sanitation messages into the communities.

Her Hispanic background fuels her passion for nutrition, leading her to empower and encourage those in her community through the foods they enjoy in their kitchens. At the same time, she understands everyone’s needs are different and seeks to individualize nutrition and exercise to best fit each person and their journey to a happy, safe, and healthy life.

Her latest book, The Little Book of Simple Eating, was published in 2018 in both Spanish and English.

In her spare time, Klinger explores food and culture all over the world with her family, realizing the power a healthy lifestyle has to keep people together.

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Jodi "Jato" Thornton

Author

Jodi has been certified in senior fitness training and nutritional health since 2008. A current Level 2 certified ASCA swimming coach, she coaches young swimmers and is the Program Director at RPC Swim School in Sedona, AZ.

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