Getting bigger arms is a struggle for a lot of us, almost as big a struggle as getting big shoulders or calves, but not quite. We’re splitting the arm into two parts: biceps and triceps.
We’re not going to worry about forearms because if you’re training hard, lifting heavier weights, and not using straps unless you’re lifting for max or something, they’re going to develop on their own (especially with farmers walks, deadlifts, and reverse curls – which you can do as a part of your arms training).
The Biceps
Let’s cut to the chase: the best way to develop big arms is to WORK HARD. Forget about reps, sets, and exercises. Choose a weight, then perform as many reps as humanly possible with that weight, then perform a few more.
When training biceps you should be doing bar curls, and trying to add weight to that bar every time you’re in the gym. You should also be stretching the muscle by performing inclined curls.
One big tip with biceps, is to bring as much blood to the muscle as possible. This is true for any muscle, but with the biceps we can especially isolate that muscle group, so getting a pump becomes a much easier mission.
With that said, try working on one arm at a time, so you don’t have to “share” blood flow with both sides of your body. So single arm incline curls, seated curls, hammer curls, and isolation curls. Then switch to the other arm for your other set. You’ll find that this’ll make a workout longer, but you’re going to love the pump you get, and the effectiveness of each exercise. This single tip can increase your biceps development by a fair bit.
Here’s another video for you to check out, watch how I attach 3 different parts of the bicep with these 3 dramatically different exercises:
The Triceps
If you want big arms, you need to build big triceps. The triceps, not the biceps, make up 60-70% of the arm. So bigger tri’s means bigger guns.
The thing about triceps is that, while like all muscles, they benefit from heavier sets, they’re also like deltoids in that extremely high reps are also very beneficial.
Start a workout with a set as follows:
A1. Seated Triceps Press – 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps (4 second eccentric contraction).
rest 30 seconds
A2. Close Grip Bench Press – 3-5 sets of 10-12 reps (2 second eccentric contraction).
rest 30 seconds
Then, finish off your triceps workout with a couple high rep cable pushdowns (20-30 reps) with short rest periods. Below is a video with an awesome variation.