Unless you plan on wearing long pants for the rest of your life, sooner or later you're going to expose your lower legs. The calf raise will trim and shape your lower legs, strengthening the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles in the back of your lower legs.

Working them helps increase the flexibility of your ankle joints, which improves your balance, decreases your risk of falling, and makes walking easier. Best of all, you can do this exercise anywhere, because you don't need any equipment. Instead of using weights, you'll use your body weight as resistance. Once you've mastered the basic exercise, you can add weights for more advanced variations.

No matter how fit you are, start with the basic exercise.

The essentials

Repetitions: 8 to 12 lifts is considered a set.

Do 1 to 3 sets.

Sessions per week: 2 to 3; allow at least 1 day of rest between workouts.

Speed: 3 seconds to lift, 3-second pause, 3 seconds to lower.

Remember to breathe.

Tip: Pretend that a string attached to your head is gently pulling you up. This can help you maintain your balance and posture throughout the exercise.

The exercise:
1. To the slow count of three, lift your heels off the floor. Rise straight up, as high as it's comfortable.

2. Hold for a slow count of three, then lower for a slow count of three.

As your calves become stronger and your ankles more flexible, you'll be able to rise all the way up onto the balls of your feet and your toes.

Go slow for fast results
If you're not seeing the results you want, slow down. When you do strengthening exercises slowly, you recruit all of the muscle fibers in the muscle you are training. This ensures that the entire muscle is getting a workout. When you lift fast, your muscles don't work as hard because momentum is helping. True, the slower you go, the harder the exercise feels. But the extra effort means you get a stronger and trimmer body faster.

Lifting quickly often leads to poor form and technique, which increases your risk of injury. For example, doing calf raises too fast may cause you to lose your balance and injure your ankles or strain a muscle. So lift slowly to get the safest, most effective workout.

by Miriam Nelson, PhD
Created 1997