Little Secrets for Great Arms Training tips 1BigBosnian
Almin Ramic
Last two or so years I started getting many compliments about my arm size and shape. At first I did not give it a much attention, but recently I’ve started thinking about it. What is the main difference, what changed in my training 3-4 years ago when compared to first 15 years of training? So I’ve came up with the short list of 5 things that have made a difference for me. 1. Arm Training Day For years I have trained Biceps and Triceps a secondary muscle group, meaning it was always addition to the chest, or back, sometimes even leg training. This is not bad, but if you are at a beginner or an intermediate stages of your training. Yes, bi’s and tri’s do work on those days, but in order to build some serious mass, you need to start to focus more on them as a primary muscle group. So, my bi’s and tri’s got a training day of their own. 2. Range Of Motion and Isolation This is very important for both biceps and triceps. As you progress through your arm workout use different angles to focus on different biceps and triceps heads. Consider adding movements that better isolate the muscle. Concentration and preacher curls, in which your arm is stabilized completely eliminates your ability to use momentum to aid you in the movement and requires you to reduce the amount of weight you use. Often in the gym we can see “that guy” that is definitely pushing or curling too much weight on an isolation exercise, where he is missing the range and using lots of other muscle groups to completely “un-isolate” the movement. Of course, in a serious training there is a place for a cheat set, or a few cheat reps in a set to stimulate that mass growth, but not every set or every rep of each set should be a cheat, and definitely not on an isolation exercise. When curling, gravity force is pushing down on the bar, against your biceps, until the bar gets too high. That means when you curl the bar up to your chest, there's no or little force on the bar for the last quarter of the rep. Meaning, you get to rest at the top of your rep because there's no force pushing down once the bar passes a certain point. So if you are doing a preacher curl, one of my favorite biceps mass building exercises, and your range of motion is from your chest to half way down, with too much weight, you are missing the point. If you want your curls to be really hard, start at the bottom and stop as soon as you feel that force diminishing. Stopping your reps at peak force contraction (going from 0 (straight arm) to 110 degrees) will make every rep much, much more effective.
Triceps Extensions, my favorite, no matter what grip, rope, v-bar or straight bar you use, just do it right. It should work only your triceps, not your back, shoulders or any other muscle group. It is an opposite of biceps curl, basically you go from that 110 degree angle down to 0. Feel your muscle contract when in the bottom position. If you can’t feel contraction that means you are using too much weight. 3. Feel The Pump After warming up, do relatively heavy sets as low as 6 reps to really stimulate your arms. Challenge yourself! Do not let your biceps get accustomed to the weights you are using. So push yourself especially on those first sets before fatigue starts to set in, and on the last exercise focus on the exercise that will bring that volcano to a blowing up point. I started using my form of 21 reps exercise for biceps as a final exercise, every other arm workout (on days that I do triceps first). It drains you, it is 84 reps that sends you packing to go home. Basically, it is done with cables with EZ bar attached to it. 7 reps of close grip, than 7 of wide grip followed by 7 reps of reverse grip, for four sets. Each set you change the grip order, so basically 1st and 4th are the same. I do the same for triceps extension, using EZ bar attachment on the cable. 7 reps close grip, 7wide grip and 7 reverse wide grip for final 4 sets of my triceps exercise on ever other arm workout day (Day I do Biceps first). 4. Change It Up Falling into a routine is one of your biggest enemies in the gym. So change it up. For my arm workout I not only change the order and type of exercises I do, but I change up the muscle group I do first. So one day I will do Biceps first, and other day it will be the triceps. This allows for symmetrical approach to grow both muscle groups. There is nothing less appealing that seeing someone with overdeveloped biceps and underdeveloped triceps, and vice versa. 5. Surprise The Muscle This is a final, but most important tip that I can give. Surprise the muscle. I remember that for a certain period of time I would come to gym and do my arms two days in a row, just to shock them, but approach like this requires great nutrition and of course rest. So next time you come to gym after doing your lagging body part yesterday think about this.