So what’s better – straight or bent knee calf raises? So thinking about our calf anatomy, gastrocnemius is a 2 joint muscle that crosses the knee, whereas the soleus does not. So we tend to focus on training the soleus with a bent knee as it isolates the muscle. This study refers to the ‘triceps surae’ which is the 2 heads of gastroc and soleus. A study by Kinoshita looked at 14 people training one leg with a bent knee and the other with a straight leg to compare what was most effective for the