Common Mistakes to Avoid. The number 1 mistake is doing endless biceps curls & triceps extensions to build bigger arms. This works at the advanced level, but for beginners it’s inefficient and counterproductive.
Curls & Extensions. Beginners need compound exercises to build overall muscle mass, not isolation exercises. First big picture, then the details.
Overtraining Your Arms. Arms are small muscles which you hit on all exercises. You can’t train them 5x/week. Muscles grow when they rest.
Neglecting Other Muscles. This will get you out of proportion. Your arms will be too big compared to the rest of your body and you’ll look funny.
Not Eating Enough Food. You’ll never get 18″ biceps if you only weigh 120lbs at 6′. You must gain weight to build bigger arms.
The Workout:
3 x 9 reps of Close Grip Bench Press (superset to) 3 x 9 reps of Barbell Curls
Go to failure on the final set of each exercise here
3 x 10 reps of Dumbbell Skull Crushers (superset to) 3 x 10 reps of Incline Bench Dumbbell Curls
Go to failure on set 2 of each exercise
Go to failure and then add a drop set on the final set of each exercise
In summary, this will allow you to shift heavy weights in a short period of time, and hit between 60-70 working reps. Hitting around 50-70 working reps 2-3 times per week is ideal for muscle gain, allowing at least 48 hours between training muscle groups twice. This is far more optimal than hitting each muscle group once per week with far to much volume, which causes crippling DOMS (muscle soreness) for 2-4 days after lifting.