Absolutely 0 Progress in Arms

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I started lifting november last year. Up until new years, so about my first 1.5 months of lifting my arms were really ballooning up increasing size and strength. They were growing the best out of every body part. Now nearly 4 months later, they have made absolutely 0 progress.

My bench is stalled, im not curling any heavier. Arm size has not budged. I have tried training arms once, 3 times a week, drop setting, super setting, doing every sort of set.

I recently started stronglifts 4 weeks ago and I am developing fine, especially my quads they are blowing up with crazy speed, but my arms are remaining the same.

any tips? I am just about ready to give up training arms… Rest of my body is starting to look semi-decent maybe a month or two more and ill look like i acutally lift. My arms though are noodles.

2

Is arm work even part of SL?

3

Your bench may have stalled because you are over-training your arms. Just do the program, and throw in a couple of sets of curls per week if you must. Your arms will catch up, but you need to get overall stronger before that will happen.

4

What are your stats

5

Strong lifts will not improve your arms without a modification. I would add dips after your bench day and chin ups after your ohp day. Try to follow 5x5 with them too. Don’t do anything else extra.

6

guys, He’s 16… weighs like 150, and has been lifting a couple months. His only problem is impatience.

7

Just keep lifting dude. It’s about the journey not the destination.

8

What are your numbers?
You don’t have a lagging bodypart, you are weak overall, try to up your numbers first and then see what you have to improve, just don’t do it after a few months of training

9

Lol my problem isn’t impatience, ive gained 15 kilos so far and all my lifts have gone up enormously and I have put on a lot of size. I am going clothes shopping soon because shorts are becoming tight and t shirts are tight on my back, sometimes on my chest/shoulders. Everything is progressing besides arms which have NOT BUDGED in a solid 4 months. I think I have been patient enough.

My current lifts for SL are 210lb deadlift, 155lb squat, 95lb bench. (6’2, 150lb) When I was training at home for about 4 months (ive been lifting 5 months total, only just joined a gym) I had no squat rack so I had to deadlift + ohp the weight up to my shoulders. So therefore I was squatting light and didn’t make much progress. My squat has gone up 40lb this month and my quads are blowing up, deadlift is progressing good however grip is becoming a problem so I have added static holds to one of my workouts.

Everything is, and has been progressing how it should besides arms. When I row my bis are being hit the most because theyre weak, bench press i rarely even feel a chest burn even though I use a slightly wide grip. Arms are my limiting factor in everything and they just do not want to grow.

Martimoro I don’t know how you can say I don’t have a lagging body part when everything is growing and getting stronger and has been for a while, and one body part has remained the same lmfao. That is the definition of a lagging body part.

10

Hah. Ok bud. Well good luck to you. Maybe since your obviously doing the right things your arms are just fucked then. I say your best bet is to just quit then. Fuckin failproof logic right there bud. Lmfao. Textbook lagging body part my ass.

11

[quote]Massthetics wrote:
Lol my problem isn’t impatience, ive gained 15 kilos so far and all my lifts have gone up enormously and I have put on a lot of size. I am going clothes shopping soon because shorts are becoming tight and t shirts are tight on my back, sometimes on my chest/shoulders. Everything is progressing besides arms which have NOT BUDGED in a solid 4 months. I think I have been patient enough.

My current lifts for SL are 210lb deadlift, 155lb squat, 95lb bench. (6’2, 150lb) When I was training at home for about 4 months (ive been lifting 5 months total, only just joined a gym) I had no squat rack so I had to deadlift + ohp the weight up to my shoulders. So therefore I was squatting light and didn’t make much progress. My squat has gone up 40lb this month and my quads are blowing up, deadlift is progressing good however grip is becoming a problem so I have added static holds to one of my workouts.

Everything is, and has been progressing how it should besides arms. When I row my bis are being hit the most because theyre weak, bench press i rarely even feel a chest burn even though I use a slightly wide grip. Arms are my limiting factor in everything and they just do not want to grow.

Martimoro I don’t know how you can say I don’t have a lagging body part when everything is growing and getting stronger and has been for a while, and one body part has remained the same lmfao. That is the definition of a lagging body part.[/quote]

Dude, look at your lifts. Not trying to be mean, but a lot of your progress is just getting your body used to the movements. A 95 lb bench? That’s why your arms aren’t growing man, even though you’re making progress you aren’t exactly blowing up in the strength department. Be patient, every single person thinks their arms are lagging.

