[quote]Kill’Em All wrote:
He always is quoted on saying many don’t grow arms cause they don’t train their legs. the body wants to stay in balance
so it would probably be better to continue to train legs and train arms on other days.[/quote]
That doesn’t make any sense. Everywhere you look you’ll see imbalances. If you want to create an imbalance you easily can. If we had one guy only training arms and another guy only training legs, you’d see a huge difference. Also, you can often tell what sport someone plays by their physique. Soccer players, fore example, generally have much more developed legs than upper bodies. Same goes for sprinters and cyclists. Now let’s take a look at boxers., they are totally upper body dominant.
The body does NOT do a very good job of maintaining a balance if your training is imbalanced. An unbalanced routine will lead to unbalanced gains.
And whatever Poliquin said, you don’t need to squat to have big arms. Squatting has nothing to do with big arms. There are many guys walking around with big arms and small legs.
[quote]alownage wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
He always is quoted on saying many don’t grow arms cause they don’t train their legs. the body wants to stay in balance
so it would probably be better to continue to train legs and train arms on other days.
That doesn’t really make any sense and I don’t care who said it. If you stress a body part and feed it, it will grow. Why would the body strive for balance when, due to stress, and imbalance is just what the doctor ordered? The body, and gains in general, are more about adaption than balance.
To the OP: Isolate your arms, a lot. Don’t forget your upper body compounds, but isolate those arms and you will see gains. [/quote]
Ah, I just replied pretty much the same thing. I didn’t see that someone had already taken the words out of my mouth.
But it is as you said, the body’s apparent ‘strive for balance’ will not be able to keep up with an unbalanced training regimen. Muscles adapt in isolation to other muscles. You don’t need big arms to have big legs or vice versa.
[quote]Kill’Em All wrote:
alownage wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
He always is quoted on saying many don’t grow arms cause they don’t train their legs. the body wants to stay in balance
so it would probably be better to continue to train legs and train arms on other days.
That doesn’t really make any sense and I don’t care who said it. If you stress a body part and feed it, it will grow. Why would the body strive for balance when, due to stress, and imbalance is just what the doctor ordered? The body, and gains in general, are more about adaption than balance.
To the OP: Isolate your arms, a lot. Don’t forget your upper body compounds, but isolate those arms and you will see gains.
Have U ever seen anyone with 22 inch arms and chicken legs? Maybe a juice head but not a natural lifter.
their tends to be a corelation to arms size inch gains and body weight 15 lbs per inch.
Your body WIll strive to stay in balance.
The body will plateau quicker on its upper body development when your not training your legs.
Also VICE VERSA upper body and legs. CP once said he was working with speed skaters, and cyclists that couldn’t get their squat to grow anymore, when he began to have them focus on upper body then their squat shot up.
I suggest you send Poliquin and question for next month, to get his specific answer for the body striving in balance.
[/quote]
I don’t know where you’ve been working out, but I see many many many guys with big arms and small legs, among all sorts of other imbalances.
I think a more appropriate example would have been someone with a small chest/shoulders/back with big arms, rather than small legs with big arms.
Someone can have arms that are out of proportion to the rest of their upper body, but chances are their arms aren’t truly huge.
You can’t lift the kind of weights necessary to have 20+ inch arms if the rest of your upper body is lagging. How is someone who weighs 160lbs (or whatever) going to curl 100+lbs with half decent form? The body has to be big enough to counterbalance the load being place on the biceps…
And you aren’t going to develop monster tri’s with pushdowns and kickbacks, you need the big compounds (dips, closegrips, etc) which in turn would lead to bigger chest/shoulders…
At 190lbs my VERY expensive military uniforms were very tight, plus I was 10lbs over my military max weight. At that weight, with a little extra bodyfat I add to get there put me dangerously close to being overweight and over bodyfat according to Marine Corps standards of measuring bodyfat. It’s a simple neck to waist ratio. I measured 13% with calipers, but 21% with the N/W ratio. 22%bf and you’re toast. And the N/W scale is all that matters.
[/quote]
Sounds to me like a neck specialization program might help you out here.
[quote]Kill’Em All wrote:
I rarely see anyone who focuses on arms really get results.
Let me ask you this.
how much do you deadlift?
can you do proper chins with added weight?
can you do deep dips with added weight?
do you ever do powercleans?
Until you have a strong base your arms will not be superb. even then I only train them sparingly.
if your still not convinced
poliquins
winning arms race is superb for arm specialization.
He always is quoted on saying many don’t grow arms cause they don’t train their legs. the body wants to stay in balance
so it would probably be better to continue to train legs and train arms on other days.[/quote]
DL - 360lbs (no straps)
Pull-ups - 6 reps w/35lbs
Dip - 6-7 reps w/70lbs
Bench - got up to 260lbs before having shoulder issues.
Squat - 275lbs then had to ease back because my knees were constantly sore from that and running 2-3 time per week.
Getting old sucks.
A lot of good advice on this thread. Thanks to everyone.