Avoiding Muscle Loss on the Arms

MaxPower99 · July 7, 2009, 9:24pm

Disclaimer : I do direct arm work

That being said I see some validity in the smaller guys being told to avoid it and focus on the big lifts. I even tell this to some of my friends because unless they are ridiculed to embarrassment there is no way in hell they are going to squat do some heavy rows. The noob wants big arms. The noob will walk into the gym and workout bis, tris and chest for an hour and leave. Doing rows and pullups along with a full body workout plan will do more good then doing ONLY curls when dealing with this type of person (and we know there are lots of them). The ‘no direct arm work’ is a helpful white lie to help the noob concentrate on the other 90% of their body.

countingbeans · July 7, 2009, 9:47pm

[quote]MaxPower99 wrote:
Disclaimer : I do direct arm work

That being said I see some validity in the smaller guys being told to avoid it and focus on the big lifts. I even tell this to some of my friends because unless they are ridiculed to embarrassment there is no way in hell they are going to squat do some heavy rows. The noob wants big arms. The noob will walk into the gym and workout bis, tris and chest for an hour and leave. Doing rows and pullups along with a full body workout plan will do more good then doing ONLY curls when dealing with this type of person (and we know there are lots of them). The ‘no direct arm work’ is a helpful white lie to help the noob concentrate on the other 90% of their body. [/quote]

Fuck that. If someone doesn’t want to train a particular way, it is their choice. Should “noobs” do the big gawg movements? Yes. Should people drop expectations of intelligence and determination to “save” people from big arms? NO!

Blankly telling people to NOT curl because they are for “fags & bros” is the gayest thing I have ever seen, and that shit is everywhere. Seems all the small people advocate it like their lives depend on others not curling.

If someone doesn’t row it’s a problem with the trainee not the curl bar. If someone doesn’t work legs, it’s a problem with the program and trainee not fucking curls.

If someone doesn’t want to work their legs, fuck em, it’s not you and unless they ask for you help why do you give a shit if some dude curls and benches 3 times a week? Is it ruining your day? Is he paying you for training advice?

God damn it, at least he won’t have 15 inch arms at 220 looking a fool.

rasturai · July 7, 2009, 9:54pm

Prof…what do you think about the idea that some people CAN have quite big arms but don’t want to?
I say this cause…well for MOST of my training (excluding right now cause of the BBB program) I have not done any direct arm work…I didn’t even think of “arm” work I only thought of getting my numbers stronger in bench, row, squat, deadlift etc. I only categorized my workouts from that.
From all this though I got my right arm up to 16.5", left arm is less…but I also got my elbow broken a while back in training fighting.

Now that I do some DIRECT arm work I cna already see my arm getting bigger/fuller. At the same time for boxing it’s not particularly good to hold a lot of mass in the biceps for speed. BUT do you think someone like myself could build my arms to something like 18" with a full on blast direct arm work…or is this something impossible to predict? I’ve always had good shaped arms and such…you can check my profile for pics…thanks!

rasturai · July 7, 2009, 9:55pm

Oh and can’t believe I saw FightinIrish in the bodybuilding forum haha…whats goin on with u Irish?

On another side note…those arms in my pic are from not doing much/if any direct arm work…

red04 · July 7, 2009, 10:07pm

I dunno, I’d say dieting without losing muscle is pretty fucking hard. Why does there have to be some argument about why/how one is harder than the other? You can’t just break it down to “dieting is just not eating” or “bulking is just eating more” and we all know that, because that totally downplays the psychological impacts of making it to the gym under huge caloric deficits and carb depltetion to lift heavy to prevent muscle loss; or eating a big fucking meal when you aren’t hungry at all to make sure you hit your caloric excess and protein requirements.

DoubleDuce · July 7, 2009, 10:12pm

Just to throw in my hat:

I think saying pressing and pulling isnâ??t â??directâ?? arm work is like saying squats donâ??t â??directlyâ?? work your legs. The muscle contracts and relaxes under load, how is that not direct work.

