Steps
- Sit on the machine and place your toes on the lower portion of the platform provided with the heels extending off. Choose the toe positioning of your choice (forward, in, or out) as per the beginning of this chapter.
- Place your lower thighs under the lever pad, which will need to be adjusted according to the height of your thighs. Now place your hands on top of the lever pad in order to prevent it from slipping forward.
- Lift the lever slightly by pushing your heels up and release the safety bar. This will be your starting position.
- Slowly lower your heels by bending at the ankles until the calves are fully stretched. Inhale as you perform this movement.
- Raise the heels by extending the ankles as high as possible as you contract the calves and breathe out. Hold the top contraction for a second.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Tracking it in OneRep
Add the seated calf raise to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.
Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.
Where the instructions come from
The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.