Everyone wants to know how to get bigger arms. It’s not just the
dudes either. Women want leaner, tighter and more defined arms which
essentially is the same thing as wanting bigger arms. I mean there’s
really not a whole lot that you can do to build lean arms versus big
arms. Think about this for a second. When you were little and someone
said “make a muscle” what did you do? You flexed your bicep right? It’s
the universal symbol of strength and regardless of what strength coaches
or bodybuilding haters will say, it always will be. You can never have
arms too big so here’s 8 tips to build bigger arms.
1) Less volume!
Small muscles require less volume, and recover faster.
Basic logic says, a smaller muscle has less overall totalvolume of muscle fibers. It takes LESS overall stimulus to fatigue these muscles and less overall training volume
to exhaust glycogen stores (stored muscle energy).
2) Heavy Weights (with perfect form)
Heavy weights are going to fatigue a greater overall percentage of muscle fibers in a shorter amount of time (aka less sets).
Heavy weights also have the added benefit of stimulating “high threshold motor units”. These are the muscle fibers that require a lot more stimulus to grow and respond, but also the fibers that are more likely to be responsible
for muscle hypertrophy or growth!
3) Arms receive a lot of stimuls on a regular basis
Arms receive a lot of stimulus on a regular basis.
For most people, this tends to occur in the middleof the range of motion where the muscles are strongest.
In order to get the arms to grow and respond, it isnecessary to subject them to a different type of stimulus.
One of the best ways to improve arm development is tosubject them to more tensionand continuous tension at the extremes of the range of motion (a.k.a, when a muscle is fully lengthened or fully shortened — where muscles are weakest). This will
allow for greater time under tension as well as targeting different points of the strength curve to force the nervous system to adapt and stimulate new
muscle growth.
4) You must engage the target muscle first in any movemet
The FIRST muscle to engage in any movement must be the muscle you are trying to target. If you are working your biceps, to most effectively stimulate the bicep, it must be the muscle to initiate the movement. As mentioned, muscles are weakest at those extremes and that makes it least
likely to contract. This is where your conscious intent and control is vital!
The best way to ensure this is happening is to contract its antagonist muscle. This will ensure a fully lengthened working muscle and make it much more likely that it will initiate the movement(provided you’re using proper control).
e.g. when working your bicep, to fully stretch your bicep at the bottom of the range, it is necessary to contract
your triceps before initiating the movement of contracting your biceps again. The opposite is true when training triceps.
Contract your biceps at the top of the range when a triceps is fully stretched (forearm touches biceps).
5) Build critical mass
“You can’t sculpt what you don’t have, so don’t even worry about doing isolation moves at first,” says Tyler English.
Focus instead on bulking up all over while you're in the gym, with big, compound moves like the deadlift and pull-up.
“Every guy wants the ‘lobster claw’ of a well defined bicep, but few are willing to do the work to get it,” says English. “Once you have the mass, then you can worry about chiseling it.”
6) Shift hand positions
Instead of always holding the dumbbells in their centers when you curl, occasionally use an “offset” grip with your thumbs or pinkies pressed up against the sides of the handles.
As you lift the dumbbells, your biceps will have to work extra hard to prevent the weights from rotating one way or the other. The harder they work, the more they grow, says English.
7) Go big, then small
“Most guys don’t realise that their biceps and triceps are involved in almost every lift they do – even lower body moves like the deadlift,” says English.
As a general rule, when you push (think: bench press) you work your triceps; when you pull (think: cable row or pull up) you work your biceps.
“That’s why if you do isolation moves, you should save them for the end of the workout,” says English. “If you do them first, you’ll sabotage your performance in the bigger, compound lifts.”
8) Work your shoulders
“They’re the forgotten element of head-turning arms,” says English. “When your shoulders look big, your arms look big. It’s that simple.”
His favorite shoulder exercise: The overhead press.
Stand holding a pair of dumbbells just outside of your shoulders with your elbows bent and your palms facing inward. Set your feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent. Press the weights directly above your shoulders, pause, and then lower them back to the starting position. Do three sets of eight to 10 reps.