I only want big arms. Not literally, I still am working out other muscle groups, but I want the biggest bulkiest arms. How do I get them?

[denningsjeff]

@lizlugo51 How tall are you and what is your weight?

 

[christianjoshua04]

@lizlugo51 I find biceps grow best under heavy weight. Maybe that's just me but I noticed a significant difference in size when training them heavy.

Triceps, I train heavy bench and my triceps grew massively, then I add pull downs as heavy as possible for 10-12 reps.

I will say that big arms look like shit without wide shoulders and a big chest so you should bear that in mind.

Lastly, a popping bicep vein helps with the look, this comes from obviously building a large muscle and training them regularly but also low body fat

 

[boyboy999]

@lizlugo51 Train arms 3-4x per week, 15-20 or more isolation sets for each per week. Train arms on upper days, train arms on lower/leg days, add in an "arm day", it doesn't really matter. Just train them with high frequency and high volume. Whatever way you need to go to accomplish that goal works. Also, don't forget about your side delts as well, as they are really important as well for your goals.

Train everything else the exact same as you currently do. You're just specializing in arms.

 

[adelefay]

@lizlugo51 Regardless of how your split is, you "need" to add an "arms day"... Away from chest and back days so the muscles are fresh when you train them.

Choose 4 biceps and 4 triceps exercises & super set them with 1.5 min of rest between each super set.
Range 8-12 reps, 4 será each exercise. Rir 1-2.

Ex..
Standing bb curls 4x10
Triceps push down 4x10

Skull crushers 4x10
Incline db curls 4x12

Seated hammer curls 4x12
Seated db triceps extention 4x10

Triceps kickbacks 4x12
Concentration curl 4x12

Make sure the next day is legs or rest day so the muscle has time to heal/grow

 

[jordanconnect]

@lizlugo51 do dedicated arms + shoulders day,

I had your problem and this helped me immediately to see gains after few months of stagnation

 

[dawn16]

@lizlugo51 I have 18 inch arms natty, at 5’8, might be gifted and have a good bulk going right now as well. I mostly focus on strength, but I go hard on arm hypertrophy.
1.Measure your pumps! See what works for getting 1inch +pumps.
2.I go through periods of around 4-6 weeks a few times a year of hitting arms everyday. I also do 3x5 or 5x5 on bicep curls. Tons of hammer curls and fat grip curls. I have a circuit of like 10-15 minutes of non stop arms to failure, drop set, failure and so on.
3. Also sounds crazy but sledge hammer hits on a tire (300+ reps) over 1 minutes or so will blow up your arms. Do that once a week or so on top.

you will not overtrain your arms if you’re in a surplus train them every day and give ‘em breaks after weeks. On top of this hit your compounds before hand obviously.

I’m trying to get 19 inches no pump to hopefully hit the coveted 20 inches pumped. I apply similar training to my shoulders and have had good results. Good luck bro hope that helps or gives you a little bit of insight.

 

[faithangel2017]

@dawn16 What does your basic arm day look like? Also, what do you do in your circuit?

 

[dawn16]

@faithangel2017 I don’t do bodybuilding splits like that, I’ll usually split stuff up by movements I’m focusing on, as I compete in strongman and powerlifting. After my movement is done I’ll just hit arms if it’s one of these periods I’m talking about where it’s everyday. If I don’t feel up to a circuit my go to is always DB hammer curls and overhead extensions on the cable machine for a super set 3 sets to failure, that’s usually plenty if I’m smoked after deadlifting or something. The circuit is usually double that, two bicep movements and two tricep movements, superset, with no rest except a water break or so. I’ll do high rep up to 30 reps sometimes as little as 5 reps. Nothing is ever specific or planned, I just go by feel on the circuits and the goal is to get a nasty pump. 10-15 minutes of that will have you sweating your ass off and pumped as well

 

[faithangel2017]

@dawn16 Thank you, very informative. I’ll give it a try

 

[ricky42]

@dawn16 My arms are small for nwo, but I can't take more than 7-8 sets to failure per week. How can you do that much?

 

[dawn16]

@ricky42 They definitely can take more. Training your arms isn’t some big CNS detriment. Build into it. I’m saying train your arms like in circuits and sledge hammer hits. This is with a caloric surplus and on top of compounds, and still building strength in curls as my triceps are waaay bigger than my biceps. But that’s just me. I

 

[ricky42]

@dawn16 I mean, I've tried even 18 sets per week, it didn't work, I just couldn't progress with that. I've been lowering the volumen until 7-8 direct sets past failure+indirect work from rows and that has been working pretty well for the past 2 months. I guess in some time it won't be enough and I'll up the volume then

 

[shannw7]

@lizlugo51 This advice that I’m seeing in the replys is stuck in 2012, it’s insane. “Do a caloric surplus bro”. Well duh, that’s obvious.

