Some celebrities are known as much for their bodies as for their bodies of work—sometimes even more so. For instance, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will always be associated with his giant shoulders, while Zac Efron is making a name for himself with his six-pack.
In Mark Wahlberg’s case, his arms have become as iconic as his characters, like Micky Ward in The Fighter and Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. No matter how his roles change film to film, Wahlberg’s biceps stay pumped.
Now it’s time to stop envying them and start building a pair of your own—and you can do it using one of the actor’s very own routines.
Wahlberg changes his training often, but the routine below is one of his defaults when he wants to add size to his biceps fast. The workout is simple, brutal, and very old-school—the goal being to hit the biceps from every angle while using the full range of implements (from dumbbells to machines) to do it. At the same time, the workout is basic enough to perform in practically any gym.
Wahlberg pyramids his weights, starting fairly heavy for 10 reps on an exercise and then increasing the weight and reducing the reps on subsequent sets. This hits a wide spectrum of muscle fibers and builds a warmup into the workout so he doesn’t train with heavy weights sooner than his body is ready for them. Warning: This is a high-volume routine, so if you haven’t given your biceps this much attention before, start slowly and leave off the last two exercises.
Complete this workout once a week. Space it out by at least three days before and after any back training you do. Perform the exercises as straight sets, completing all the prescribed sets for one move before going on to the next. Add weight each set so that the prescribed reps are all you can do, but always stop one rep short of failure.