You’re 150 lbs at 6 foot 2, you’re legs and everything is growing because they’ve never ever had anything close to a stimulus like your giving it now. It’s a pretty dramatic stimulus difference for your legs between doing something like running for sports/day to day living and consistently adding resistance on movements like a squat and deadlift.

Keep pushing, keep eating. You’re on the right track. Keep doing SOME arm work, they will grow. You’re too early in the game to be able to say you have a lagging bodypart, especially at your strength levels.

12

Stop doing curls, try only using heavy weighted chinups for your biceps. As for triceps use only bench and dips. You’ll never see a really big guy who can do tons of chinups and dips who doesn’t have big arms.

13

[quote]Massthetics wrote:
My current lifts for SL are 210lb deadlift, 155lb squat, 95lb bench. (6’2, 150lb) When I was training at home for about 4 months (ive been lifting 5 months total, only just joined a gym) I had no squat rack so I had to deadlift + ohp the weight up to my shoulders. So therefore I was squatting light and didn’t make much progress. My squat has gone up 40lb this month and my quads are blowing up, deadlift is progressing good however grip is becoming a problem so I have added static holds to one of my workouts.
[/quote]

Given this, all your gains in sizes merely means that you looked like a stick previously.

Do some curls and tricep work if you want. But, ffs, your bench stalled at 95lb. Something is wrong. Maybe you’re not eating enough, maybe you have dreadful bench form.

Get to about 200lb and double the numbers on each of your lifts before you complain about how your arms never grow.

14

I still think this kids a troll lol

15

thanks for the answers

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Massthetics wrote:
My current lifts for SL are 210lb deadlift, 155lb squat, 95lb bench. (6’2, 150lb) When I was training at home for about 4 months (ive been lifting 5 months total, only just joined a gym) I had no squat rack so I had to deadlift + ohp the weight up to my shoulders. So therefore I was squatting light and didn’t make much progress. My squat has gone up 40lb this month and my quads are blowing up, deadlift is progressing good however grip is becoming a problem so I have added static holds to one of my workouts.
[/quote]

Given this, all your gains in sizes merely means that you looked like a stick previously.

Do some curls and tricep work if you want. But, ffs, your bench stalled at 95lb. Something is wrong. Maybe you’re not eating enough, maybe you have dreadful bench form.

Get to about 200lb and double the numbers on each of your lifts before you complain about how your arms never grow.[/quote]
Yeah that makes sense, my frustration is im making great noob gains everywhere but my arms. stalling at 95lb is pathetic. My form is good, I used to have pretty average form leave my feet wherever, grip the bar, elbows pointing out to the side and bench. I read a few articles and watched a few videos I now do what I think is more powerlifting style form, its supposed to be safer for my shoulders and should give me more power. (my bench went up 5lb just by changing form)

Feet slightly tucked under the bench, feet flat, legs tensed, core tensed, slight curve in lower back (only as far as the natural curve you always have when standing, i dont exaggerate it), tensed lats, grip the shit out of the bar, pretend like im trying to bend it, elbows slightly tucked in. This form feels a lot more solid, supposed to be better for my rotator cuffs and I lift slightly heavier.

So bottom line what do you think I should do? stick with stronglifts how it is or add some dips and chin ups?

16

[quote]Massthetics wrote:
I have tried training arms once, 3 times a week, drop setting, super setting, doing every sort of set.[/quote]

Well maybe this is your problem.

Don’t force things. I only use techniques to increase intensity very conservatively, even on small muscles like bis and tris. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re pressing heavy every training day, you can certainly train your tris too much with isolation work with techniques to increase intensity, especially if you haven’t built up a good work capacity yet.

How’s everything else in your recovery protocol going? Sleeping enough?

There’s no reason why you should be stuck at a 95lb bench. Deload for a week, focus on recovery, then go back and do the program as written (though I don’t see why you couldn’t add some light curls once or twice a week).

Finally, I’m not convinced that you’re feeling the rows in your biceps because your bis are weak. More likely, you don’t know how to contract your lats properly. This happened to me for the first 8 months or so of my training. I would do chins or rows and feel my biceps burn (but not my lats). Biceps are a body part that is naturally strong and responds very well to training for me, so weakness was not the case. I found that using cues that help me to think of pulling my elbow to my side (rather than thinking of pulling the weight with my arms) and spending a few months with stricter form made a big difference.

