Arm Protocols/Routines

[EricJ123]

Looking for some recommendations. Hypertrophy being the primary goal. Thank you!

 

[alfresco]

A ‘true’ pre-exhaust routine routine worked the best for me. My arms were never better.

 

[buck]

Strict form with a moderate at most weight. And enough volume to sufficiently fatigue the muscle fibers. Not a lot you can do with a bicep but bend and straighten the elbow. Cables, dumbbells, preacher and some hammer curls. Triceps can be hit from different angles.

 

[heavyhitter]

Definitely give them their own day. YouTube John meadows choose your own arm workout for a nice workout with a lot of variation

 

[qbkilla]

Arms are my weak part (with delts). I've tried different exercises, rep ranges, routines, slow perfect form, use a little English for progressive overload, nothing has worked outside gaining weight which doesn't fit my goals (im a stay lean year round all year first and foremost type, older guy). Obviously that limits my potential but the one thing I have never tried is shit high volume above 16 sets per week. Will be trying that soon but with the reality in the back of my mind without those calories and fat gain chances are slim they will grow much, but worth trying even if ads a little size.

 

[Alan1]

Definitely give them their own day. YouTube John meadows choose your own arm workout for a nice workout with a lot of variation

This! I made my best progress with arms once I began training them on their own. Not only that but often adjusting my overall routine so I was effectively doing an arm specialization phase, which just meant lowering volume a bit for everything else (say, closer to maintenence) and ramping it up for the gunz. Prioritizing + training them consistently with 100% focus and intensity = results.

 

[165StateChamp]

Biggest thing to help my arms grow wasn’t a different amount of volume or frequency or exercise selection. It was moving to a true 3 or 4 second negative (not 3 or 4 count) and getting a full stretch and contraction.

My arms still aren’t amazing though so take that for what it’s worth. But they’ve improved! Lol

 

[alfresco]

Arms are my weak part (with delts). I've tried different exercises, rep ranges, routines, slow perfect form, use a little English for progressive overload, nothing has worked outside gaining weight which doesn't fit my goals (im a stay lean year round all year first and foremost type, older guy). Obviously that limits my potential but the one thing I have never tried is shit high volume above 16 sets per week. Will be trying that soon but with the reality in the back of my mind without those calories and fat gain chances are slim they will grow much, but worth trying even if ads a little size.

It's kind of a conundrum . . . are you gaining weight from training or from eating?
Or both? A little bit of both is but in my probably closest to the truth but in my
case it was clearly from training. I paid zero attention to my diet, but well enough
to know that I did not increase my calories. I could not gain weight by eating to
save my life but once I got on the correct routine for me, I grew like a weed.

For arms I would do curls - weighted chins, curls - weighted chins. That is 4 sets.
Then triceps ext. - weighted dips, triceps ext. - weighted dips. That is 4 sets
So 8 sets for arms, 3X per week. Or 24 sets per week. I don't think that for me,
at the time that was a lot of sets especially done the way I did them with close
to zero seconds rest between compound and isolation movements. Think of it
another way, I spent very little time working my arms and they were the best
on the above routine.

 

[qbkilla]

It's kind of a conundrum . . . are you gaining weight from training or from eating?
Or both? A little bit of both is but in my probably closest to the truth but in my
case it was clearly from training. I paid zero attention to my diet, but well enough
to know that I did not increase my calories. I could not gain weight by eating to
save my life but once I got on the correct routine for me, I grew like a weed.

For arms I would do curls - weighted chins, curls - weighted chins. That is 4 sets.
Then triceps ext. - weighted dips, triceps ext. - weighted dips. That is 4 sets
So 8 sets for arms, 3X per week. Or 24 sets per week. I don't think that for me,
at the time that was a lot of sets especially done the way I did them with close
to zero seconds rest between compound and isolation movements. Think of it
another way, I spent very little time working my arms and they were the best
on the above routine.

I like that routine I may have to try that. A good way to get in high volume without spending absurd amount of time at the gym. Did you focus on adding weight or just basically destroying the muscle? All sets to failure?

 

[alfresco]

Biggest thing to help my arms grow wasn’t a different amount of volume or frequency or exercise selection. It was moving to a true 3 or 4 second negative (not 3 or 4 count) and getting a full stretch and contraction.

My arms still aren’t amazing though so take that for what it’s worth. But they’ve improved! Lol

I have a friend that added 1/2 to his arms simple be slowing down the negative portion on his arm exercises. True story.

 

[alfresco]

First some info on true pre-exhausting a muscle and a bit of history.

The pre-exhaust principle was popularized by Bob Kennedy (the magazine publisher) in the early 70’s and then popularized by Arthur Jones who then included it in many of the machines he designed. BTW, he gave full credit to Bob Kennedy.

Two of the most important ‘principles’ is 1) start with a isolation movement and then immediately do a compound movement and 2) the time between exercises should occur as fast as possible, like 3 seconds or less.

An example is flys then dips, curls then chins, pullovers then pull down, leg extensions, leg curls then deadlifts, etc., you get the idea.

The least understood is the time factor between exercises and should be 3 seconds or less. (A muscle regains approximately 50% of its strength in about 3 seconds.) The rush factor is key to getting the most out this factor, the difference between success and failure.

