What are your experiences with backward depth drops for calf development?
I'm asking this because I observed something very interesting when I was doing step-ups: I wasn't too tired anywhere because of them but the one place I had HUGE soreness was the calves. Basically every time I put my leg back down from the step-up box I was doing an eccentric calf raise. I didn't feel it at the time but after I finished my sets my calves were fried. Never experienced any kind of calf soreness like the one that occured after those step-ups.
So I was thinking - shouldn't doing backwards stiff leg depth drops help quite a bit on calf training? The TUT would be pretty short with the possible downside of too many landings/landing stress, but as far as the amount of "weight" in that eccentric part - you can't replicate that in the weight room - too much for the back, at least for mine's. Plus you never really do backwards stuff often so they should take that as an "unusual" stress and adapt better to it than to regular calf raises etc.
Any opinions?
real quick reply because I have to go out:
I prefer backward drops, definitely hits my ankles/lower leg so much harder.. I usually feel alot 'stiffer' when performing backwards drops as opposed to forwards, no comparison.
backwards stiff leg drops are 'promoted' by WGF.. I usually just did backwards squat drops with a little forward lean.
the backward stiff leg drops (from lower box heights) sound like a good idea to me.
pc