Specific arms routine

[qbkilla]

Has anyone ran or know of full routine designed to bring up arms? I'm not talking about your favorite arm day, but an entire program that is designed to emphasize arms and I'd assume cut down on volume of other parts so overtraining isn't an issue.

Has anyone trained arms Ed, or with a crazy amount of volume for a short period to spur some growth?

 

[Fit2Serve]

too late for new parents, so next thing would be SEO
Milos Sarcev did everything he could to bring up his arms. finally resorted to SEO
no way to change insertions, length of muscle etc.
i know thats not what you want to hear and most guys will prob say otherwise.

i'd do what you can to create illusion of larger arms. like make sure delts arent dominating
emphasize triceps cuz they are the larger part of the arm
most important enjoy the journey!

 

[D-NUTZ]

Take a step back and look at execution and exercise selection. Make sure you’re placing the most amount of tension on the target muscle that you can. This goes hand in hand with picking the exercises that fit your body the best and puts you in a good position mechanically

 

[maldorf]

The arm muscles are small enough that I dont think you have to worry about training them hard and frequent is going to contribute significantly to over training your body. You can surely over train the arms though. Youll know if they are still sore from the last training session when you train them and you might even lose some strength in the movements.

 

[danieltx]

You still think increased training frequency and / or volume is the answer for a lagging body part despite being told over and over it isn't by guys who are much more experienced and developed than you. Why?

6-7 sets for biceps / triceps every 5-6 days is all most experienced guys need, and I say this as someone who had a lot of trouble getting my arms to grow. 99% of guys' lack of arm development is due to 1) not making the target muscle lift the weight and 2) too much volume. Your problem is likely more 1 than 2.

 

[Elvia1023]

Do you have a pic of your arms? I understand when guys go on about genetics, parents and seo and that is totally true but for 99% of people they can bring up a lagging body part through training alone. I promote seo a lot on this forum because it can be fantastic but for most they are simply not training effectively. Now they won't ever have Kai Greene arms but they can still improve them by really focusing on their training (and nutrition around that training). A pic of your body including arms would really help though. Are your arms truly lagging or are they on par with the rest of you but you just want really stand out arms?

The answer to you isn't in what split you follow although training volume and frequency are extremely important. I just mean if you train your arms the current way more you will simply be wasting your time. You have to really look at exercise selection, form and intensity. More is not more. Yes you can do lot's of volume and it still works but you really don't need that much for better arms. I have improved my bi-ceps a little recently and I do very little volume and train them around twice every 8 or 9 days (ppl).

There is no one size fits all but I would start searching some training websites (you-tube accounts) who specialise in training execution, exercise science and human anatomy. For most simple works best but when you have a lagging body part you have to delve deeper and learn all the different techniques (exercise selection, form, rom, tut, rep ranges etc) and experiment before you find what works for you. An example many get much better results for their arms but lowering the weight, increasing reps and really focusing on form and squeezing on every rep as opposed to your basic as heavy as possible in the 8-10 rep range. I think there is a place for both. I will often do 1 heavy movement such as seated ez bar bi-cep curls or db hammer curls and follow those with some sort of machine preacher or cable curl for higher reps and throw in an intensity technique. Literally 10-15 mins and approx 4 working sets (bi-cep and tri-ceps separately so x2 for both) and training them twice every 8-9 days. There is also a place for blitz cycles and training them very frequently but daily volume should be kept minimal and everything needs to be in place for optimal results.

 

[Elvia1023]

How hard do you train your arms? Do you go to true failure? Any intensity techniques like drop sets or assisted or partial reps? How many sets (warm ups and working) do you typically do now? What are your stats? How big are your arms? Pics?

 

[alfresco]

My personal recommendation would be a pre-exhaust routine.

Do barbell curls until the bar literally falls out of your hands then
immediately, with the least amount of rest between sets, then do
a set of supinated chin-ups or pulldowns or pulldowns, again, like
barbell curls, go to failure with full reps in good form then partial
reps for as many possible until you are unable you are unable to
grip the bar.

With minimum rest between exercises . . .

For triceps, I would do lying cambered bar triceps extensions to
failure, then as many partials as possible, and with the bar still in
your do as many reps as possible of presses to you neck then run,
don't walk, to the dip station and do as many reps as possible,
and as many partials to failure until to almost you almost fall off
the machine.

Reps; 8 - 12. And when you reach your 'guide' number do not
stop, go to failure on each set. And when you reach the guide
number on the number of sets for three consecutive workouts
only then add weight where appropriate.

