Having a nice set of pipes will remind yourself and others that you have put in some serious gym time. But with that time, your arm training can become stale and mundane, causing strength and muscle growth to come to a halt.
At this time, you need to find new ways to challenge your arms strength and get them to grow.
The basics biceps and triceps exercises will work but only for so long. Triceps pushdowns, skull crushers, barbell curls and hammer curls need to take a back sea for 6-weeks while you bust through plateaus with this arm workout.
Utilize this unconventional arm workout twice a week to freshen up your workout and increase your arm size. Be ready to have some tighter sleeves on your shirts with this one.
This exercise will challenge even the strongest of lifters. A big factor with this exercise will be your bodyweight. Adjust your position as needed to increase or decrease your lever arm. As an added benefit, your core will take a beating as well.
How To: Find a sturdy weight bench that will not move during the movement. Start on your knees and place your fists securely on the bench with your hands about shoulder width apart. Lift your hips up and place yourself in a plank position. Keeping a solid core, squeeze your glutes and think about “pressing and extending” away from the bench. Pause at the top and then lower yourself with control. That is one rep.
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JUSTIN GRINNELL, / M+F Magazine
Suspension Strap Triceps Extensions
Suspension straps are nothing new to the scene but this triceps exercise is underused and undervalued by a lot of physique athletes since they are not considered traditional muscle building tools. This may be true for some suspension strap exercises but not for this one. The beauty of the strap is that you can decease or increase your lever arm by waling forward or backward into position, leaving a lot of room to make it hard.
You can also light up the triceps with some forced reps and get in a lot of time under tension. Since you must maintain tension the whole time to keep stable, the triceps will be working hard thought-out the whole movement.
How To: You will start in the standing position with your hands on the straps and body facing the floor (standing/prone position). Walk forward to decrease difficulty and walk backward to increase intensity. For this workout, make sure you start out hard and then decrease the intensity as you fatigue. Similar to the bench triceps exercise, imagine pressing and extending away from the floor while maintaining a solid plank position. Pause at the top and then lower slowly. That’s one rep.
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JUSTIN GRINNELL, / M+F Magazine
Cable X-Pulldown to Triceps
This exercise starts out being a lat/back exercise but ends up torching your triceps. By utilizing the lats and upper-back, you allow yourself to use more weight that a traditional reverse grip triceps pushdown. You will feel this one from the insertion to the origin to its insertion.
How To: Find a cable crossover unit and set the cables to the highest point. Grab the left side with your right hand and vise versa. Kneel down on one knee and cross the cables making an X. Perform a pulldown with your palms facing away from you and when you get to the bottom of the lat pull, rotate your hands and then extend at the elbow. Pause and squeeze at the bottom of the rep and then return with control to the top.
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JUSTIN GRINNELL, / M+F Magazine
Legless Rope Cimb
Climbing up a rope is not typically considered a biceps exercise since it also hits so many other muscles, from your forearms to your abs but don’t think your biceps don’t take a beating as well. Even if you don’t have a rope to climb, you should find something, anything to climb to mix up your arm training.
Climbers and gymnasts are not big people simply beacuse their sport does not call for them to be, but you will notice one thing; their arms are always jacked. Utilize rope climbs in your workouts and watch your biceps makes some changes. If you do not have a rope to climb, poles also work and you can also perform some neutral grip pull-ups.
How To: Find a rope that is 15-20 feet high, or so, and make sure that it is securely fastened to something. From a standing position, grab onto the rope in a hand over hand manner. Do no use your legs as you continue to climb hand over hand. When you get to the desired height, slowly climb hand under hand until you are safely down to the bottom.
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JUSTIN GRINNELL, / M+F Magazine
Row to Hammer Curl
Performing heavy back exercises will hit your biceps a great deal. Combine a traditional rowing exercise with a biceps exercise and you have the perfect bicep-building marriage.
By performing a row with heavy weight and ending with more flexion at the elbow, you cause a lot of stimulation to the biceps. This movement will allow you to use more weigh than you usually do for hammer curls.
How To: Grab a dumbbell that is about 60-70 percent of a weight you would usually perform traditional dumbbell row with. Assume a split stance with your hand on a bench. Begin to row the weight and about half the way up, perform a hammer curl. Squeeze and pause at the top and then lower slowly. You have the green light to use the Arnold cheat rep method on this one.
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Fat Grip and Thick Bar Biceps Curl
This is one of the most underused biceps exercise out there. Some athletes do not have access to a thick bar since most gyms do not have them. This should not detour you from using a thick grip. You can buy various brands of fat grip accessories that can be attached to bars, dumbbells and various cable and machine attachment.
The barbell curl is a stable in almost all arm programs so to spice things up, add some fat grips. You will activate more muscle tissue due to the extra grip strength that will be needed. These will also humble your strength when you try to add more loads.
How To: Simply put on the fat grips accessories and perform a traditional barbell biceps curl.
