The move that finally grows your soleus.
Get a full stretch at the bottom, don't bounce out of it.
With your knees bent under the pad, the upper calf is slackened and the soleus, the deep muscle underneath, is forced to do the pressing. That makes the seated raise the one movement in the gym that trains the soleus directly instead of leaving it as an afterthought. Full lower calves come from here, not from more standing raises.
Bent knees take the bigger gastrocnemius mostly out of the movement, so seated raises target the soleus underneath. Standing raises with straight legs hit the gastroc. You need both for complete calves.
Almost always range and tempo. Let the heels sink into a full stretch, pause there without bouncing, drive to the very top and pause again. Fast half reps off a bounce build nothing.
The soleus is built for endurance, so it generally responds well to higher reps, somewhere in the ten to twenty range with a controlled pause at both ends. Add weight only when every rep still gets the full stretch.