Do one cycle, maybe two, never more than three. If you can
do more than three set / cycles, you are not working hard
enough. When you are finished you should feel like you have
climbed a tall mountain with a refrigerator tied to your back.

Spend of movement should be controlled. You should be able
to stop the weight at any position, positive of negative. That
means you are controlling the weight and the weight is not
controlling you.

Do this three days a week with zero arm work in-between.
No presses or pulling. Ideally this should be a part of a full
body workout. But I get that it is not always possible but
do not touch your arms between workouts. It will only
hinder your progress. Do the minimum possible for the
remainder of your body, focus on squats.

I did this years ago and my arms were never bigger.

 

[Kaladryn]

I've had my arms to "almost" 21" at my biggest, I think 20 3/4" using Dorian's HIT style training (no SEO). This meant warm-ups, then an all-out set, and then a back-off set, usually. 3 exercises for biceps, 4 exercises for triceps. Training once every 5-7 days. Away from chest and back. Looking back I realize I probably simulated them pretty hard on chest and back day also without realizing it.

I always trained them very strictly in the 6-10 rep range, lightish weight due to the strict form.

I didn't always train them together, sometimes triceps with shoulders and biceps with chest, sometimes I trained just arms.

 

[maldorf]

You still think increased training frequency and / or volume is the answer for a lagging body part despite being told over and over it isn't by guys who are much more experienced and developed than you. Why?

6-7 sets for biceps / triceps every 5-6 days is all most experienced guys need, and I say this as someone who had a lot of trouble getting my arms to grow. 99% of guys' lack of arm development is due to 1) not making the target muscle lift the weight and 2) too much volume. Your problem is likely more 1 than 2.

Exactly. When I cut down on the total #of sets I was doing for arms is when growth accelerated.

 

[flex22]

You’ll here a ton of good advice from people here. But the key to remeber is there speaking on what worked best for THEM. So at the end of the day it’s gonna come down to you experimenting and doing your homework and finding what best fits you my friend. Try high reps low reps medium reps, rest pause, drop sets, giant set/ supersets, more volume/ lower volume the list goes on and on. When I use to train people for a living and now just my girlfriend I can simply look and watch the muscle and see what’s stimulating the muscle best. Don’t jus go by the laid in stone beat exercises for bis/tris. Think outside the box “DC thinking”

 

[heavyhitter]

Personally my arms have always responded best to a dedicated arm day

 

[Apestrong]

I can only tell you what I did. I took the same approach as I did with legs..with legs you always pre-exhaust the opposite..so, with that being said I started pre-exhaust my forearms because I had really good forearm development and it was going the bulk of my work…this helped a little.

what really worked for me was just lowering the volume and amping up the frequency. Arm day was several days a week with feeder sets every morning with bands in my kitchen as I cooked my meals

 

[maldorf]

Personally my arms have always responded best to a dedicated arm day

Yeah, I was just the opposite. Mine grew more when I stopped that and cut back on volume too. Just trained triceps along with chest and shoulders. Biceps with Back.

So those extremes really show how individual bodybuilding can be.

 

[Apestrong]

Yeah, I was just the opposite. Mine grew more when I stopped that and cut back on volume too. Just trained triceps along with chest and shoulders. Biceps with Back.

So those extremes really show how individual bodybuilding can be.

Arm specific days never did anything for me…then I started doing powerlifting and just threw arms in a little every day for accessories..that’s when they grew

 

[maldorf]

Arm specific days never did anything for me…then I started doing powerlifting and just threw arms in a little every day for accessories..that’s when they grew

Yeah, sounds like in our case we were over training our arms.

 

[qbkilla]

Some good replies and a variety of suggestions thank you!

 

[massnup]

Yeah, I was just the opposite. Mine grew more when I stopped that and cut back on volume too. Just trained triceps along with chest and shoulders. Biceps with Back.

So those extremes really show how individual bodybuilding can be.

Everything once per week?

 

[maldorf]

Everything once per week?

I did best on everything 2x per week, low volume. I spent a long time doing high volume 1x per week and it only got me so far. When I switched over to 2x per week lower volume each workout, I grew more.

 

[juggy38]

I found my best growth for biceps was doing weird unheard of exercises. Fiddle with grip, elbow placement, shoulder extension/flexion…..different attachments. The forearms and anterior delt can steal the brunt of the load on improper curls. The bicep should damn near cramp or really cramp st the end of each set.

Triceps? My triceps were their biggest when my CGBP and barbell Push press was the strongest. If you can lock out 315lbs on CGBP for reps, your triceps will be big. @danieltx tslked about a slingshot, I bought one and do a few sets with it every push day. My triceps haven’t NOT been sore since I bought the damn thing lol