Balance Board

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the calves — gastrocnemius over the knee and soleus beneath it, which point the foot down and absorb load every time the ankle takes weight.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down; the quadriceps straighten the knee and take load on the descent.

Every exercise for:CalvesHamstringsQuadriceps

How this movement works

Several joints move together, so effort spreads across a chain rather than concentrating in one place. Coordination is part of the difficulty: the movement is only as good as its weakest link, and improving it often means fixing a position somewhere other than the muscle you meant to train.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

These train the calves too, using equipment this one does not:

• Calf Pressmachine
• Calf Raise On A Dumbbelldumbbell
• Calf Raises - With Bandsband
• Calves-SMRfoam roll
• Donkey Calf Raisesbody only

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 33 calves exercises in this database, 19 are listed at beginner level.