The New Rules For Your Arm Workout Routine

If you want big arms, this is your one stop new arm workout routine guide to seeing results.

Do the work and see the gains in less time that you’d think. You can thank us later.

Let’s face it: Big biceps are one area that truly defines a man’s physique. On the other side of the spectrum, women love to train their arms to decrease upper arm fat and add a little definition.

Both desires revolve around the concept of arms workout.

This can be easy for those with an advanced lifting background, but could also be tough for those who lack experience and do not understand the process.

Previously, people who wanted to increase the size of their arms would do it by doing a couple of arms exercises on specific days in their workout regime.

Typically, people would work their triceps and chest on the same day and their back and biceps on another day.

That would result in a couple of exercises for at least a few sets targeting the arm muscle in question on either of the two days. The result was a decent enough workout in for your triceps or biceps depending on the day, but not enough to receive significant changes after your body has adapted.

Let’s take a look at the reasoning behind this and what other new rules you should be following for arms training.

Bypass Adaptation

Muscle adaptation happens to every person that starts training. You see great results with fat loss and muscle gains for several months. Then something unexpected begins to happen.

No matter how hard you train and diet, you simply see no significant results.

The result?

It could lead to eventually overtraining your muscles if you do not understand what has taken place and continue. What’s happened is that your muscles have adapted to the exercises and something needs to be done to change this.

Your arms are one of the prime muscle regions that tend to adapt pretty well. Since this occurs, you have to change your training methods to overcome or avoid hitting a plateau. You can achieve this task by using specialized training.

This is when you place extra attention on a particular muscle region while keeping away from overtraining your muscles.

What you would be doing is targeting your arms two or three days a week with a 24-hour rest from arms training following each workout.

That means no arm workout routine for a full day. You will then have one or two days of muscle building where you target the other muscles to keep them maintained (though this is not really needed).

Doing this training method is a pretty surefire way to start seeing changes in your arms again.

What Exactly Is Overtraining?

Overtraining is when you recruit certain muscles or even all of your muscles too much while only giving them little time for rest and recovery

This is honestly pretty hard to achieve, but somehow many of people end up in this situation on a weekly basis.

Why is overtraining bad?

First off, you are putting your muscle fibers at risk of serious injury. When this happens, you have to put a hold on training for a while.

Another bad situation you could find yourself in is having serious muscle fatigue to where you can barely move 50% of your max lifting weight. Then you have to consider the fact that your gains could possibly be turned into energy known as catabolism.

What is catabolism?

Simply put, your body switches over to using your muscles for energy since nutrients have been depleted and not replenished properly.

Target All Three Muscle Regions On Your Arms

Your arms have plenty of muscles. With that said, the main regions you want to focus on are your triceps, biceps and then forearms. Targeting these three muscle groups is the best way to achieve better muscle gains, fat loss and added muscle definition.

A lot of people tend to focus their arms training on getting either big biceps or triceps with little thought about recruiting all three muscle regions with significant focus.

Your triceps should be your main concern of the three because it is the largest muscle group on your arms that people will definitely notice. Next is your biceps since they assist the triceps with pressing movements.

The biceps are also important because this is a major muscle being used during pulling motions. Plus big biceps can always be seen in short sleeves.

Lastly are your forearms because they make up the lower half of your arms. Having strong forearms means that you will have a better grip during movements such as the deadlift and bent over rows.

The only exception would be if one area were not growing fast enough and needs to catch up.

Mix Up Your Arms Training Exercises

There are a lot of exercises that target some part of your arms with primary muscle recruitment. But, people tend to focus on the basic barbell curl and dumbbell overhead extensions.

Both are effective exercises, but you need a mix of exercises to bypass training adaptation and start getting the gains that you seek.

This revolves around the movements you choose and also has to do with the equipment you use.

The movements you choose as part of your massive arm workout should be targeting specific muscle heads with minor contractions to the others, or movements that target all the muscle heads.

For example, the biceps isolation curl with a twist at the point of contraction activates both muscle heads making it a useful exercise to consider. Then you have the cable rope pulldown for triceps recruitment.

Instead of normal pulldowns that go vertically straight, the rope allows the movement to curve outwards activating more than just the triceps long head.

There are two factors to consider when using different equipment. First is the angle you place your body (like standing, sitting or laying at an incline, decline or just flat). Then there is the equipment that holds the weight.

This could be a barbell, ez-bar, dumbbell, rope, cable grip, etc. Single-hand grip equipment works great for deep isolation.

But, when it comes to the use of two hands, most equipment is universal. For example, the barbell curl resembles two hand dumbbell curls.

Feed Your Muscles The Right Nutrients

Strangely people tend to forget that gains are not made unless there is a proper nutrition plan in use. This means you are consuming nutritious ingredients that are intended to support your muscles and their growth.

