Arm training, what can I say, the be all and end all of most training goals.
Gotta get big arms, its almost a desperation, as if after this is accomplished their status is sealed, they have arrived.
Spending hours doing endless sets of various types of curls and tricep exercises to try to hurry the process along while giving less than their best to other less showy body parts, with training enthusiasm waning more or less depending on the muscle group's show off ability.
A little more effort to maybe chest, a little lesser to shoulders, less to back because they can't see it, lesser yet to thighs because they are just so hard to work and not much fun to train, an afterthought to calves because everybody knows they don't grow anyhow and you can always wear long pants.
I am only making these comments to drive home the point of balance, balance looks good and right and imbalance looks bad, even ridiculous.
Someone can look at a built up natural physique and even if they are ignorant of training altogether they can tell if the person's body looks good or out of whack.
Most people have a general idea of what looks right and what doesn't.
To build up the arms at the expense of good symmetry looks stupid.
Having good size arms hanging on both sides of a mediocre torso looks weak as does a built up upper body stacked on thin legs and no ass.
When you look at a truly massive bodybuilder what do you notice first? His torso and his thighs because this is the basis of his mass and power, then you see the thick deltoids,arms,and calves,noting how they are in line with everything else making the whole package look complete and impressive.
Working arms is fun I must admit, but you must be disciplined about it and be able to cut back if they start shooting ahead of other muscle groups to let them catch up.
I can remember in my earlier days training with my brother, a better training partner I have never found, and we had opposite training problems.
It seemed all his growth revolved around his arms,shoulders,outer and lower thighs and hamstrings and mine around my chest,back,and thighs,my calves fairing marginally better,the darnest thing I ever saw.
Although we trained identical we were both lagging in directly opposite areas so I devised a more and less approach in our workouts, each giving more to our weaknesses and less to our strengths while remaining training partners.
I still remember how pissed he would get as on leg day he would be in abject misery targeting the weak parts of his thighs and I would seem to be getting away with murder and on upper body day having to limit his arm work to almost nothing while I bombed the hell out of them seeming to him to have the best of both worlds.
But it paid off, by the time we were done we both looked damn good, balancing out our physiques.
My arms never approached his size of nineteen inches cold and when the rest of his body caught up to his arms and shoulders he was a sight to behold.
I respect my brother for his discipline regarding arms because he loved training them, who doesn't right? But he was willing to hold them back until his body caught up.
Anytime we were ever approached about arm training he would always refer them to me which would puzzle them as my arms were a good two inches smaller than his.
He unlike others knew that I had to work very hard for every ounce of new arm tissue and had amassed a tremendous amount of depth and knowledge above and beyond the average trainer with better genetics.
The number one rule is limit the amount of bicep work, more is definitely not better when it comes to this relatively small body part, overworking biceps will lead to overuse injuries, problems with the small tendons and ligaments in the elbows that can become extremely painful, and will hinder your back training by tiring out this helper muscle, pre-exhausting biceps to negative effect by them always being overly tired and under recovered because of overwork that should have went to back, a large powerful muscle group.
Do at least twice as much work for triceps, even two thirds as much if triceps are a weakness.
Just doing compound mass movements or all isolation movements usually won't work, especially if arms in general are a weakness.
The torso muscles will just suck up all the stimulus if you just do things like barbell curls,close grip bench press and parallel bar dips and the stimulation seems to be too low only doing things like seated dumbbell curls, lying tricep extensions, or pushdowns.
Mind you if your arms readily grow, just about anything will work to a point and if that is the case you are probably reading this article more out of entertainment and curiosity of how the other half have to train.
If however you are having great difficulty in your quest for bigger arms, I feel your pain, so keep reading.
Your biggest concern will be keeping your elbows healthy and free of pain, this means adhering to good exercise form, using the right amount of poundage under complete control, especially in the more isolated movements, full range of movement, intelligent exercise sequencing, discipline in the amount of work being done, and confidence in your ability to improve.
This is not magic just hard concentrated work driven by intelligence.