17

My recovery is alright I guess. I eat a lot and im gaining weight steadily nothing wrong with that. Because of school I get about 6-8 hours of sleep per night on school nights which is pretty pathetic. Normally on the holidays, naturally, I would be hitting 10-11. When friday night comes I go to bed, sleep in and get about 15 hours sleep. This normally makes up for it and my DOMs feel a million times better (i hardly get doms though), im not so mentally fatigued and my mind stops being so clustered. I wake up earlyish on sundays and then its back to the normal routine. I definitely would be gaining more if I was getting more sleep, but I get as much as I can and nothing really I can do about it.

I will definitely deload on the bench press i started the program off a bit too heavy anyway.

With rows, I feel my lats contract nicely but my biceps just seem like a weak point because they burn first and the strength between bis and lats doesn’t seem proportionate. However I haven’t hit a wall yet on rows so far on stronglifts, its still going up so wish me luck on this. Slightly related, I never really feel the burn in my lats when doing pull downs or pull ups. For me personally, any type of row is by far the BEST exercise for my lats I have always been doing some form of rows. Is that just how it is, or do I not do pull ups properly…?

18

Lift more often. You won’t over-train from training more than 3x a week, and the barbell lifts are a skill. Skills get better as you train them. Keep the intensity and volume each session at a reasonable level, but lift as frequently as you can.

Keep it simple for now. Just the basic barbell lifts with some form of row and chin/pull-up and/or lat pull-downs. Do volume-based assistance work for arms. Just make sure they don’t interfere with your barbell lifts.

Run your ass off at least 3x a week. Do sprints. Hill runs. Do long runs once or twice a week. You’re young. You can handle it, and the more shit you do at your age the better you’ll be in the future when you become an adult.

In other words, be very active. You’re currently at the time where the more activity and stimulus you give your body, the better it’ll respond and develop your body in a manner that will last you until you die. Don’t miss this chance to design a body that will be strong and capable; you won’t get another in the future. Get chubby if you have to, just be strong and incredibly active. Chubby and incredibly strong/active is better than skinny and nothing, or fat and nothing.

Eat at least 3k calories a day. 3.5k+ whenever you train. Calculate the shit and actually eat that much, don’t guess. It’s very easy to either overestimate or underestimate the amount you eat, depending on how much you’re used to eating. If you were a former fatty like me, then eating 3k calories is child-play. If you are a borderline anorexic like a college friend of mine, then eating anymore than 1.3k calories will seem absurd. Keep in mind that hunger is merely dependent on your brain. It has no real bearing on how much you actually need to eat. That’s why it’s so vitally important that you calculate and stick to it.

Eat 200g+ protein a day.

Do everything consistently and challenge yourself (to a reasonable level mind you, but challenge yourself) each work-out. Come back in a year.

19

[quote]Massthetics wrote:
With rows, I feel my lats contract nicely but my biceps just seem like a weak point because they burn first and the strength between bis and lats doesn’t seem proportionate. However I haven’t hit a wall yet on rows so far on stronglifts, its still going up so wish me luck on this. Slightly related, I never really feel the burn in my lats when doing pull downs or pull ups. For me personally, any type of row is by far the BEST exercise for my lats I have always been doing some form of rows. Is that just how it is, or do I not do pull ups properly…?[/quote]

Try DB rows. Let your lats extend fully and just focus on contracting nothing but your lats.

Try this. Imagine doing a pullup. Straighten your arms up completely. Now, pull your arms down with nothing but your lats. Do this often and focus on that whenever you’re actually doing pull-ups.

20

I would do running and sprinting that was my sport before going to the gym, sprinting for school and endurance cycling on the week ends. I gave it up though because it wasn’t getting me the body i wanted and i was too skinny like 125lb even though I was fit. I would still do it now alongside gym but the simple fact is i’m not getting enough rest because my sleep is restricted as a result of school.

I would if i could but i know how my body is coping with stronglifts and im pretty confident I would be overdoing it. I definitely can handle it, if i was actually getting a chance to recover lol. Though on tuesdays I go ice skating and ive been doing it for years so I go really fast and its a solid work out. sundays I go for a walk / jog because I can’t stand to sit around all day. I could be more active but im not exactly a couch potato.

I eat about 4000 calories a day. If I really tried i could get 4300 a day but that would be a lot of effort i’d be stuffing myself every opportunity I get 4000 calories isn’t too hard to maintain. I get that most days sometimes on a non workout day (such as weekend where i have 3 consecutive days off) it would drop to 3500-3600. I am gaining at a decent pace and consistently. Some days such as friday nights where I binge i can get up to 4800-5000 calories but thats only occasional.

I will try the db rows and that technique for pull ups, thanks.