In the search of possitive disproportion
I cannot recall any Mr Olympia, or any other champion, with thin arms who has triumphed.
No matter how good the other groups were, with small arms there is no way they could outstand anywhere. On the contrary, there are examples of the opposite case. Some athletes have been recognized and very popular thanks to remarkable arms, despite the rest of the groups were not at the same level. The first one who comes to my mind is Greg Kovacs, a 60 cm arms giant who however never won any important competition, but that did not stop him to be one of the most popular bodybuilders. In the opposite case, Tom Platz had the best legs in history and excellent pectorals and back, but his arms never stood out, especially after suffering a bicep's tore. At the end he retired without ever wining a professional competition. If Tom would have had better arms he could have been Mr. Olympia after Arnold's retirement.
Having said that, let's face that no one considers upper extremities can be too much developed. Moreover, many people would happily accept that stigma: to have enormous arms.
The truth is, owning huge 'maces' gives more satisfaction than anything else and provides a sense of power hard to describe.
In addition, is worth noting that strong arms will allow you to lift heavier weights in all trunk exercises, which contributes to the development of other groups, as back, shoulders and pectorals.
That's right, in many basic and compound exercises arms are the weakest link, and the ones that make you stop the set if they get tired before the biggest group does. Thus, the stronger the arms are, the more weight you will be able to move in the rest of the exercises and then the more development capacity you will be able to achieve
No matter what, having big arms is most people's dream.
Be honest, who among you haven't dream of having colossal arms?
Corporal strength is more associated with upper extremities volume than with any other part of the body.
In the same way the desire of shaping thighs, hips and gluteus is the one that brings more women to gyms, increasing arms size is the goal which has brought, and still does, thousand of men to do weight training.
The ultimate diameter arms can achieve depends on biceps and triceps development. Despite many people think the first one is more spectacular, the truth is the second one is the real maker of that size increasing, since it represents two thirds of the upper part of the arm's volume.
However, these muscles are relatively small and can be easily over trained, especially when they are involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in all trunk exercises. So if you want to speed up its growing you will have to train them hard, but also paying attention they receive full recovery.
A WEEKLY PROGRAM WHICH ALLOWS RECOVERY
Before going into details, I must admit there are no magic formulas for everyone and that is why I suggest to experiment on your own. In any case, here I offer you a guideline to try different approaches to find the most suitable one to your genetic configuration and recovering capacity. Regarding biceps and triceps are involved in back, chest and shoulders exercises, I recommend you to separate them from those body parts to let them get full recovery.
Some people advocate for training them after the group they are involved in, because that way -they assure- they are already warm to directly crush them. For instance, doing triceps after chest or biceps after back.
Another argument in favour of this method is, if you workout this groups separately, you are close to over training, since biceps have enough to do working out with chest, plus the workout they get on a different day; which means you are working out them twice a week and so they can't recover. By condensing in one session direct and indirect work, they have the whole week to rest. Despite this theory is partially right, it is also truth that after a hard back session is not possible to properly workout biceps since they are tired, and the same thing happens with triceps after crushing weight.
It is completely different when you already have huge arms and you just want to keep them. But if you want to breakthrough, I suggest the next specialization routine.
* Day one: pectoral and lateral and anterior deltoid
* Day two: back and posterior deltoid and trapezius
* Day three: resting
* Day four: legs
* Day five: arms
* Days six and seven: resting
This way triceps, the biggest and the one that needs most recovering, have three complete days between chest's session and its own. And biceps, two.
And after direct arms workout they have two days, the whole weekend, for resting.
This division allows direct work of the utmost rigor for biceps and triceps, as its full recovery.
There are, however, other possibilities. For instance, a weekly routine with two arm sessions, a direct heavy one and another light one with a secondary group in which they are also included.
* Day one: pectoral and posterior and anterior deltoid and triceps
* Day two: back, posterior deltoid and trapezius and biceps
* Day three: resting
* Day four: legs
* Day five: arms
* Days six and seven: resting
The other option is doing a unique session for arms, but training them with secondary groups:
* Day one: pectorals and triceps
* Day two: back and biceps
* Day three: resting
* Day four: legs (quadriceps and femoral)
* Day five: shoulders, trapezius and calves
* Days six and seven: resting
And I will give you another alternative: doing two arm sessions per week, one of strength and another one of congestion, but reducing the work for the other groups, because this is an arm specialization, which means that for 8 to 10 weeks, you will cut off the work for all the rest.
* Day one: triceps and biceps (heavy)
* Day two: back, chest and shoulders
* Day three: resting
* Day four: legs (quadriceps and femoral)
* Day five: triceps y biceps (light)
* Days six and seven: resting
These are different options, but when it is about increasing arms size I prefer giving them an exclusive session, because in my opinion is the best system to activate the superior growing of biceps and triceps.
