4 Steps to Getting Bigger Arms
Today’s post is a guest post by fitness coach, James Clewlow.
Every man wants bigger arms. It's the hallmark of a masculine physique, and whether you want bigger arms for everyday function or simply just to look good in your selection of wardrobe attire, I've got the answers you need. In this blog post you're going to learn exactly how to get bigger arms so you can look good, stand out and get on the path to manliness. The worlds gone soft and having small arms will only make it softer.
Big Arms Requires Two Things
A lot of guys when they're first starting out tend to focus on one area: their biceps. It makes perfect sense since having big, bulging biceps is strongly associated with guys like The Rock, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Bond. These guys portray the very essence of manliness that has been lost in the modern era so it's no wonder you look up to these guys and their physiques.
Here's the punch line: your biceps are much smaller than your triceps. Your triceps take up two thirds of your total arm size, which means building bigger triceps will contribute more significantly to how big your arms look compared to everyone else's. This doesn't sound sexy, since you typically see your favourite movie characters doing bicep curls until the cows come home and hot women clutching onto their biceps like their lives depend on it. This alone provides you with the only reason you need to start curling 24/7. But it's not a smart move (for the reason mentioned above). You need to train for total arm size, not bicep peak.
Every Arm Exercise Works
All the arm exercises you can possibly think of will get you the outcome you want, provided you use good form/lifting technique. Most guys in the gym think they're on the monkey bars in kindergarten. Bad form means less (or zero) muscle gain and it looks like this:
elbows not staying still whilst curling (biceps) or extending elbows (triceps)
using momentum and leaning backwards to swing the weight up as you curl (biceps)
doing half reps (biceps and triceps)
lowering the weight too fast (biceps and triceps)
If you do any of the above, your technique isn't good enough. Doing any of the above means reduced tension on your biceps and triceps which means less muscle built. With all arm exercises (and any exercises in the gym), you need to maximize the tension placed on the muscle. This will lead to you gaining inches on your arms. Once you've got the four technique points nailed in the above list on a range of arm exercises, then it's just a case of choosing your favourite arm exercises and this is usually determined by the 'mind muscle connection'. This common term basically means whether you can feel contraction of your biceps and triceps whilst doing an exercise, and you'll find that for some exercises you can feel it more compared to others. This all comes down to personal preference. In addition, you may choose certain arm exercises instead of others based on how much you enjoy that exercise. For example, I love doing barbell bicep curls and tricep dips. These two exercises are my go-to exercises when I'm training my arms and I highly recommend you do the same. Choose two exercises, one for biceps and one for triceps, and stick to them. This now leads on nicely to my next point: measuring progress over time.
Measuring Progress Over Time
Following on from my last point, sticking to the same arm exercises is important for two reasons: mastering technique and strength gains. Whatever you do often will only get better and this is very true in fitness. A lot of guys are obsessed with variety and 'switching things up'. If you program properly with weekly changes in sets, reps and weight (beyond the scope of this blog post) then you will never get bored. You won't need to change your exercises to 'keep things interesting' because other variables in your training program are constantly changing. By sticking to the same bicep and tricep exercises for a significant period of time, you will see massive improvements in your technique and serious strength gains which leave you with no other option but to increase the weights in the gym. This is very motivating and will provide you with a lot of momentum with your physical fitness, and we both know the power that momentum brings in other life areas. Your progress in fitness will be like the snowball effect if you do this.
You should also stick to the same arm exercises for a prolonged period of time because if you change your exercises every week, how will you know what weight you should be lifting? How will you know how many reps you can do on weighted tricep dips for 12 reps? You won't and that's an issue if you want to get significant results. By sticking to the same exercises and tracking your weights in every workout each week you are collecting important data. You're collecting important benchmarks for your strength levels on your chosen arm exercises that you can then use in future workouts so you know what weight to lift. These numbers will also help you estimate how much weight you could lift if you were to add weight for the same number of reps you were doing in previous workouts. This leads onto my next point; applying progressive overload properly to get bigger arms.
Applying Progressive Overload
You've probably heard the term 'progressive overload' being thrown around in the Twitter fitness and self improvement space. But do you actually know what it means? Based on the wording you probably have a decent idea, but that isn't good enough. Just like a confused person never buys from you, a confused gym goer never gets bigger arms. You need clarity so you know exactly how to apply progressive overload for best results.
There are two ways you can apply progressive overload: increasing weight or increasing sets/reps. Lets first focus on increasing weight. Increasing weight, as obvious as it seems, means adding weight to your arm exercises over time. How much you add depends on how much effort you have been putting into your previous arm workouts and how good your recovery has been. If you've been training hard and then you've slept well and had a high protein intake, then it's very likely that next time you train your arms you'll be able to add more weight compared to someone who hasn't done these three things. How much weight you add also depends on the type of arm exercises you're doing. Some arm exercises are compound exercises (tricep dips and pull ups) whilst others are isolation exercises (barbell curls and tricep push downs). You will always gain strength faster on compound exercises than isolation exercises. More muscle mass is being trained during the exercise, which means you are going to be stronger and because you are stronger this means greater tension placed on the muscle (like what I said earlier). Typically with compound exercises you can add anywhere between 2.5-10lbs on your dips and pull ups every week. This will of course diminish the more experienced you are. As for isolation exercises, you will add between 1.25-5lbs every week on exercises like dumbbell curls and tricep push downs. Similarly, this strength progress will diminish over time as you gain training experience. If you try to do this every week you will inevitably build muscle because you're increasing the tension placed on the muscle. It's that simple.
Now let's consider increasing sets and reps. Doing more total work will cause more muscle gain. You're breaking the muscle down more which forces greater adaptation (size and strength gains). You can increase reps if you want to, however this becomes very ineffective beyond 15 reps for arm exercises. Plus if you did continue increasing the reps beyond this, your workouts would be longer and more time consuming which we don't want. This is why I prefer to focus on increasing sets because you can do super sets and drop sets (sets back-to-back with no rest in between them) and get your sets done in less time, despite the monthly increase in sets overall. Usually if you didn't do super sets or drop sets then this would make your workouts longer (just like increasing the reps would), but because you're using these two techniques you can still get your workouts done in the same amount of time you normally would. How many sets to add? 2 sets every month to your arm exercises. This is enough to overload your biceps and triceps without running the risk of over-training, getting injured and burning out.
And there you have it. Your 4 step plan of attack for getting bigger arms. I hope you enjoyed this blog post and learnt something useful from it. If you have any questions, please direct message me on Twitter @JamesClewlow_ or email me at jamesclewlowpt@gmail.com.
Talk soon!
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