What will be most difficult is the close proximity of the isolation exercise and the compound exercise. Easily accomplished in a home gym, difficult in a commercial gym where you can’t move machines around to suit your needs which ultimately allows this routine to very effective. I was lucky in two ways. Having a home gym to start and me being a close friend, the owner in a small gym who allowed me reorganize his gym for me to take advantage of this routine.

If you are able to position the equipment next to each other you will get the most out of it. Running fast, again 3 seconds or less between exercises could be problematic and not safe.

For example, I positioned curls directly under the chin-up bar so I could drop the bar and then jump up and do chins. Or triceps ext. directly in front of the dipping bars. Chest is easy and impacts nobody. When doing your flys all you have to do is just lean back and do your presses. Again, 3 seconds or less between isolation exercises and a compound exercise.

And all sets are to failure be it 1 or two 2 cycles. I usually did 2, any more than that I was not working hard enough. When starting out I would do 1 cycle as this will will make you extremely sore even if you are accustomed to the exercise.

And yes you will get stronger. I don’t remember all the poundage’s but do remember, eventually doing chins a dips with 25lbs between my legs. I did get stronger in all exercises but you gotta check your ego at the door on the compound movements which weight, when starting at about half of what you usually use.

An observation . . . When doing this routine incorporating the 3 second ‘rule’ it is extremely important and where many people fail because it is extremely painful. And when I was executing this correctly the isolation when done correctly I found that on the compound exercise, the first few reps were extremely difficult but then became ‘easier’ and then difficult and failure. I have no explanation for this but is was non the less interesting to me.

Can’t stress enough the rapidity between exercises. For me it made the difference between wasting my time and maximum results.

I remember working out at gym in SF that had at the time some of the first Nautilus machines. I remember using the compound leg machine that ha leg extensions and leg presses built into one machine so you could quickly execute on exercise after the other. After my set of leg extensions I repositioned my feet then proceeded to do leg presses, both exercises to utter and complete failure. When I got off the machine, I hit the ground faster than a used condom.

The pump was nothing like I have felt before or since. I could pump my arms over an inch for example doing this and they felt pumped and full even the next day.

Try it, you will like the results and hate me if you do it correctly which is easier said than done.

Hope this helps, Long winded I know but felt it necessary to fully under this principle.

Let me know if this helps.

 

[TheOtherOne55]

Youre arms not going going to grow if you are at maintenance. That's muscle building basics.
Somehow, people are convinced that growing arms are different than any other bodypart. You have to eat and fuel your body to grow tissue. Just like annnyyy other bodypart. So dont be shocked if your arms never develop AND that youre too afraid to try to grow. This is basic.


Also, rotate your exercises in different positiions, stretched position, OH, front. The problem is that guys do barbell curls and then their next 3 bicep exercises are allll on the same plane. Nope, you have to change positions to fully develop the arm. Just like you cant juuust do rope extensions to build your tris, you cant just do BB curls to grow your bis.

 

[luki7788]

best advice on great arms straight from Dorian - get really huge your whole body, your arms will also become huge

 

[jeroendebleser]

Yes, it's basically impossible to grow bigger arms without growing bigger allover.

I also second the separate arm-day in your training split. Personally I alternate between biceps and triceps exercises on an arm day so the other muscle group has always had some time to recuperate before it's next exercise.

 

[alfresco]

best advice on great arms straight from Dorian - get really huge your whole body, your arms will also become huge

I agree in principle but they still might not not meet your size or shape expectations.
You man call that genetics.

 

[alfresco]

Yes, it's basically impossible to grow bigger arms without growing bigger allover.

I also second the separate arm-day in your training split. Personally I alternate between biceps and triceps exercises on an arm day so the other muscle group has always had some time to recuperate before it's next exercise.

I am not convinced that bigger arms equals big all over. I have seen, maybe we all have seen folks with great arms but little else. But then then they may be just working arms exclusively in which case I just don’t see, or have not seen what you are referring to.

As far as dedicating a workout to arms exclusively, seems to have merit but I have never tried it perhaps it just goes against the grain of my training philosophy but what do I know? Try it, it may just work for some people and if it doesn’t, try something different. After all, who continues to do the same thing all the time with zero results while expecting something different. Isn’t that one definition of insanity? I think we see people like that in the gym all the time. I know I do.

 

[juggy38]

My best triceps was when I was doing mostly barbell work. I was doing DC two way.

Barbell bench….my grip is slightly more narrow than most.

Barbell OHP, normal OHP grip

EZ skulls.

3 RP sets. The next week the only thing that changed was DB laterals for shoulders, and triceps were overhead French press for triceps.

I was in a garage. With a rack, pull up bar, and 30lb DBs and 45lb DBs.

For me, heavy close grip pressing progression built my best triceps. As my shoulders got old, barbell work went down, and now I have to do much more tricep isolation to match growth from the barbell compounds

I do arm days sometimes…i just don’t like arm days. Feels like a waste of a drive to the gym. But when I do…..

Close grip chins SS with Close grip bench or weighted dips. 3x

Curl with elbow behind body SS tricep press down 3x

Preacher curl or hammer curl SS with overhead tricep movement 2x….then the last round I’ll do like a triple drop set or a RP set to just trash whatever is left on each movement.