HEAVY ARMS ROUTINE
At first, I suggest working out upper appendixes only once a week and in that case doing it in a heavy way.
As in that session no other group is trained, you can crush them with max intensity and move all the energy to them and, as triceps is the biggest one, I recommend you to start training the rear part.
As its name shows, triceps is composed of three muscles, lateral, medial and long. The three stripes are important to achieve maximum size, but specially the long head, which provides that typical look of bulge from the elbow to the armpit.
Upper extremities receive indirect stimulation by the training of other groups, so when training them separately I prefer to isolate them as much as possible therefore they receive maximum tension. The main function of triceps is to extend the arm, that's why French presses are the most accurate one since they perfectly reproduce that action. This is the main size maker in its different versions, among which I remark the sitting version, moving weight behind the head, and also lying down.
The first one is superior than the second one for the initial stretching it produces in the muscle. Physiological laws determine that the more you stretch the muscle fibres before contraction, the greater the number of those that comes into action, as the strength of the contraction increases, which equals a higher capacity for growth.
Two or three triceps exercises will be enough to assure the ideal answer. For the sake of elbow articulations, I strongly recommend not to do sudden movements, bounces in the initial position, neither an excessive speed to the action. Control weight at all times, move it slowly and make a small pause at the end of each repetition before rising up weight again.
Moreover, do some previous stretching and some initial light series as warming up and to lubricate the elbow before handling an important load.
Don't make more than six or eight hard series and look for fail between sixth and tenth repetition.
Once the work for the posterior part of the arm is done, it's the turn for the anterior: biceps.
Despite elbows are warmed up for the work done, it's recommendable, however, to use some reparation moments before the heavy work.
Extend arms a bit and do a few light series of many repetitions to assure the blood presence in biceps. Now you are ready to attack them and force them to grow.
My two favourite exercises for volume are Standing bar curl and Preacher curl, with bar or dumbbell, also standing.
I insist once again on doing slow and controlled movements, making a brief stop in the inferior part of the path before going up again.
Once the warming up is ready, do three sets of Bar curl, followed by other three ones of Preacher curl. If you take each one of them to fail, you won't need more.
Repetitions should be between six and eight, ten at most, but regarding there is a direct relation between weight used, in strict way, and the volume of muscles, I suggest not doing more than eight. Also never finish a set until it is impossible for you to do a single one more, which means going all the way to fail.
Here we have three prototypes of heavy arms routine which will provide you a few centimetres quickly.
A Routine
* Bar French press, standing, 2 x 12, 10 (warming up)
* Bar French press, standing, 3 x 8
* One-arm extensions lying down, 3 x 8
* High pulley extensions, short bar, 2 x 8
* Standing bar curl, 2 x 15, 10 (warming up)
* Standing bar curl, 3 x 8, 6, 6
* Bar preacher curl, 2 x 6
* Hammer curl, 1 x 8
B Routine
* Bar extensions lying down, 2 x 12, 10 (warming up)
* Bar extensions lying down, 3 x 8, 6, 6
* Seated French press with dumbbell, 3 x 8
* One-arm pulley extensions and inverted grip, 2 x 10
* Bar preacher curl, standing, 2 x 15, 10 (warming up)
* Bar preacher curl, standing, 3 x 8, 6, 6
* Declined curl, 3 x 8
* Concentration curl 2 x 8
C Routine
* Behind head one-arm extension, 2 x 12, 10 (warming up)
* Behind head one-arm extension, 2 x 8
* Bar French press, seated, 3 x 8
* Triceps dips, with weight, 3 x 10
* Alternating curl, in declined bench, 2 x 15, 10 (warming up)
* Alternating curl, in declined bench, 2 x 8
* Standing bar curl, 3 x 8, 6
* One-arm preacher curl, standing, 2 x 8. 6
Now I'll show you a light arms routine prototype, congestion type, if you decide to do a second arm session. In that case the aim is taking lots of blood to the muscles.
Routine
* Pulley extension. 2 x 25 (warming up)
* Pulley extension. 3 x 15-20
* Triceps dips, without weight, 3 x to fail (20-25 repetitions)
* Alternating curl, standing, 2 x 25 (warming up)
* Alternating curl, standing, 3 x 15-20
* Low pulley curl. 3 x 15-20
Keep this routine for six weeks before changing it and try making variations in exercises according to your personal preferences, but I suggest keeping in each case the Behind-head French press and the Standing bar curl, because both of them are excellent pillars for triceps and biceps development respectively.
