The single-leg calf raise is a calf raise on one foot. You stand on one leg, rise as high as you can onto the ball of that foot, and lower the heel under control while the other foot stays off the floor. It can be done on the floor or with the forefoot on a step so the heel can drop below it.
Nobody is credited with inventing or naming it; it is the one-legged form of the oldest calf exercise there is. Frank Zane recalls that when the Nautilus line arrived in the early 1970s without a calf machine, Arthur Jones claimed the one-legged calf raise was all anyone needed. Brolic lists it as Single-Leg Calf Raise (Bodyweight), with “Bodyweight Single-Leg Calf Raise” as an alias, and the loaded version as Weighted Single-Leg Calf Raise (Dumbbell), with “Dumbbell Weighted Single-Leg Calf Raise” as an alias. Both are logged as one-sided exercises: one set covers both legs, and reps are counted per leg.
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the calves as the primary muscle group on both entries, with no secondary. Scott Herman has you push all the way forward through the toes to work the calf; the Hospital for Special Surgery’s rehabilitation team describes it as a move to stretch and strengthen the ankles and calves.
Two studies of one-legged calf training, neither of the bodyweight version, bear on how to do it. Kinoshita and colleagues (2023) had 14 untrained adults train one leg standing with the knee straight and the other seated with the knee bent, for 12 weeks. The gastrocnemius grew on the standing leg (lateral head 12.4% against 1.7%, medial 9.2% against 0.6%) and barely on the seated one; the soleus grew about the same on both. Nunes and colleagues (2020) had 22 young men do one-legged leg-press calf raises for nine weeks with the foot pointed out, in or straight: toes out grew the inner head more, toes in the outer.
Set up on the floor or a step
Stand facing something stable, feet hip-width apart, toes pointed forward. That is HSS’s start. Herman says some people can balance with nothing to hold; if you cannot, find a stable surface and use a hand.
Lift the other foot. HSS raises it off the ground; Herman tucks it behind the standing leg or holds it in the air.
Keep the standing knee straight. HSS cues it, and the Kinoshita study is the reason it matters: the knee-straight raise grew the gastrocnemius and the bent-knee raise did not.
For more range, put the ball of the foot on a step. Herman moves to an elevated surface to make it harder; the heel can then drop below the step. The weighted entry adds a dumbbell in one hand.
Perform the raise
Rise straight up onto the ball of the foot, breathing out. Herman pushes all the way forward through the toes and goes all the way up on every rep; HSS keeps the weight between the first and second toes as the heel rises.
Lower the heel slowly. HSS lowers it back to the ground under control; on a step, that means below the step.
Do both sides equally. Herman says it three times: whatever the first leg gets, the second gets.
Reps. Herman finds calves respond to high repetitions and names 10, 15 or 20; with bodyweight he typically does 15 to 20.
How it differs from two-legged calf raises
| Single-leg calf raise | Standing calf raise | Seated calf raise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legs | One | Two | Two |
| Knee | Straight | Straight | Bent |
| Load | Bodyweight or one dumbbell | Machine, barbell or bodyweight | Machine |
| Balance | Yours, or a hand on a wall | Machine or wall | None |
Kinoshita’s result is about the knee, not the leg count: no study here compares one-legged with two-legged raises.
Logging
One logged set covers both legs, and the rep count is per leg: 15 reps means 15 on the left and 15 on the right. The bodyweight entry has no load; for the dumbbell entry, enter the weight of the dumbbell. Note floor or step, whether a hand was on a wall, and which leg went first; if one side stops short, note which and by how many rather than averaging. The free workout log has room for that, and the weekly set tally shows how these sets add up beside any machine calf work.
Common questions
How many reps? Herman’s 15 to 20 is the only figure here; Nunes trained in sets of 20 to 25.
Toes in, out or straight? HSS points them forward. Nunes found toes out favoured the inner head of the gastrocnemius and toes in the outer; whether that is worth chasing is your call.
Floor or step? Floor first. Herman moves to the step to make it harder, and the step lets the heel travel lower.
It hurts. Stop. Pain is not a cue to work through, and nothing here is advice for a tendon or foot problem.
Sources and method
- ScottHermanFitness: How to single-leg calf raise — the three setups, pushing through the toes, equal sides and the rep figures; automatic captions.
- Hospital for Special Surgery: Single-leg calf raise — feet hip-width, toes forward, knee straight, weight between the first and second toes; captions and description.
- Kinoshita et al. (2023) — standing versus seated calf-raise training, one leg each; muscle volume by MRI.
- Nunes et al. (2020) — foot position during one-legged calf raises and gastrocnemius head thickness.
- Frank Zane, Iron Man Magazine: One-leg calf raises — Arthur Jones and the early Nautilus line.
- Brolic catalog — names, aliases, one-sided logging and muscle tags.
A PubMed search on October 7, 2026 for “single-leg calf raise” and “single leg heel raise” returned 85 results, mostly clinical tests; the two training studies above are the ones used. Rep figures are Herman’s starting points, not optima from a trial.
