Arms-Bi'S TRI'S?
- Thread starter Victoross
- Start date
Juicedeez utz
Well-known member
Not to sound like a d1ck but try losing some fat, cut down to sub 15% whatever muscle you have will show through then bro, there is no magic routine! just the magic formula, food, sleep, progressive overload
ericos_bob
Veteran member
Do you want size or definition or both? One will have to take priority. If you cut down to 10-12% bodyfat you'll have definition but your arms will be much smaller.
APC80
Veteran member
Start your arm day with close grip bench press(just outside shoulder width not thumbs touching like most people do) for tris and close neutral grip pull-ups focusing on pulling with your arms and squeezing the bicep. Personally curls and extensions never did much for me in terms of arms size but I love the pump so I keep doing them but only after these two exercises. Getting stronger at benching and pull-ups are the only thing that made my arms grow, took me a couple years to notice this. Also with 15.5" arms at 5'8" 215lbs I seriously doubt you are only 19.5%BF. Losing fat around your middle will make your arms appear bigger.
PaulBlack
Well-known member
Still, a smaller defined arm, appears much larger than it usually is. Zane and Columbu's arms were quite a bit smaller than many of their Olympia counterparts, but still looked larger than the less defined guys.
ericos_bob
Veteran member
Absolutely! I'd never settle for anything above 10-12% bodyfat personally. I find when you go below 8-10% as a natty you start to look stringy. This is why I loved the look of the 70's bodybuilders. Enough bodyfat to maintain decent muscle size and a flowing physique yet still lean enough to sport clear muscle definition. The combination was impressive IMO.
fitfreak_CP
Active Member
I recently just did Jr. USA and my biggest issue being 6'4 is my wing span and arms being so long. My back is good and condition is above the competition the judges said but I need to fill out my arms and delts more. I'm going to implement hitting arms eod with one of those workouts being heavy ass weight with lower volume.
fitfreak_CP
Active Member
Anyone have suggestions on how I can build fuller and more round arms? At this point I'm going to try the eod approach because they can't get any smaller lol
pro45
Active Member
Start your biceps workout with cross body hammer curls with a two second squeeze and a 2 second eccentric. Then do the rest of your workout.
When I first started competing way back when, the judges feedback was always, "bring up your bi's and upper pecs". CB Hammer curls helped big time. Go heavy for 2-3 sets of 6-10 reps.
R1balla
Board Sponsor
There are so many options for arm work. Arms are my greatest attribute I would think. I always start arm day with a compound movement. Whether it's close grip pull-ups, weighted dips or close grip bench. Then I work with a lot of supersets, negatives, drop sets, heavy weight, light weight ...etc. I never do the same workout two times in a row. Also try 10x10 once in a while to change things up. If I had to pick one of my favorite bicep workouts it would be DB incline curl.
210LBS
Well-known member
I agree on the DB incline curl - I just love the way it feels. But in all honesty, if I skip isolation movements for my arms and just do my regular compounds, I notice no difference in my arms. I think one of the reasons has to do with how I train to failure. Training to complete failure allows you to really exhaust every single muscle involved in the movement.
R1balla
Board Sponsor
I would definitely take a break from the gym every few weeks if you are training till failure each set. That has to be taxing on your body.
Monte_Cristo
Active Member
I believe anyone is different, personally I've been told that going hard on compound would have grow my arms too...it didnt happen untill I struck them with volume and isolation.
What worked for me is french pressing and close grip pushes with the same bar right after, it gives me pump and acid and the following day its harder and fuller.
When it comes of biceps high cable curls and spider curls gave me mass and shape.
Those twi tricks alone had a huge impact on my arms, never really grew tris from benching or bis from pulling.
APC80
Veteran member
If your arms haven't responded to heavy compound pushing and pulling movements you're doing something seriously wrong.
Monte_Cristo
Active Member
Everything is possible, I dont deny any possibility.
However when I train back I feel pump in my back same with chest, guess my arms just do the basic to support the main lift.
When I pull for back I use a grip with my thumb outside, think of suicide grip when you do chest, and that setting alone basically moved plenty of tenstion from my arms to my back.
210LBS
Well-known member
Yeah it can be pretty brutal. It's not uncommon to see your strength actually deteriorate. Every 3rd or 4th week I'll only do strength training only 2 days for the week to give my body rest.
210LBS
Well-known member
I think it depends how you train. Like I said, I train to absolute failure. So, when I'm doing a row I can feel myself fatigue my back, rear delts, biceps, everything. I exhaust every last muscle in the movement to make sure that bar cannot move any more.
muscleupcrohn
Legend
This. When I do pull-ups and rows I typically use a thumbless grip and sometimes even focus on pulling the bar apart, which both place more focus on lats and less on biceps, although I'm still working my biceps to some degree. I'm not saying that your arms won't grow from heavy and consistent compound movements, just that I do think they'll grow better with added direct work, especially once you're no longer a beginner, where I definitely agree that compound movements should be the clear main focus.
APC80
Veteran member
I'm lucky my gym has wide neutral/hammer grip bars as well I can't do normal pull-ups as I hurt my left shoulder couple of years back but I think that's why I get a good bicep pump. I suppose it's nearly like doing hammer curls with your body weight.
When I'm bench pressing it always feels like my triceps fail first so I do cable flyes or pec deck to isolate my pecs more. There's no getting round the fact that your arms are gonna be heavily involved in any upper body pushing or pulling movement to varying degrees.
When I'm bench pressing it always feels like my triceps fail first so I do cable flyes or pec deck to isolate my pecs more. There's no getting round the fact that your arms are gonna be heavily involved in any upper body pushing or pulling movement to varying degrees.
ericos_bob
Veteran member
As someone who never used isolation exercises for arms, I found that although they did grow to some extent in response to compounds it wasn't until i trained arms directly that i brought them up to match the rest of my physique. I quickly added an inch to my arms just through having a dedicated arm day filled with high volume curls and skull crushers. Ofcourse my gains then slowed. For me it holds true that arms only grow in relation to an increase in overall body mass. If I gain 15lb of lean mass and my arms haven't grown by an inch I'll work hard on isolation exercises and sure enough they catch up.
EMPIREMIND
Well-known member
As mentioned the leaner you get the more definition.
EMPIREMIND
Well-known member
That's genetics without a doubt. How tall was he?
APC80
Veteran member
He was actually really short prob about 5'5" but he'd the biggest arms you'll ever see. He was a professional boxer before bodybuilding so no doubt he probably had good genetics before all the gear.
EMPIREMIND
Well-known member
That the struggle with height. You have alot more limb to fill out and alot more range of motion for your reps. The shorter dudes usually have very dense arms. Either way it's still achievable, just need alot more overall muscle.