I will touch briefly on shape, shape can be modified to a limited degree by manipulating the various aspects within a given muscle, but shape cannot be completely overhauled, going from say a rather flat linear bicep when flexed to one of a very compact ball with a high peak or from a rather squared off tricep when flexed with the arm at your side to a full rounded shape bulging from the back of the arm.
These are set traits dictated by our individual DNA blueprint.
You can improve your lot somewhat by emphasizing say the long head of the triceps to try to pack some meat on the largest of the three heads or more inner tricep work if they look weak with your arms straight out from your sides.
You are not so much changing the shape as you are altering the size balance of the individual aspects within the muscle structure.
I always categorized exercises into three types, isolation, isolated compound, and basic compound.
Isolation movements being relatively useless on their own and basic compound movements only useful after more concentrated work, again this is coming from a hard gainer's experience.
With arms I do not see the benefit in training them before chest or back or at the exclusion of chest or back.
Train them within the torso workout, triceps after chest and biceps after back.
The reasons being the joints of the shoulders and elbows will be fully warmed up and you can take advantage of the ready blood supply right there in close proximity with the torso muscles holding a bigger area of pump than the arms could ever hold and utilizing this to your arms benefit.
One added little secret is to train the push muscles before getting to the pull muscles.
By doing push first your triceps are fatigued and your rear delt and back work will work your triceps in the reverse with a pulling action unlike what would happen for biceps during chest training because the long head of the tricep, also the largest head originates at the posterior of your upper arm, at the back of the shoulder joint in conjunction with the rear deltoid and with the insertion of the lats, working in an opposite way with these muscle groups, yet another reason to work the whole upper body in a workout instead of splitting push and pull.
The exercise choice is critical as a limited amount of sets are to be done, every set of these exercises must count.
If you have read anything I have written you know I am not big on volume training yet the muscles must be worked from various angles because of the effect the different angles of pull have on the different parts of a muscle, working certain areas harder or easier depending on the given angle employed.
A final word on balance before moving on to the the exercises to be used.
The triceps make up two thirds of your arm size so really concentrate on your triceps, also by keeping this balance between biceps and triceps you will ensure excellent elbow joint stability that will allow you to train pain free, a big plus.
The exercises for triceps, the very best are as follows from most isolated to most basic, two hands on a single dumbbell overhead tricep extensions, lying cambered bar tricep extensions, V handle cable tricep pushdowns, close grip bench press, bench dips, parallel bar dips.
For biceps it goes like this, ninety degree preacher bench curls, seated incline dumbbell curls, standing dumbbell curls, standing barbell curls, shoulder width under grip pulldowns or chins.
These exercises are totally worthless when performed in the usual manner of too much weight in a limited range of movement and in bad form in a misguided attempt to impose the most amount of workload on the muscles.
Yes its the most amount of workload but a far lesser amount of intensity and growth stimulation working the exercises through the range of most leverage while being greatly assisted by the larger torso muscle groups, loose body english, and momentum, a three tier recipe for injury to the delicate tendons and ligaments of the elbows, a dangerous waste of time and effort, work smart remembering heavy is relative to the intended muscle's ability to move a given poundage through a full range of movement under complete control, imparting a size and strength increase throughout the whole range possible from the weakest line of pull to the strongest.
You are only as strong as your weakest link.
A short tutorial on proper form and full range.
Work from the most extreme degree of extension to complete contraction with a medium/slow controlled speed of motion to lockout on all tricep exercises and the same with biceps while not letting the weight rest against the front deltoid at contraction and fully straightening your elbows to lockout at extension.
Do between two to six sets for biceps and four to eight sets for triceps.
A good example for biceps is seated incline dumbbell curls, standing dumbbell curls, and shoulder width under grip pulldowns for one to two sets of each in that order.
A good example for triceps would be two hands on a single dumbbell overhead tricep extension, close grip bench press, V handle pushdowns, and bench dips for one to two sets of each in that order.
Like I said its not magic just hard concentrated work driven by intelligence.
If there are secrets to making gains, it is in the knowledge of how to properly work the muscles.
It is not necessarily just the exercises because these are all well known exercises that thousands of people do on a regular basis.
The difference being most people do them incorrectly out of ignorance or arrogance.
Ignorance is much easier to rectify.
Knowledge is power.