I personally do very little â??directâ?? (read isolation) work for my arms. My arms have grown fine. That being said, they would almost certainly be bigger if I focused on them more with isolation movements, but they have not been my focus in any recent years.

I think that in terms of body building the isolation movements are very beneficial in terms of being able to measure, track, and control growth and balance of more individual muscle groups.

EX: If your bench goes up, did your chest or your triâ??s get stronger? Could be either. If you are serious about lifting for the purposes of building an aesthetic physic, thatâ??s not good.

For beginning lifters who donâ??t really know what they are doing, adding control parameters (options) can be more bad than good. They arenâ??t developed enough to know what their work balance for muscle groups should be and, in my experience, tend to do what they think they are good at in addition to what is easier, rather than what they NEED to work on. So I see merit in getting a beginner to stick to, at least predominantly, compound movements.

Last, about the gaining vs. cutting:

It has always been easier for me to lose weight. I generally have to force feed myself to gain. I dropped from 233 to 226 from 5/7/09 to 5/18/09 essentially through moderate portion and carb control (then down to 218 on the 18th by clearing my digestive track and dehydrating for a PLing meet).

I know the weight drops faster on the earlier stages of a cut, but that was 7 pounds in less than 2 weeks. A more appropriate cut Iâ??d be eating more and losing a lot slower. I didnâ??t really find it that hard. No cardio, and only one moderate weightlifting workout in the last 7 days (this was the week leading up to the meet).

Flame away.

hawaiilifterMike · July 7, 2009, 10:15pm

I was just trying to convey (albeit very poorly) getting ripped to shreds / cut is not as easy as most people keep saying it is, at least not for me. I am sure all of you other posters were once or now are currently ripped like Stu and Hussayn got for their respective competitions.

science · July 7, 2009, 6:49pm

The question was regarding cutting and loosing size,not regarding arm training.

So to solve your problem:

If you really feel to fat,then trimm down SLOWLY.Take your time boy.take 5/kcal per kilo as a minus per day and start with that.
If you slowly loose your fat,you will NOT loose any muscle and even get some more if done the right way.
If you really take your time u donÂ´t even have to change your training because your body and metabolism gets slowly used to the new calorie count.
The zig zag diet is the place to start for you:

Some more on arm,target training:
Why it has to be such a long thread about such an old theme.jeeez thats boring.

Simply put: If your arms or chest or delts are growing enough on compounds cause of genetics,length of limbs whatever-fine then leave it there.

If they are not growing or inproportional,then simply focus on them more with specific exercises.And if you have more groups to specialize,do them from cycle to cycle,not all in one.

Good luck.

markdp · July 8, 2009, 12:03am

[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
HolyMacaroni wrote:
i also have tried my hand at ‘cutting up’

it’s fucking hard. i think maybe i got a tad leaner than i did in this picture, and that was about it. haven’t tried it since.

IMO, it is MUCH harder to get ripped and cut up, than it is to get big and strong.

i’m with you on that one. i tried getting ‘ripped’ before too. fuck my life what a fail.

maybe next time i’ll have better results given i have a better head on my shoulder now in regards to dieting and training whilst dieting.[/quote]

Ya, I dunno. I’d like to see some pictures of these people (looking lean) who are saying cutting is way easier. I will admit, bulking takes dedication and working out hard in the long run, but in the short run dieting is a bitch. I used to be a chubby bastard, so I’m sure that figures into it, but it sucks not being able to be full all of the time. Then again, I could probably eat all day long and still have an appetite.

SSC · July 8, 2009, 12:24am

[quote]markdp wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
HolyMacaroni wrote:
i also have tried my hand at ‘cutting up’

it’s fucking hard. i think maybe i got a tad leaner than i did in this picture, and that was about it. haven’t tried it since.

IMO, it is MUCH harder to get ripped and cut up, than it is to get big and strong.

i’m with you on that one. i tried getting ‘ripped’ before too. fuck my life what a fail.

maybe next time i’ll have better results given i have a better head on my shoulder now in regards to dieting and training whilst dieting.

