Adarq.org

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?

It's gotta be the calves! (and the shoes, to keep onto the commercial line)

I'm telling you, whenever I use basketball shoes, even Kobes which aren't really that heavy or bad quality, I feel like my feet are into cement. I can't move around well, my GCT in moving around, not to mention jumping, is soooooo long it's ridiculous, yet when I take running shoes on, which are light and have a foam sole, all these problems seem to go away. I feel like despite me increasing in bodyweight over the years - I haven't increased in calf strength pretty much at all - I bet I'm at around the same ratio of calf strength to bodyweight or so like I was when I was 40 lbs lighter...

Except those 40 lbs x 10 times = 400 lbs more in a high speed plant so... after "some" point it becomes such a great overload for the calves when you get heavier, and I feel like I'm at that point right now.

When I do single leg bounds I have more of a tendency to collapse at the knee/hamstring, and remember I can't do alternate leg bounds due to my right knee so I'm limited at LLLL ... that's why I'd try backward depth drops...

Another thing that passed through my mind is walking backwards and downwards on a hill slope. It would probably be even better for the calves, that continuous tension in them... sure, dangerous and kinda silly, but still. I think it's worth the try and see how does it feel like. I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody do it yet.

What about backward downhill "walks" or basically eccentric calf raising walks? Ever tried such a thing? Less intense but much more TUT and almost no rest in between reps.

Another option would probably be doing what I was actually doing that got me that hard soreness in the first place - eccentric oriented step-ups

Yeah if it's more than 5 degrees it's probably going to change the mechanics too much to have a good carryover to regular sprints (I'm talking about forward downhill sprints).

For backward downhill sprints - it's just an exercise for calf hypertrophy.