Roth Pond Regatta

Guns, jacks, pipes, hooks, pythons… Regardless of what you call them, the fact remains that most guys want bigger arms. While they are nowhere near as impressive as a huge set of traps, you still do not want to have an extra six inches of space in your shirt sleeves; that is for sure. So the question is how to build massive arms? The answer is not as simple as you might think. If it were easy, you would see heaps of dudes walking around sporting 18 inch arms. But that simply is not the

how to build massive arms

It has been said over and over again that in order to add an inch to your upper arms you need to gain ten pounds of bodyweight. This advice has become gospel and it seems that almost everyone agrees with this these days. Real world proof shows that this is not the case, however. Walk into any public gym on a Monday night at five o’clock and you will see quite a few skinny guys, weighing no more than 170 pounds, who are sporting decent sized arms.

Many of them probably have not gained m

ore than 10 or 15 pounds total since they started conditioning but they all have put more than an inch or two on their arms. This is because localized hypertrophy/muscle growth will take place if enough volume is present, without a large increase in bodyweight. Look at the calves on soccer players or the forearms on mechanics. But this only happens up to a certain point.

So these young guys read in some magazine about how to develop bigger arms and start by doing ten sets of arms two or three d

ays a week. The volume is enough to elicit a growth response and they may even get a good eight weeks out of this and a quick two inches of arm growth in the absence of any significant weight gain. Seems to defy the ten pounds per inch rule, right?

But what happens after that? Where do they go from there? The gains will stop and there will be unquestionably no more arm growth whatsoever unless they make some drastic changes. And that is the drawbacks of high volume training- where can you go when you plateau? Add more volume? At what cost? How much volume can you add? If ten sets isn’t enough should you try twenty? And then thirty? And eventually a hundred?

There’s nowhere to go with this approach. Like I said, it is great for some rapid gains on your arms but isn’t a long term approach. Once you hit a plateau you have no choice but to start lifting heavier weights and eating more. More weight on the bar and more food on your plate is the fastest way to increase the size of any body part. All the fancy supersets, drop sets, tri sets, pre exhaustion, post exhaustion techniques in the world won’t help in the least if you are not doing those two very important things.

Beginners can train the arms three times per week and intermediate and advanced lifters seem to do better training them twice per week. Stick with big exercises like close grip chin ups, barbell curls, hammer curls, towel curls, dumbbell curls, parallel bar dips, close grip benches, and lockouts. You shouldn’t need more than 2-4 sets of biceps and triceps twice per week to achieve optimal growth, providing that you are always increasing your loads and steadily adding more calories to your diet. After a couple of heavy sets finish your arm workout by getting the biggest pump possible with one or two higher rep sets.

For more information on how to build bigger arms and increase the size of every other body part, check out http://www.fastermusclegains.com now.

Train hard,

Jason Ferruggia