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You can improve these hard-to-develop bodyparts, and improve your grip and gait as well.

When you do enough weight training, your attention will eventually come to your calves and forearms—two of the most difficult areas to develop. Your forearms get some work every time you do heavy pulling exercises. In fact, sometimes your forearms and hand grip strength will give out before your lats do. Calves don’t get too much emphasis in most lower body weight training, but they provide much of the propulsion in walking and running.

For purposes of forearm training, think of your forearm, hand, and wrist as one unit. Hand grip strength is important in numerous everyday and occupational activities, so you should work on it even if your genetics never let you develop massive or shapely forearms. There is an occasional grip machine at some gyms, but most of these exercises can be done with home equipment or everyday items.

Get or make a wrist roller. This is a piece of dowel or PVC pipe with a string attached to the middle and a hook on the string. Hold it out straight in front of you with both hands on the dowel and roll it until the string is wrapped around it, then reverse, just by using your hands and fingers. Make it harder by hanging a small weight plate or other item from the string. You can emphasize your fingers and grip by holding a sheet of newspaper in front of you with one hand and crumple it up completely using just your fingers; don’t bend your elbow. There are a number of low-cost devices for improving your grip, and you can also squeeze a tennis ball. Doing a regular biceps curl with your palm down instead of up switches the emphasis from the biceps to the forearm. You will use less weight this way. Include wrist curls in your routine. Using two dumbbells or a barbell, stabilize your forearms, palms up, either on a bench as you kneel behind it or your thighs as you bend forward from a seated position. Let your wrists extend down, then curl them up as far as you can without moving your forearms. Make sure you control the weight. Use high reps, with this—10 or more. Turn your hands over and do the same thing the other way for a reverse wrist curl. This is harder and requires less weight. This will help prevent tennis elbow as well as adding strength.

Increasing forearm and grip strength will let you do heavier weights with your pulling exercises and lower body exercises like deadlifts. It will also improve your performance in golf, tennis, softball, and other sports that require swinging an implement. And you will still be able to open jars when you get older.

Calf exercises are not as much fun as forearm exercises, but you should still do some. There are two major muscles in the calf. The big one you can see is the gastrocnemius, and the soleus lies under it. The job of the calf muscles is to extend the foot at the ankle, that is, to move the forefoot downward. Thus, the calf provides the final propulsion for running and walking. If you do a lot of running, you may not need to do a lot of specific calf work.

The standing calf raise and its variations are all you really need for calf training. Place the balls of your feet securely on a step, board, or other riser. Let your heels sink down an inch or two, then rise up on the balls of your feet. You can do this on both feet or one at a time using body weight, then advance by holding a weight in your hand while you hold on to something for balance with the other hand, with both legs, or make it harder and use one. If your balance is good, you can do it with a barbell on your shoulders. Do the exercise slowly. This exercise emphasizes the gastrocnemius, with assistance from the soleus. Use a weight that allows 10-15 repetitions.

If you want to do more calf work, you can isolate the soleus by doing seated calf raises. This is the same exercise done in a seated position, with a weight held on your thighs. Use lighter weight and higher reps, because the soleus is mostly an endurance muscle, whereas the gastroc can be very powerful.

Make sure you stretch your calves after working them and also after running or fitness walking. It’s important to keep the Achilles tendon at the back of the heel flexible.

Don’t neglect the opposing muscles in the front of the lower leg. The main one is the tibialis anterior. It raises your forefoot up toward your shin, the opposite move from the calf muscles. You can train it from a seated position just by putting a weight on your toes and forefoot and raising it as high as you can by flexing your ankle with your heel on the ground. Another way is to walk around on your heels.

Calf development from a bodybuilding standpoint is difficult, but you can get results if you stick with it. Strong calves help your walking, running, and jumping, and help you maintain your balance and move with a firm, confident gait.