Use these techniques to turn your pistols into cannons.
BRING OUT THE GUNS!
There is nothing more impressive than having a huge, muscular arms.
Arms are one of the first body parts you notice on someone – a set of big guns demands respect. These tips will help you gain noticeable size and definition in your arms, so get ready to purchase bigger shirts!
1. USE BLOOD FLOW RESTRICTION TRAINING
Blood flow restriction training is one technique that works great for arms. When you restrict blood flow to a muscle, you are forcing blood to pool in the muscle – giving you an unbelievable pump.
When using blood flow restriction training, we are not allowing blood to escape the veins; arteries however, will continue to deliver blood to the muscle. It sounds like some sort of torture, but by occluding a muscle, you are tricking your body to use large fast twitch muscle fibers, which will result in crazy growth. Another benefit to this type of training is that you will be using 50 percent of your normal weight. This type of training will allow your joints to recover while taxing your body and increasing the size of your arms. Try a superset of triceps and biceps. Use knee wraps high up on the arms and tighten the wraps. You want the wraps tight enough so that it’s uncomfortable but not overly painful. You will be using a rope pushdown for triceps and performing standing dumbbell curls for biceps.
THE WORKOUT
- Tricep Rope Pressdown 1 x 30 (superset with dumbbell curls)
- Standing Dumbbell Curls 1 x 30
- Tricep Rope Pressdown 1 x 15 (superset with dumbbell curls)
- Standing Dumbbell Curls 1 x 15
Continue this until you complete three sets of 15 reps, and then pull the tourniquet off.
2. INCREASE YOUR VOLUME
Volume has been shown to have direct correlation with muscle growth. This means if you’re doing eight sets of arms once per week and are getting no results, you need to up your volume. I recommend adding additional sets on another day a week for arms. I found training arms three times per week has been ideal for growth. An important point is to make sure you slowly walk your volume up over time. Do not just jump into three days per week without slowly increasing your volume otherwise you risk injury.
3. UTILIZE ALL ANGLES
The primary function of your bicep is to lift the forearm toward the shoulders and to rotate the wrist. The primary function of the triceps is to fully extend the elbow. These motions are simple but you want to make sure you are training your arms from all angles. With your biceps, you want to perform curls on an incline and try to get a full stretch. Performing a chin-up or high cable pulleys will hit the bicep from a higher angle. The same goes for triceps; performing an overhead tricep extension will stimulate different heads of the muscle.
ULTIMATE ANGLE WORKOUT
- Incline Dumbbell Curls 4 x 8-10
- Bodyweight Tricep Dips 4 x 15-20
- Standing Barbell Curls 4x 6-8
- Narrow-grip Bench Press 4 x 6-8
- High Cable Pulley Curls 4 x 12
- Ez Barbell French Press 4 x 12
4. SUPERSET
To stimulate arm growth, you’ll need to increase the overall volume for arm training. An easy way to do this without spending three hours in the gym is by supersetting bicep and tricep routines. This will engorge your arms with blood, delivering tons of nutrients to them. When we perform a tricep movement, we fully stretch out the bicep. When we do a curling movement, we stretch out the triceps; this creates an antagonistic effect that makes training more effective.
5. USE THE SHOCK METHOD
Your body doesn’t like change – it doesn’t want 20 inch arms and it will fight you because carrying around that much muscle is metabolically expensive. In order to force growth in the arms, it’s a good idea to throw in more intense routines every couple of workouts. Shocking methods are designed to cause severe overload to the muscles. Supersets, dropsets, , running the rack and many more can be just what you need to get your arms to grow.
6. ONE INCH IN ONE DAY GROWTH
Once a month perform the ‘Gaining One Inch in One Day” routine. This program has gotten a lot of hate from people but it has a lot of merit. This program was designed to increase arm volume and increase your arm size through sheer overload.
7. EAT LIKE A MACHINE
Bottom line: if you want to get huge, you’re going to have to eat like a madman. Eighty percent of the results you’ll see in the mirror are based off your nutritional habits. Make sure you are pounding a ton of nutrient-dense food every day along with high quality protein sources. Keep track of how many calories you are consuming and if you fail to gain at least one-half a pound per week, bump your daily calories up by 200-300. In order to gain one solid inch on your arms, you are going to have to gain 10 pounds of bodyweight. That much weight will not happen if you’re eating like a school girl.
