We urge you to take a break from your regularly scheduled arm routine for this important message.
There are a few things that need to happen in order to produce muscle growth:
1 Significant load
2 Sufficient time under tension to create structural damage to the muscle tissue
3 Enough stimuli to up-regulate anabolic hormones and increase protein synthesis
4 Proper recovery and workout nutrition
This is crucial if you are looking to build a huge set of arms. If you are not checking all four boxes, then you’re shorting yourself on gains.
There has been some controversy in the strength and conditioning field as to how much we should be training the biceps and triceps. Some feel that we need to lift a lot of weight for low-reps. Some feel you need a lot of volume with moderate weight and high reps. some even feel that as long as you are lifting the big lifts heavy, you don’t need to lift your arms at all.
Get ready to explode your brain: all of those approaches are correct. Some people focus too much on their arms and forget to squat, bench and deadlift. Others totally disregard direct arm training in favor of the latter. The truth is if you want to get your arms to grow you have to have a thoughtful strategy.
Most lifter will find that direct arm training twice a week is the best way to shock your arms into muscle growth. You need both a heavy day that includes compound movements to increase strength and density and a day for some detail work to drive blood into the muscle and isolate to stimulate muscle growth. All that we need are two exercises – one each for the biceps and triceps, done either on an off day, or after your heavy compound movements to get them to grow. In less than 20 minutes per session and some hard work, you will see some much sought-after progress.
WORKOUT 1
Most guys with big arms – not all – can perform a fair amount of dips and chinups. Their arms are not only big, but they are dense, hard and functionally strong. While you are fresh in the first part of the week, we will be lifting heavy. The chinup requires a very heavy contribution from the biceps when using the correct, full range of motion. Consider it a compound move for your biceps. Likewise, the dip is a compound move for your triceps – focusing on the outer head – that garners contribution from your chest and shoulders.
Perform this workout early in the week, while you are fresh and strong. Do these two exercises as a superset. Perform 2-3 easy warm-up sets and then proceed to your work sets. If five reps are too easy, add weight to a belt or use a weight vest.
WORKOUT 2
For this workout, we are looking to flush as much blood into the arms as possible and breakdown a ton of muscle fibers. The goal is to isolate the muscle to dig deep into the mind-muscle connection of the exercises. The barbell curl done with higher reps is sure to leave every muscle fiber in the arms screaming in a way that the chin-ups did not do on Day 1. The overhead triceps extensions with the rope provide a big range of motion that focuses on the long head, giving you a full, three-head thrashing for the week.
Perform this workout 48-72 hours after Workout 1. Do 1-2 light warm-up sets and then start at a weight that is about 65% of your one-rep max (1RM). Add weight on each set until you reach about 80% of your 1RM. Make sure to rest at least 48-72 hours before your perform your next workout.
Do 1-2 light warm-up sets and then start at a weight that is about 65% of your one-rep max (1RM). Add weight on each set until you reach about 80% of your 1RM.
Do 1-2 light warm-up sets and then start at a weight that is about 65% of your one-rep max (1RM). Add weight on each set until you reach about 80% of your 1RM.
