How do I engage my calves more when cycling?

March 1, 2015 6:36 AM

After 8 months of cycling 14 miles a day to work and back (I have always been a recreational cyclist) my thighs have stripped off fat I didn't even know was there and built muscle well. But how can I get my calves to do the same? I use SPD's so there is some static engagement, but short of consciously pressing and releasing the pedal will every stroke, how do I engage my calves?
posted by Gabriel ricci to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

Cycling doesn't really engage the calves that much, to be honest. You can probably force it to a little bit by radically changing your position, though. Cycling more in a standing position will probably help, especially while hill climbing. Sprint intervals might help, I couldn't say.

But your best bet is some other kind of exercise altogether. Squats, calf raises, and deadlifts for example.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:51 AM on March 1, 2015

dip your toes downward on the down pedal to engage your calf. also, try this (learned in spinning class): imagine your pedaling is done in the shape of a box. so, you're pedaling not in circles but in right angles. this will give your stroke more intention and you will feel it in the calf, i promise.
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 6:55 AM on March 1, 2015

So the issue is a full a proper pedal stroke hurts. The simplest way I find to fine tune calf use in a pedal stock to think that you're wiping dog poop pff your shoe. This engages the bottom of the pedal stroke. And transitions into the up stroke.
posted by 123fakestreet at 7:16 AM on March 1, 2015

Yep, do the 'scrape mud off the bottom of your foot'. Easier to do when you're climbing.
posted by Wild_Eep at 8:20 AM on March 1, 2015

Regardless of how you engage your calves, remember that spot reduction is a myth. Doing crunches does nothing for belly fat that squats wouldn't, and engaging your calves won't make fat disappear from your legs any faster than doing pull-ups, because our bodies add and remove fat as a whole-body affair. Your hormonal profile, not which muscles you engage, controls where fat gets deposited and used from.

That's not to say that adding muscle to your calves (which is one of the harder areas to add muscle) won't make your calves look less fatty and more muscular, because more muscle does indeed overshadow fat. But it won't be because you burned fat from your calves by engaging your calves more.
posted by daveliepmann at 8:41 AM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

I would say try using pedals which are not tied to your feet in any way.

A lot of the work your calf muscles do is stabilizing your feet against surfaces, and if you're attached to the pedals there's less for them to do.

I also think this approach reduces the risk of repetitive stress injuries to knees and hips (the third 50+ person in my circle of cycling acquaintances got a hip replacement last year) by allowing -- and encouraging -- much greater variation in cycling body geometry from the waist down.
posted by jamjam at 9:46 AM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I found riding fixed did amazing things for my calves- slightly too amazing because it makes it hard to find trousers that fit properly.
posted by doop at 9:49 AM on March 1, 2015

I'm a road cyclist, so I've never needed to learn mountain-bike style bunny hoping, but when I experiment with it, I feel it in the calves. (You lift the bike by having the toes of the rear-most foot pointed down and pushing back into the pedal almost as if hooking the pedal with your feet).

Actually, I'm finding that mountain-biking in general works my calves more, but that might be that on a road I can be lazy but there's no way to coast up a hill, (and when going down the unpaved hill you're using your calves as suspension dampers.)
posted by anonymisc at 12:31 PM on March 1, 2015

I'm seconding jamjam's advice: Ride without foot retention, and ideally in shoes whose soles are flexible. With typical stiff-soled bike shoes, the calves don't have a lot of work to do, though ankling does something. With thin-soled shoes, the calves have to me more active in keeping the foot stiff.
posted by brianogilvie at 3:12 PM on March 1, 2015

"I would say try using pedals which are not tied to your feet in any way."

I disagree, because you are then not going to engage your quads on the upstroke.
posted by mysterious_stranger at 5:35 PM on March 1, 2015

I disagree, because you are then not going to engage your quads on the upstroke.

1. OP was asking about calves, not quads.

2. It's a myth that cyclists usually pull up on pedals on the upstroke if they have foot retention. Even those who do pull up exert less force than the force exerted by the rising pedal. So activate your quads, sure; what you're doing is just reducing the downward force on the pedal. There are exceptions, but not many.
posted by brianogilvie at 6:34 PM on March 3, 2015