calves in boxing

Aren't calves genetic? You either have huge ripped ones or you don't. Alot of people call Victor Ortiz chicken legs because of his calves but in one weigh in his quads were huge and ripped

 

View your bodyparts as part of a chain. Ofcourse strenghtening your entire body and weak bodyparts will improve your performance.


But to answer your question short, no.

 

Genetics makes up for it sure but you can always improve them.

 

you can increase them a bit, but they are mostly genetic - a dense muscle group like the forearm. If you walk on your tiptoes and tense them ALL the time, they develop like any other muscle group. A lot of it is the way you walk since you are a kid. The problem in developing them is the lack of range of motion in employing the muscle - you can pretty much point your toes, and maybe face them in or out, that's it.

 

people always ask me why boxers have stick legs. i just tell them to ask a boxer

 

because they have to be as light as possible for their frame but still be strong and most guys, especially smallish ones, aren't naturally prone to keep leg size when they are in a catabolic state. Some are.

 

Legs are very important in boxing, very important for punching & even more important for getting out the way of punches

 

Genetics do play a role in them. A lot of black guys have some calves like myself. You can make them stronger, but they are a weird muscle group.

I'm sure Floyd has very strong calves, but they just don't grow that big for him.

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Add important when you take a punch. You need strong legs to hold you up or to recover from a hard punch.

 

I don't think there's a definitive answer, so it's odd that so many members here are posting their opinions as fact.


Well, here's my opinion:

Strong (not necessarily big) calves probably have two advantages:

1: The way I was taught to throw a distance punch (there are 2 schools of thought on this) your heel lifts off the ground slightly, and all the force gets supported by the ball of your foot. Obviously, a strong calf muscle will help here.

2: Even if you are a "heel down" puncher, a fighter will often step back to set-up a punch, planting his back foot. Imaging throwing a left hook then following with a straight right (not a cross) - you need to create that distance. When you drop that leg back, a strong calve must surely give stability.

 

Most boxers seems to have tiny legs compared to their upper body.

This guy for instance has Anorexia nervosa in his legs.

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paquiao's big calves come from being a migget..all asians have them.

 

Na calves act more as shock absorbers They help with balance and mobility, but tho it helps some like Pacman and Hamed it didnt help much with fighters such as McEwan who is also a huge calved fighter. Like in any sport you have to perfect it and their are different types of punchers such as combination like Trinidad, textbook like Jackson, or hayemakers like Maidana. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on calves when it comes to fighting or training, but jumproping helps alot in working them out.

 

Tyson (along with most black guys) suffered from the dreaded "black man calves" syndrome and had small calves,and he and many others did just fine.

..seriously black man claves is a thing...bane of the black body builder.

 

This is true, comes from all the endurance work they do, like long distance running and lots of skipping. It produces skinny,muscular legs,like marathon runners

I think guys these days are training better and incorporating more explosive work and weight training though.

More sprints and less long distance running