Everyone is chasing big arms for the summer, me being one of them. There is nothing like filling out you sleeves with bursting arms. However, arms is where so many people struggle to put on mass in the gym, even when they train theme week in week out yet still see no growth. I was one of these people until I looked more into what the muscles do and how you can then get the most out of it when training the upper arm.
The muscles in your arms are used when training ever other upper body muscle group, this being through either pushing or pulling exercises. The secondary muscles (Bicep and Triceps) are used through the contraction phase. When perform a chin up for example and your back is at full contraction so are your biceps. The slower and more controlled you perform these reps the greater you hit the back but also the biceps. This applies exact the same to the tricep in a press ups. So use these workouts to your advantage hitting secondary muscles such as arms without perform a single isolated exercise.
The make up of the upper arm is a third bicep to two thirds tricep, so pay more attention to the tricep. This particular muscle is used for the straightening of the below and as seen in the title is made up of three heads. These being the long, lateral and medial heads, hitting all these three are crucial in developing mass to this area. You're long head also referred to as the belly is the bigger part of the tricep and is where you should start, working down to the lateral head. Any movement over the head will hit the long head, with the other two parts will also be partially used. Skull crushers, tricep extensions and narrow push downs shall hit the long head, with these you can go heavier thus putting them at the beginning of the workout. The medial head is stimulated often when performing exercises for the long head but a reverse grip push down I feel really hits it. Greater isolated exercises such as kickbacks and drop extensions shall hit the lateral. I like to do these with high volume towards the end of the workout as a burnout, sometimes drop set.
The bicep is formed of two head, the short which runs closed to your chest whilst the outer is the long head which forms the peak to the muscle. If you were genetically gifted then you may be able to see a clear different between the two. Anyway, hit both if these heads when training and you will notice a difference to the size of your bicep!!! A normal standing barbell curl is great for hitting the long head, these i like to perform heavy however never comprise form and like I mentioned earlier pay attention to the tempo. If done correctly your biceps shall be screaming at you, don’t just pile on the weight. The best exercise for this I have found is the preacher curl, I personally love this when performed single with a dumbbell into a slow bar curl each set, focusing on the contraction. These are two exercise I would perform at the beginning, the rest of the workout should really be looking at fatiguing the muscle and achieving the best contraction. Use drop sets, supersets to achieve this.
Lastly arms are one of the most visual muscles when training so use this to your advantage when training them. The contraction and squeeze of the muscle is what causes it to grow. So look at yourself when performing the exercise, making sure you get a full range of movement along with a full contraction of the muscle. The tempo of the rep, even more so when performing something with cables can also help in gaining the best contraction. Take the weight pin down and look at the muscle working, see how it recruits the fibres in order to perform the rep. Due to the constant tension on the muscle and with a slow tempo you won’t need a lot of weight but man will your arms be pumped at screaming in pain. The reverse arm push down for tricep is a killer for this along with the rope curl laying on your back to avoid your back lift the weight is a great demonstration of this.
Check out Joe Donnellys' to use next time you want to train arms.
1) Concentration curl warmup 4x15 each arm
2) EZ bar curls 4x8 last set dropset burnout 20 reps
3) Seated hammer curls 4x6, superset alternating dumbbell curls 4x10
4) Hammer strength preacher curl machine curls dropset 8 reps, dropset of 15 (4 rounds)
5) Reverse curls 4x10 thumb over grip, superset rope curls 4x15
6) Standing double front bicep cable curl 4x15, after last set do a cable 21’s
7) Strait bar curls 7x12 (45 seconds between sets
8) Heavy tricep pushdown dropsets 6-8 reps, dropset 15 reps (4 rounds0
9) Rope pushdowns 4x12, superset rope overhead extensions 4x10
10) Close grip press on smith machine 4x12 with a dropset of 8 reps on each set
11) Single armed rope kickbacks 4x15 each arm
12) Overhead dumbbell press 7x15
And next time the “suns out” I can guarantee so will the guns be out.
Jack
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