Nowadays, many girls like to pursue thinness, whether it is their calves, thighs or arms. Maybe they just don’t want to lose weight in some places. However, many people find in the process of exercising that they originally wanted to slim down their calves, but the more they exercise, the thicker they become. In fact, they may all be due to inaccurate daily exercise areas. If you want to slim down your calves, you need to exercise thesoleus muscle. If you exercise the gastrocnemius muscle incorrectly, it may have the opposite effect.
Can stretching really stop growing muscles? Can it really make your calves slimmer? Let’s talk about this today!
Stretching is not about losing muscle, it is about growing muscle! In other words, not only does stretching not prevent muscle growth, but on the contrary, stretching is a great way to promote muscle growth! I’m afraid that at this point, all the students whose calves are a bit thick and stretch after running will be scared to death! don’t worry! I believe you have often heard of people who have successfully lost weight using the method of "running + stretching their calves" in their daily lives. Why is this? Put on some pants and let's continue.
Why are your calves so thick?
After reading the above text and experiments, many people have questions - since stretching can grow muscles, why do many people still make their calves lose weight through stretching? This starts with the muscle composition of your calves and why your calves are so thick.
We see that there are mainly two muscles in the calf. One is a large spherical muscle-the gastrocnemius, commonly known as the calf; the other is a long and flat muscle deep in the calf called the soleus muscle.
Gastrocnemius: Overdevelopment will make the calves look thick
Soleus muscle: It can visually heighten and lengthen the calf
Most of the time, we ordinary peopleThe gastrocnemius muscle of the calf is relatively developed, while the soleus muscle is relatively weak, which leads to uneven muscle development and makes the calf look thicker and unsightly.
However, if you can balance the development of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles and tighten the calves, the overall visual effect will be significantly lifted. When viewed from the side, there are also faint layers and shadows, which makes it look particularly slimming!
So why are our two calf muscles imbalanced? This starts with the different physiological functions of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles.
The role of the gastrocnemius: when standing upright or when the knee joint is straight, the foot exerts more force. Examples from everyday life are standing, walking and jogging.
The role of the soleus muscle: The main force is when the knee joint is bent.
For example, run fast, jump high, etc. So we can see that the calves of explosive athletes and basketball players generally look longer.
As we said above, the main reason why most people’s calves look thick is due to the imbalance in the development of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles. Because we usually do more low-intensity exercises such as standing and walking, the gastrocnemius muscles develop better. You don’t run or do strenuous explosive exercises, so your soleus muscle is weaker. As a result, the calves look thick at the top and short at the bottom. If you want to achieve the purpose of thinning your calves by stretching muscles to promote muscle growth, you must pay attention to stretching the soleus muscle as much as possible. That is to say, with the knees relatively bent, the soleus muscle is mainly stretched.
Bending the knees can stretch the soleus very well, while straight-leg stretching is not of much significance to slimming down the calves, as shown in the picture below!
Straight leg stretching mainly stretches the gastrocnemius muscle and cannot slim down the calves very well. During the stretch, you should feel that it is the lower and deeper muscles of your calves that are being stretched, not your calves. In this way, you can better prevent your calves from getting thicker by changing the ratio and shape of your calf muscles. Some people say that the picture is a bit unclear. I would like to emphasize again that in fact, as long as you bend your knees and stretch your calves, you can target the soleus muscles!
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