How to Reduce Calf Size in Women?

Every person, especially the women, desires for perfectly toned calves. However, everyone is not blessed with toned and beautiful calf muscles. Be it due to genetic reason or as a consequence of malnutrition, disproportionate and large calf muscles that are not properly toned, often it troubles many women for the desired physique that they are looking for. Large calf muscles often make it quite awkward for the women to wear their desired clothes and they grab a lot of attention. Hence, they always seek for techniques and methods to reduce the bulk of their calf muscles.

Most commonly, calf reduction surgery is opted to reduce calf size in women. However, there are other methods as well. These include –

• Walking Habits and Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Calf Size: Walking on the balls of your feet and wearing heels can accentuate the calf muscles by putting pressure there. Wearing low heels or no heels at all will help you to reduce down the bulk of calf muscles. Walking in unsupported shoes or walking on heels can contribute into calf muscle development. In fact, you must not keep standing for too long as this can reduce the blood circulation of your muscles and toxin may deposit in the calves.
• Changes in Eating Habits for Reducing Calf Size in Women: Diet plays a very important role in the way our body appears or looks. If you eat too much of greasy or fatty and even high-calorie foods, there will be a significant amount of fat and calorie deposition in different parts of the body, including the calf muscles. Hence, it is a must that instead of processed, fatty, greasy and fried foods or foods that have a high sugar content, like cookies, chips, pizza or fries, switch to vegetables, beans, lean protein, fruits and nuts. Non-fat dairy products and whole grains are also a must instead of regular carbs and proteins.
• Avoiding Activities Involving Calf Muscles or High-impact Movements to Reduce Calf Size: There are quite a number of different kinds of activities that require a lot of strength, speed as well as power on the calf muscles. These are –
  • Steep inclines on treadmill
  • Intense cardiac workouts
  • Running or going up on the hills.

These activities make the calf muscles even larger. Hence, these must be absolutely avoided. Low impact cardiovascular exercises like cycling, swimming and elliptical training is a better alternative for calf size reduction. You must keep in mind that the activities and exercises that directly engage the calf muscles will only increase its size.

• Say NO to Resistance Training For Reducing Calf Size: It is a strong misconception that spot exercises, in case of calf muscles, can reduce the bulk of this muscle. Rather, these spot exercises and resistance trainings that target the calf muscles can increase the bulk of the muscle. If you need to reduce fat from your muscles, only liposuction is a possible option. A thorough dieting may also work; but resistance training is not a solution.
• Running Rules for Reducing Calf Size in Women: Running is a great exercise to slim down your legs, as well as calves.
  • You can choose short distance running or even long distance running, whichever suits your comfort level.
  • Endurance running that is associated with slow, but long distance running, is a great way to slim down legs and calf muscles.
  • Doing endurance training, cardio workout is also an added benefit. If you are doing exercises indoor, you need to keep the resistance of the cardio machines low. However, as for outdoor running, you can run on flat terrains.

With these, the fat around your muscles that actually increases the bulk of the calf muscles can easily be reduced, giving the calves and the legs a slimmer look.

• Exercises to Reduce Calf Muscle in Women: A very simple cardio exercise that can reduce the bulk of the calf muscles is to stand on the steps or stairs by balancing on your toes and letting the heels hang from the steps. Now, by putting the entire pressure on the toes, stand tiptoed with the heels raised high. This process should be done fast, with at least 10 repetitions of 2 sets.
• Stretching your Calf Muscles for Reducing their Size: Stretching the calf muscles, or for that matter, any longer and bulkier muscle is a great way to prevent it from increasing in volume. As you stretch your muscle, it will look leaner and longer. For this you can do stretching exercises, Pilates or even join Yoga classes.
  • Exercise for Stretching the Calves: This is a very simple calf muscle stretching exercise in which you will have to stand just a foot away from the wall and start by spreading one of your feet backwards, about three feet from the wall. The front leg should now be bent forward and the back leg should be straight. Place hands against the wall and hold the bending position of your front leg for 15 to 30 seconds, by ensuring that the heel of the bent leg is on the ground. Thus you should feel a pull and stretch at your calf muscles. Now switch the legs and repeat the process. Continue doing this for about 5 minutes at least, after other exercises.
  • Pilates: Pilates can also help in the stretching and calf size reduction. This is an amazing tool that can elongate and shape the calves.
• Calf Reduction Surgery to Reduce Calf Size in Women: If you want a faster alternative to slim down the calves, you can go for calf reduction surgery. It is absolutely non-invasive and it acts by blocking the motor nerves. Thus the muscle movements caused by these nerve impulses can largely be reduced and muscles will stop being bulkier.
• Massaging the Calves to Reduce Calf Size in Women: In order to soften the muscles, remove the tightness and to increase the flexibility of the calf muscles, massaging is very useful. For that you need to –
  • Bend one leg in front of your chest and start massaging your leg from ankle to knee.
  • Knead the lower part of the leg with both hands.
  • To increase flexibility and to reduce fatigue, giving upward strokes on your calf muscles with empty middle palm is a great option.

Having slim and toned calves will be easy if you follow these steps and exercises. The only thing that must be kept in mind is that you should not do exercises that will put more pressure on the calves as this will make the calf muscles even bulkier and tight.