Ya, I dunno. I’d like to see some pictures of these people (looking lean) who are saying cutting is way easier. I will admit, bulking takes dedication and working out hard in the long run, but in the short run dieting is a bitch. I used to be a chubby bastard, so I’m sure that figures into it, but it sucks not being able to be full all of the time. Then again, I could probably eat all day long and still have an appetite.[/quote]

The issue isn’t if cutting is easy or not. We have two camps in this thread, from what I gather.

One group that’s talking about actual bodybuilding cutting, the act of getting to very low body fat percentage, with minimal (if any) muscle loss.

Then there’s another group that’s just saying “dieting” is easier than bulking. Well no shit. I can lose thirty lbs in a month or less if I REALLY wanted to. Some people aren’t seeing ‘the bigger picture’ here.

hardcoreraymond · July 8, 2009, 12:43am

[quote]Professor X wrote:
dropshot001 wrote:
i would try to up my rowing and pressing movements ad those will be the exercises that put the most “pressure” on the bis and tris (and shoulders)

If people are still doing BACK MOVEMENTS for FUCKING BICEPS, then they need to back away from the computer and find a real gym. I trained back today…IN ORDER TO GET A BIGGER STRONGER BACK. When I get ready to get bigger and stronger biceps, I WILL TRAIN MY BICEPS directly.

I would really love to see pics of the arm development of those who recommend people avoid it.[/quote]

Hahaha are people still taking that shitty hype? When i train my back I hardly use my biceps, I try to have a total back squeeze at the top of every rep.

Is that so hard to grasp for these people? This is the third or fourth thread where some jackass has told someone to use back movements as bicep builders. Who started that shit anyway?

Someone give me a link to that article so I can read the nonsense myself.

hardcoreraymond · July 8, 2009, 12:46am

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Professor X wrote:
forlife wrote:
Try a very modest cut and ensure that your lifts don’t suffer, especially curls, dips, etc. If you are able to at least maintain the same lifts for a couple of weeks, cut a little deeper. What you don’t want to do is immediately jump into a deep cut for months and watch your hard earned gains melt away.

No, he shouldn’t be cutting this often at all. He is running in circles because as soon as he gains some size, he diets right back down and loses it. Most of these people need to just realize that it is going to take YEARS to build up some solid size on their bodies so dieting every few months makes no sense.

He needs to build size at a pace that allows him to not have to diet down like this as frequently. If he spent 2-3 years working on size, his arms wouldn’t shrink and he would have some real size on him.

yup[/quote]

I’m beginning to see how your post count got so huge Waylander

markdp · July 8, 2009, 1:06am

[quote]SSC wrote:
markdp wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
HolyMacaroni wrote:
i also have tried my hand at ‘cutting up’

it’s fucking hard. i think maybe i got a tad leaner than i did in this picture, and that was about it. haven’t tried it since.

IMO, it is MUCH harder to get ripped and cut up, than it is to get big and strong.

i’m with you on that one. i tried getting ‘ripped’ before too. fuck my life what a fail.

maybe next time i’ll have better results given i have a better head on my shoulder now in regards to dieting and training whilst dieting.

Ya, I dunno. I’d like to see some pictures of these people (looking lean) who are saying cutting is way easier. I will admit, bulking takes dedication and working out hard in the long run, but in the short run dieting is a bitch. I used to be a chubby bastard, so I’m sure that figures into it, but it sucks not being able to be full all of the time. Then again, I could probably eat all day long and still have an appetite.

The issue isn’t if cutting is easy or not. We have two camps in this thread, from what I gather.

One group that’s talking about actual bodybuilding cutting, the act of getting to very low body fat percentage, with minimal (if any) muscle loss.

Then there’s another group that’s just saying “dieting” is easier than bulking. Well no shit. I can lose thirty lbs in a month or less if I REALLY wanted to. Some people aren’t seeing ‘the bigger picture’ here.[/quote]

I was using the terms interchangeably. Sorry about that.

SSC · July 8, 2009, 1:45am

[quote]markdp wrote:
SSC wrote:
markdp wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
HolyMacaroni wrote:
i also have tried my hand at ‘cutting up’