Arms Will NOT Grow

[quote]yalb93 wrote:
here[/quote]

Dude, just by looking at your body I can see the problem. Maybe you ate more, but your training is crap. Accept it, deal with it, and improve it. If you keep thinking you’re training hard, you will not get anywhere. Where has that taken you? Other from that:

-Eat every 2 hours, have protein, carbs and fats in every single meal. Have like 3 cheat meals a week.
-Do no more than 12 sets per bodypart. This is not to avoid overtraining, but try to work the muscle to it’s fullest with those sets.
-Increase strength while you increase in weight. Don’t complain about getting fat over a 30 pound gain if your lifts haven’t gone up SUBSTANTIALLY.
-Set goals for your arms and just go through them. You haven’t done everything, that is bullshit. Again, if you think like that… you never have done everything until you get to your final goal.

[quote]MEYMZ wrote:

[quote]yalb93 wrote:
here[/quote]

Dude, just by looking at your body I can see the problem. Maybe you ate more, but your training is crap. Accept it, deal with it, and improve it. If you keep thinking you’re training hard, you will not get anywhere. Where has that taken you? Other from that:

-Eat every 2 hours, have protein, carbs and fats in every single meal. Have like 3 cheat meals a week.
-Do no more than 12 sets per bodypart. This is not to avoid overtraining, but try to work the muscle to it’s fullest with those sets.
-Increase strength while you increase in weight. Don’t complain about getting fat over a 30 pound gain if your lifts haven’t gone up SUBSTANTIALLY.
-Set goals for your arms and just go through them. You haven’t done everything, that is bullshit. Again, if you think like that… you never have done everything until you get to your final goal.[/quote]

Exactly what I was getting at on page 2.

Also, as regards your arm training, you claim to be lifting more than what many lift with bigger arms - control the load. Don’t just swing it up with your bodyweight and drop it…

You aren’t trying to gain strength just for the sake of gaining strength; strength gains should be as a result of more muscle (i.e. strength that you’ve “owned”/controlled).

Gaining more muscle is a result of stimulus and eating. Don’t try to short-change the two by either not eating enough, or swinging weights and calling that a set.

At the same time, don’t get obsessed with form and time under tension either, simply reach a max set with good form and increase the load. If you’re having to swing excessively just to add another 5lbs to the bar; you’re not eating enough.

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:

[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:
All forearms, baby![/quote]

Well, you could try slowing the negatives down to something less than the speed of light for once haha

We’ll see you with nice 20’s yet…

[/quote]

Lol @ you referencing my vids from like 2 years ago.

My arm training has changed DRAMATICALLY, and there is definitely a focus on the negatives and squeezes these days. 135lb barbell curls with a 3-second negatives FTW. Thank you john meadows!

Edit

That Dave Tate story is some funny shit.

I feel full just reading it…not to say i wouldnt try it!

try stretching between sets. def. hit those triceps hard. close-grips bench press & weighted dips work great for my triceps

I agree with MEYMZ. Getting back in the gym after a layoff has reminded me of just how few people really train hard when they’re there. I had never really paid much attention to those around me while in the gym, but now that I’ve looked around, people will be there, train diligently, and never make any sort of progress. Beyond diet and such, your body doesn’t look like one that is put through hell on at least a semi-regular basis. You should leave your workout looking like you just got hit with a Mack truck.

Cool story, Modok. Alas, I’ve gained 2 lbs of fat just by READING it. You owe me 2 packs of HOT-ROX.

Dude, I was stronger than you are now when I started lifting weights. You just need to get much stronger, all around. Size will follow.

[quote]MODOK wrote:
This is what you need to do, compliments of Dave Tate.

There was a time at the Old Westside gym where I couldn’t gain weight to save my f-g life.

There was this dude who trained there who could just put on weight like f-g magic. He’d go from 198 to 308 and then to 275 and back down to 198. And he was never fat. It was amazing.

I finally asked him one day how he did it.

“You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight? Come outside and I’ll fill you in.”

Now remember, we’re at Westside Barbell. And this guy wants to go outside to talk so no one else can hear. Think about that for a minute. What the hell is he going to tell me? This must be some serious s-t if we have to go outside, I thought.

So we get outside and he starts talking.

“For breakfast you need to eat four of those breakfast sandwiches from McDonalds. I don’t care which ones you get, but make sure to get four. Order four hash browns, too. Now grab two packs of mayonnaise and put them on the hash browns and then slip them into the sandwiches. Squish that s-t down and eat. That’s your breakfast.”

At this point I’m thinking this guy is nuts. But he’s completely serious.

“For lunch you’re gonna eat Chinese food. Now I don’t want you eating that crappy stuff. You wanna get the stuff with MSG. None of that non-MSG BS. I don’t care what you eat but you have to sit down and eat for at least 45 minutes straight. You can’t let go of the fork. Eat until your eyes swell up and become slits and you start to look like the woman behind the counter.”

“For dinner you’re gonna order an extra-large pizza with everything on it. Literally everything. If you don’t like sardines, don’t put 'em on, but anything else that you like you have to load it on there. After you pay the delivery guy, I want you to take the pie to your coffee table, open that f-kr up, and grab a bottle of oil. It can be olive oil, canola oil, whatever. Anything but motor oil. And I want you to pour that s-t over the pie until half of the bottle is gone. Just soak the s-t out of it.”