These nutrients also provide your body with energy for intense training programs like your arm workout for mass. Without these, your muscles will become fatigued and sore very quickly.

Along with that, your muscles would be hurting for a few days afterward.

This happens quite often when not enough protein is being consumed. Of course, protein is one of the main nutrients used for muscle and bone recovery and growth.

Your muscles get tired easily and shutdown in the middle of training if you aren’t also eating sufficient quality complex carbs.

Simply put, you have to eat properly to support your muscles and encourage growth or fat loss. There’s no choice. Still, for some reason, people tend to think eating junk food all day and then lifting is an okay thing to do.

Choose your foods properly and consume enough to support your training program. That’s the best way to make the most of your arms training.

Supersets Make A Big Impact On Arms Training

Supersets are making a big breakthrough in the fitness world even though they technically are not new.

A superset is when you do one exercise for a set and then perform another exercise against an opposing muscle group right after.

For example, you do dumbbell biceps curls and then follow it up right away with either triceps pulldowns or reverse curls. These are different exercises that focus on different muscle groups.

The purpose of this is to boost the intensity of your workout. The more intense your workout is, the better your arms will receive the training.

Supersets are not really intended for your first group exercises. The beginning is better for core lifts such as squats and the bench press. Supersets are better incorporated after the primary lifts in the third or fourth position of your workout program.

For the most part, supersets also are not performed with heavy loads.

Generally, you use moderate loads instead in order to complete enough reps without failing too early. If this technique is new to you, then consider using lighter loads at first to see how well you perform each exercise.

Remember to target all three arm groups by switching out the exercises during supersets as well.

This Is The Your New Arm Workout Routine

What would this info be to you without a proper arm workout routine?

As mentioned, you want to bypass muscle adaptation and use specialized training to your advantage. This means you are targeting your arms more than just once a week with proper rest and recovery to prevent overtraining or injury. These are some much-needed fitness tips.

The steps taken for this type of muscle growth are more advanced.

Your weekly training program will be repeated for four weeks. On Monday, you will do arms training. You will rest from arms training on Tuesday. On Wednesday, you should do compound lifts.

Go back to your arms training on Thursday. Friday is another break from your arm workout routine. Saturdays are more arms training.

Finally, Sunday is a day of rest but not a holiday.

Biceps and triceps muscles are used during these compound lifts, so if you feel this is too much, skip the arms training following it and take a rest instead.

Then on Friday perform your third arms training day and take the weekend off. The choice is yours.

All exercises are to be performed with moderate load settings. This means you should be able to finish every set until the final superset.

If not, stick to the weights chosen and do not increase until you are capable of completing the workout for the day.

Day 1

Exercise Sets Reps

Close Grip Bench Press x5 x8-10

Seated Incline Curl x5 x8-10

Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension x4 x8-10

*Superset: Rest is after both exercises are performed.

Barbell Biceps Curl x4 x8-10

Reverse Curl x4 x8-10

Day 2 Is For Rest

Day 3

Exercise Sets Reps

Barbell Back Squat x5 x8-10

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press x5 x8-10

Normal Deadlift x5 x8-10

Standing Barbell Shoulder Press x5 x8-10

Bulgarian Split Squat x5 x8-10

Abs exercises 1 minute of mixed abs exercises

Day 4

Exercise Sets Reps

Reverse Close Grip Bench Press x5 x8-10

Preacher Curl x5 x8-10

Dumbbell Wrist Twist x4 x8-10 alternating

*Superset

Cable Rope Pulldown x4 x8-10

Cable Rope Curl x4 x8-10

Day 5 Is For Rest

Day 6

Exercise Sets Reps

Seated Barbell Half Curl x5 x8-10

Triceps Cable Pulldown x5 x8-10

Overhead Triceps Cable Rope Extension x4 x8-10

*Superset

Reverse Curl x4 x8-10

Alternating Dumbbell Hammer Curl x4 x8-10

Day 7 Is For Rest

Rest And Recovery Are Important

It is imperative that you allow your muscles the chance to rest and recover. This means you eat plenty of nutritious nutrients to support repair and growth.

Then you also need to stretch to help your muscles repair more efficiently.

Rest literally implies to sleep better. Six to eight hours of sleep are needed for your body to make a nearly complete comeback to start training hard.

The rest days should not have any type of intense training. You can go for a brisk jog if you want, but nothing too intense like sprints or lifting weights.

Conclusion

Do you want big biceps, triceps, and forearms?

Good news! You now have the info you need to get them.

Use the arm workout routine and you’ll get there. You just need to stick to this arms training and bigger arms will be within reach in no time at all.

-By Brian Pankau, CPT