Smith Machine Reverse Calf Raise

How to do it

1. Set the Smith machine bar across your upper back and stand with your heels on a block, toes hanging off the front.
2. Unhook the bar and stand tall with the knees straight but not locked.
3. Let your toes drop below the block until you feel the front of the shins lengthen.
4. Pull the toes up toward your shins as far as they will travel.
5. Hold briefly at the top.
6. Lower under control, and re-hook the bar at the end of the set.

Common mistakes

• Setting up as for a calf raise. The feet are reversed — heels on the block and toes off the front — and getting that wrong makes it an ordinary calf raise with a short range.
• Expecting a long range. Dorsiflexion travels much less far than plantarflexion, and forcing past the end of it is where the ankle objects.
• Loading it like a calf raise. The muscles on the front of the shin are a fraction of the size of the calf, and the bar reflects that.
• Bending the knees to reach further. The knee stays straight; bending it lifts the block rather than the toes.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Shins