The importance of cotton socks when lifting weights is understated. A lot of socks today have a high polyester content. Polyester is fine for just walking around the office or grocery store, but polyester is rather slick, especially against another man-made fiber like polyester. Cotton, on the other hand, has more grip against your shoe, especially once it gets wet. The last thing you want to do is be doing calf raises with 300, 400 pounds on the barbell and have your foot slip inside your shoe. Plus if your foot is moving inside of your shoe on your calf raises, not all or as much of the energy is going into lifting the load, i.e. your wasting energy that could be going into your calf and working it.
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Photo by Sinitta Leunen from Pexels
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I'm going to try these that have 5 stars after my 8-year-old Pumas have holes and lost their elasticity: Enerwear 10P Pack Men's Cotton Moisture Wicking Cushion Low Cut Socks
P.S. Also, while your at it, take the barbell pad off of the bar when doing dual leg calf raises on the Smith machine and raise the safeties. If you lean too far forward under the bar to get the most stretch from your calf muscles, a bar with a pad is much easier to slip off your back. In college, I was doing calf raises with 300 lbs. and the bar slipped off my back and I fell forward. The bar fell almost six feet, scaring the entire gym. The gym attendant ran over to me: "I saw you fall and I thought you were dead!"
