Your Ticket to the GunShow (Big Arms Routine)

Every red-blooded man with hair on his balls wants bigger, more muscular arms. It’s in our DNA. This is now one of my big goals for 2014… I plan on adding at least one inch to each arm within THREE months!

How the heck do I plan on doing this? Well, the first step to growing bigger arms is to focus on gaining some quality muscle mass over your entire frame, by following a solid hypertrophy / muscle-building program, such as my Basic Anabolic Hypertrophy Training (BAHT) program and nutrition plan.  I don’t recommend focusing on smaller muscle group too much until you have a decent base to build from.  I don’t suggest trying to add inches to your arms during a “cutting phase”, or while following a caloric deficit. You need to be ready to gain some weight.

Check out my BAHT blog post HERE: Basic Anabolic Hypertrophy Training

Once you’ve gained a few pounds of overall muscle on your frame, then you can start focusing on specialized arm training. Let’s look at a few ways to emphasize arms and trigger greater growth:

1.    Focus on big compound movements for your upper body workout, such as chin ups and dips, but if you want to specialize in arm development you need to include more isolation exercises for biceps and triceps as well. Use the BAHT program as your basic training template and just include more arm isolation work.

2.    Train arms with higher frequency. Hitting arms two or three times per week will lead to faster gains. Don’t stress about that over-training bullshit… you’re only doing this for a few weeks. Again, follow my BAHT routine, but hit arms at the end of each upper body workout, plus a third “arms only” day if you can handle it.

3.    When possible, train arms alone; separate from the rest of your upper body workout. For example, rather than always training arms at the end of your upper body workout, hit them a few hours later that same day (if 2-a-day workouts are possible) or the following day. This will allow you to use more weight and attack your arms while they are fresh.

4.    Train arms with less volume (but high intensity)! Small muscles require less volume, and recover faster (which allows for more frequent sessions). Smaller muscles have less overall muscle fibre. Therefore it takes LESS overall training to fatigue these muscles and exhaust glycogen stores.

5.    Train biceps and triceps in their weakest positions, at each extreme range of motion (ie: when the muscle is fully shortened or lengthened). Arms get a lot of work in the mid-range where they are strongest. To stimulate new growth, introduce a new stimulus by targeting different positions in the strength curve. You’ll see what I mean when you check out the exercise selections below.

6.    Thick bar training can increase muscle activation and blow up your forearms. Try adding Fat Gripz or other thick bar training accessories to your arm workouts and see what happens. Go to www.fatgripz.com to check these things out… they’re simple but they work.

In addition to the above training tips, you will still be following the same BAHT program template and training principles as described in the BAHT program. But instead of doing the shoulder isolation work at the end of Day 4, you’d replace it another bicep / triceps superset. After a few weeks, once you get used to the higher frequency of training arms twice per week, progress to adding a third “Arms Only” workout.

Here’s what each of these three arm isolation workouts would look like:

Workout 1 – Fully Lengthened Positions:

As mentioned in Tip #5 above, we want to train our biceps and triceps at both extreme ranges of motion. This workout will focus on training biceps and triceps in a fully lengthened (stretch) position, using exercises such as incline dumbbell curls and seated overhead tricep extensions.

Workout 2 – Fully Shortened Positions:

Then at your next arm workout you will train biceps and triceps in a fully flexed position. I like to use a longer rope or cable for the triceps pushdowns so that I can extend further behind me with each rep to contract the triceps in the fully shortened position. (Keep in mind that the triceps also extend at the shoulder as well as at the elbow). For the bicep exercise I recommend cable curls reaching back behind your head and really squeezing the biceps (with your elbows pointing up) to hit that full contraction in the shortened position. (Remember the bicep also contracts at the shoulder joint). Here’s an example using a lat pulldown machine:

Workout 3 – Mid Range Positions:

Training the extreme opposite ranges with the above exercises can be quite challenging, so you may need to start off using lighter weight in order to reach those fully stretched and shortened positions. That’s why this 3rd “arm only day” is important. Now you get to use the good old fashioned, heavy-ass mid-range exercises like standing bar curls and lying headcavers (or close grip press). This is an Extra Arms Only Day that you will add in after a few weeks of hitting arms twice per week. You’ll need to find time to do this workout on its own, in addition to the regular 4 Day BAHT Split.

UPDATE:

I successfully added over an inch to each arm in about TWO MONTHS on this program! Now I did gain some body weight as well, but these are muscular measurements, which is evidenced in my final video where I take my cold pre-workout measurements and compare them to my pumped post-workout arm circumference. You can watch the entire video tutorial series below, which covers Fat Gripz training, Supra-Maximal Eccentric Training, Occlusion Training, and more!

To download a free copy of my Basic Anabolic Hypertrophy Training E-Book, including the added Arm Specialization Program, check out:

=>MY FREE HYPERTROPHY PROGRAM

This e-book includes full program description, exercise illustrations, workout tracking charts, program outline cards, nutritional guidelines, and more. And it’s free to all of my readers! Check it out and give the program a try. I’d love to get your feedback as well so come back and post a comment.

Time to get jacked!

Josh

Click HERE to grab your free copy and GET BIG!