Build Bigger Arms

Countless people train at the gym on a regular basis but we all see those upper body trainers who have never even done a squat. We definitely all see the guys who do biceps and triceps each and every day and curl in the squat rack!!

I'm not going to lie, I enjoy the pump after a bicep workout but you will see the biggest gains in muscles by doing legs or a big complex compound movement to get the testosterone flowing. I have given a few different training methods and exercises to build bigger and stronger arms below.

1 – 21’s

21’s involve 3 sets of 7 reps done on the same exercise with the same weight straight away.

An example is a barbell bicep curl; start by doing 7 reps from the bottom to the middle of a normal bicep curl, next do 7 reps middle to top and then to finish do 7 full reps to finish, this will hurt so pick a weight that you can perform 10-12 reps with and aim to do 2-3 rounds of this exercise and enjoy the pump it gives you.

Press up 21’s can easily be done also so do 7 push ups bottom to middle, 7 middle to top then 7 full press ups and this will cause this easy basic exercise into a muscle building killer.

2 – Alternate supersetting

Supersets should be a staple of your workouts but alternating these can have great results.

Skull crushers and bicep curls – Using a ex bar perform 10-12 seated skullcrushers then jump up and perform 10-12 bicep curls. This will cause the forearms to burn and also hit the biceps and triceps during both parts of the exercises.

Chin ups and dips – 10 chin ups then straight away perform 10 dips. This will spike the metabolism and burn fat like crazy but also burn out the forearms and hit the whole bicep and triceps

3 – Single arm reps

Another way to spike muscle growth is to preform isolated reps like a single arm bicep curl or an single arm overhead extension. By doing single arm exercise, all the focus can be on controlling the movement and technique as well as causing any muscular imbalances to be levelled out.

Biceps – resting your elbow on a bench perform a curl focusing on your arm getting as straight as possible without locking your elbow and bring it back up to the top then after 10 or so reps swap sides

Triceps – with a dumbbell raised above your head bend at the elbow and dip the dumbbell behind your head and raise back up to the top, focus on keeping the arm steady and avoid over straining the muscle by dipping to low

4 – Drop sets

Drop sets hit the muscles in a way no other training method will. This is because when you fatigue on a weight by gradually dropping it, you can do more and hit other muscle fibres then drop again and again to pull the fibres apart.

These work ideal when using a cable machine as the weight is easily altered without the need for loads of plates being swapped over and leaving a mess in the gym. I have put two examples of exercises that are suited to this:

Rope push down – Perform 3-4 sets of 10 on a heavy weight pushdown, gradually building the weight until you struggle to reach 6-8 reps straight away drop by 2-3 plates and rep out. Once at this point, drop by another 2-3 plates and rep out and repeat until the weight stack is completed and this will rip the muscles apart and fatigue the muscle in a whole new way

Dumbbell curls – Another way to do drop sets is to start on a heavy weight you can do 10-12 reps, 20kg for example, and do 12 reps then grab 18kg and rep out then 16kg and so on.

These training methods and exercise are perfect to build your muscles, build bigger arms and break through the plateaus that you will face and make the usual curls more interesting and lets face it, there’s only so many bicep curls you can do till you get bored.

Give these a go and comment below on which ones from this list you have tried and which one if your favourite.