Here’s what you do

Plan out a Macrocycle (3-4 mesos in a row) of arm specialization

Your first mesocycle (4-8 week training block) use 2 days a week of frequency, moderate volume, low rep ranges
(5-15 reps probably, depending on your stimulus to fatigue ratios on stuff, no dropsets or myo-rep sets)

Next meso, increase the frequency to 3x, slightly increase rep ranges to get more total workload (8-15 reps generally, maybe add a few sets of 10-20 reps)

3rd meso, increase your starting amount of sets, and add an intensity technique (dropsets, giant sets, myoreps)

4th meso, increase frequency to 4x a week, add more intensity techniques, increase rep ranges if needed, and really go for it

At this point, you should need to take more than just a 1 week deload afterwords, so maybe go for a 2 week active rest period

(Deload after each meso)

 

[ederz15]

@shannw7 Is there any evidence that this would get him better results than just finding out how much volume he can handle and repeating it week after week in a caloric surplus, deloading as needed?

 

[shannw7]

@ederz15 You’re managing fatigue this way and almost insuring progress

If you use RIR (which would definitely be the ideal thing to do when training like this, or in general imo), and going from 4RIR to 0RIR over the course of each mesocycle, you’re consistently within the that ideal proximity to failure for growth, you’re slowing increasing intensity and volume, and slowly reaching your maximum recoverable volume, instead of just staying at the same volume each week til you’re tired

By programming your training this way, you’re managing fatigue with the RIR and the increasing volume, and with this arm specialization, you’re increasing arm volume over a 20-30 week period while your other body parts aren’t increasing at the same pace, thus giving a lot of recoverability towards arms

Trying to specialize in everything at once will lead you to a bad place, you won’t be able to recover and you’ll end up wasting time because trying to specialize in all body parts at once when you’re past a beginner point will cause hella fatigue ASAP, so doing it this way avoids that, because you’ll max out your systematic fatigue after like 4-8 weeks

(Check out Mike Israetels video on it, basically the exact same thing I just said but more in-depth)

 

[metulburr]

@shannw7 Firstly, using RIR for arms is not the best idea imo. You're not going to be systemically fatigued from your incline hammer curls or overhead extensions. Go to and past failure on safe movements that don't give you tendinitis. The loads are so small compared to the big compounds RIR was designed for that the stimulus is also low, and so is the fatigue. The body can adjust surprisingly well to increased demands, no need to overcomplicated things.

Secondly, specialising in "weak" or "lagging" body parts probably isn't worth it unless you are well advanced. Intermediates should start noticing the holes in their game, like arms that aren't as big as they like even if they're satisfied with their chest or legs. This doesn't mean they should run some super-specialisation phase, they should instead start adding more volume, more effort and more consistency to their arm training while continuing on with everything else as is.

 

[shannw7]

@metulburr The whole idea of him specializing in arms negates that second point, your ideals of how to build a physique don’t apply to this bro, if he’s wanting to specialize in arms, it’s not a question of wether or not he should, but HOW he should go about it

Also, using RIR in general across the board is a good idea. 4 reps and lower in proximity to failure show the most growth, so when designing a training block, why would you just go to failure every single set of curls, but not other things? Sure it might not be the MOST fatiguing thing, but that doesn’t mean it changes the rules of muscle growth

It’s not over-complicating if you’re just simply saying “start at 4RIR, go to 0 over a few weeks, increase volume as time goes on, and add intensity techniques”

If that’s too complex, then there are larger problems at hand. Sure, you could just do 3x10 close grip bench, 3x10 Tricep pushdowns, and 3x10 skull crushers, but if the goal is make it from point A to B the fastest and be the most efficient, why not just utilize smart programming?

You’re also training your whole body when specializing in arms, so sure, the fatigue won’t be that much, but your overall fatigue will increase over time, so it goes hand-in-hand with using RIR on arms

 

[faithangel2017]

@shannw7 Your system is undeniably more efficient than the basics that everyone advocates here, however not many people enjoy going about their training in a technical and systematic way, hence you’re getting downvoted while the other guy advocating for a more layman approach is upvoted. You put a lot of effort into the mesocycles too, a shame. Either way it can’t be denied that when it comes to getting from point A to point B faster, your system is better.

 

[shannw7]

@faithangel2017 Thanks man, glad somebody else saw the value there, appreciate the kind words fr

 

[miamivice]

@ederz15 No. All of the evidence shows for hypertrophy it doesn't make a difference.

Idk why people feel the need to make things needlessly complex.