“Now before you lay into it, I want you to sit on your couch and just stare at that f-kr. I want you to understand that that pizza right there is keeping you from your goals.”

This guy is in a zen-like state when he’s talking about this.

“Now you’re on the clock,” he continues. "After 20 minutes your brain is going to tell you you’re full. Don’t listen to that s-t. You have to try and eat as much of the pizza as you can before that 20-minute mark. Double up pieces if you have to. I’m telling you now, you’re going to get three or four pieces in and you’re gonna want to quit. You f-g can’t quit. You have to sit on that couch until every piece is done.

And if you can’t finish it, don’t you ever come back to me and tell me you can’t gain weight. 'Cause I’m gonna tell you that you don’t give a f-k about getting bigger and you don’t care how much you lift!"

Did I do it? Hell yeah. Started the next day and did it for two months. Went from 260 pounds to 297 pounds. And I didn’t get much fatter. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, though.[/quote]

I always wondered what that guy did to lose that weight, i wonder if it was as extreme as his mass diet

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
As has been mentioned, a heavy set for arms, followed by a higher rep/set. Nothing special. I remember once wondering why my arms weren’t growing as much as I’d like, after doing “hundreds” of drop sets/intensifiers/high frequency…realised that they just needed enough stimulus to grow.

[quote]yalb93 wrote:
The fact is I did gain a lot of fat around my mid section when I put on 40 pounds. Don’t want a repeat.
[/quote]

Good luck with that mentality. You’ll never get anywhere near impressive gains worrying about gains being as lean as possible.

You NEED an anabolic environment for growth; this WON’T happen if you just try to push past the barrier a “little bit” by eating “just enough”. You need to “put the switch on fully”. It’s like hoping for a tropical plant to grow in Scotland, it just won’t happen optimally.

If anything, fat control should be done periodically…not WHILE gaining. In other words, eat plenty for gains, then trim/recomp when needed - don’t try to make gains as lean as possible (big and lean at the same time).[/quote]

What has ever grown optimally in Scotland?

OP - I have recently switched from one session per week to two sessions, purely dedicated to arms. Treat them as your primary target for the next sixth months, you might just be pleased with the results.

[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
What has ever grown optimally in Scotland?
[/quote]

Frost bite + people with depression

[quote]xilinx wrote:
Cool story, Modok. Alas, I’ve gained 2 lbs of fat just by READING it. You owe me 2 packs of HOT-ROX.[/quote]

That’s just one normal day in the diary of my diet

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]xilinx wrote:
Cool story, Modok. Alas, I’ve gained 2 lbs of fat just by READING it. You owe me 2 packs of HOT-ROX.[/quote]

That’s just one normal day in the diary of my diet[/quote]

I ate like that in college…and some time afterwards.

I think most beginners underestimate the sheer time it takes to build quality tissue. It doesn’t happen over night, which is why most people who start lifting end up quitting within 6 months. It’s easy to get discouraged but only you know whether or not you are putting forth maximum effort, in and out of the gym. Before we blame his genetics (which yes he isn’t starting with a super athletic frame) the op needs to spend a lot more time lifting and eating properly. Consistent lifting and consistent eating will lead to gains. If this was easy then you would see a lot more muscular people walking around. How about you write down every single thing you eat for one week and detail your workouts so we can see if you are on the right page. Also, why are you worried about the size of your arms if you want to powerlift?

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]xilinx wrote:
Cool story, Modok. Alas, I’ve gained 2 lbs of fat just by READING it. You owe me 2 packs of HOT-ROX.[/quote]

That’s just one normal day in the diary of my diet[/quote]

I ate like that in college…and some time afterwards.[/quote]

Sigh. Lucky Bastards.

[quote]xilinx wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]xilinx wrote:
Cool story, Modok. Alas, I’ve gained 2 lbs of fat just by READING it. You owe me 2 packs of HOT-ROX.[/quote]

That’s just one normal day in the diary of my diet[/quote]

I ate like that in college…and some time afterwards.[/quote]

Sigh. Lucky Bastards. [/quote]

To tell the truth, if you have decent genetics, started off skinny and have a fast metabolism, how else are you going to get way bigger than you are? For small changes in how you look, yeah, stay clean with how you eat.

If your goal is to go from “Urkle” to looking like a lineman for a pro football team only with less body fat, I just don’t see that happening taking the route I see touted here often.

Am I over training my biceps by working them twice a week. One day a high rep circuit after Lats and another heavy weight low rep day?

[quote]Jonathan4 wrote:
Am I over training my biceps by working them twice a week. One day a high rep circuit after Lats and another heavy weight low rep day?[/quote]

Again. Over training is not the amount of work you are doing. It’s a physiological state where your fatigue levels are high for more prolonged than usual periods of time. You still don’t know if you’re over training, because you haven’t figured out if your fatigue caused by that workload surpasses your recovery capabilities.

You don’t need to do high rep circuits right now, I’d progress on the heavy weights first. I would take the high rep session away, and even do another heavy session.

Edit: don’t write “lol”, please.

Ha I didnt use “lol” did I? And thanks for the advise!

[quote]Jonathan4 wrote:
Ha I didnt use “lol” did I? And thanks for the advise![/quote]

no you didn’t man that’s cool.