6 Tips for Bigger Arms + Workout

Of all muscle group, arms get the most attention. Yet, most guys’ arm routine isn’t giving them the results they are looking for. Either their arm routine lacks the right combination of exercise moves or they aren’t employing the best arm training techniques. Building big arms requires a combination of key muscle-building factors. Precisely using the right exercise moves, the right loads, volumes, techniques and form will help you get bigger arms in the shortest time possible.

1. Pay more attention to your triceps

The fastest way to building bigger arms is to pay more attention to your triceps rather than always concentrating on your biceps first. Your triceps are actually the bigger muscles in the upper arm and make up about two-thirds of your total arm size. So they should receive about two third of the total time you spend training your arms. So cut the amount of biceps work you do in half while doubling the attention you pay to the muscles in the back of their arms.

• Focus on triceps exercises that isolate the muscle, such as dips, close-grip bench presses and lying triceps extensions. These moves will lead to bigger gains so that you fill out your sleeves in double-quick time.

2. Key on the right moves

Whether you are targeting your biceps or triceps, the right exercise moves largely dictate how fast and strong the muscle grows. That’s because some exercises target the biceps or triceps muscle much better than others for overall size and strength development. For better and faster results, your best bet is the big compound moves that involve the arms. These exercises require multi-joint movement and allow you to lift heavier weights, and so flood the body with muscle-building hormones, meaning you get bigger and stronger.

• Perform these best mass-building movement early in your workout when fatigue levels are low to maximize muscle size and strength.

3. Change your grip

Changing the grip can have a huge impact on the overall size of your arms. Whether it’s biceps or triceps a simple change in grip allow you to place greater emphasis on the different heads of the respective muscle group, forcing these muscles to work far harder for each rep. For example, moving your hands closer together on biceps curl stresses more of the outer part of the biceps and moving them farther apart places more emphasis on the inner part. Similarly, moving your hands closer together on some triceps exercises places more emphasis on the lateral head of the triceps while spacing them more than shoulder-width apart works the long and medial heads.

• Change grip during the workout to place a greater emphasis on the different heads of the respective muscle group and force the muscles to work harder in each rep.

4. Keep your arm muscles under tension

The longer you keep your arm muscles under tension the greater the number of muscle fibers you recruit to complete the lift and the greater the damage you cause to these muscle fibers. Consequently, the bigger and stronger your muscles will become. Generally, the rule is one second up and three seconds down for every rep. Three times as many muscle fibers are activated during the negative phase of the exercise, so lowering the weight slowly and under control will work the biceps and triceps far harder.

• Always be sure the negative motion is slower than the positive when training your arms. By putting more focus on a slower negative, amazing gains can be realized. Also to bring on growth and put height on your muscularity, contract hard at the peak of the movement. This delivers dimension to your muscles and sends a message to the muscle that spurs further growth. So squeeze hard at the top, and release nice and slow.

5. Work to failure

To add size to your arms you need to work your muscles beyond their limits, forcing them to grow back bigger and stronger. Reaching the point of muscle failure is critical in building big arms as it signals the body to produce more critical anabolic hormones and growth factors. The further you can take a set past failure, the higher you can increase levels of these natural muscle-building hormones and the further you can push muscle growth. In each set in your arm workout, you perform enough reps to take you close to failure. If you feel like you have a few more reps in you, then the weight is too light.

• Incorporate techniques such as drop sets, forced reps, negatives, etc. in your arm routine to push your muscles beyond their limits and elicit an elevated response of growth hormone. Also, make sure you squeeze the muscles at the top of every rep to really work them.

6. Use proper form and technique

One the most common roadblock most people face when it comes to building big arms is the lack of correct form or technique. Simply moving the weight from A to B isn’t or cheating your way out of reps isn’t going to give you the results you are after. Each rep should be executed with a full range of motion with the correct form and technique, without that you are not maximizing the benefits of the exercises you are doing.

• Use correct form and technique to target the arm muscles correctly and forget about pounding out reps mechanically. Stimulating the muscle with the correct form and technique is the best way to coax the muscles into getting bigger and stronger and avoid injuries.

The Workout