[quote]thrasher_09 wrote:
lol did I not explain it right?
It was from this article
and he gives an example of two twin brothers lifting. one does deadlifts, one does arm curls for 52 weeks. He explains that at the end, the brother doing deadlifts is going to have bigger arms…
[/quote] Not unless the curl guy fucks up and doesn’t progress in poundage…
On the other hand… Let’s say you go from 135 to 600 in one year on the deadlift (hey, hypothetically)… Firstly, the brachialis do a lot more to keep the elbow together than the biceps there, secondly, there is no range of motion at all, it’s basically a static hold for the arm flexors.
Static holds make you better at static holds and maybe something else, but certainly don’t have you gain inches of arm size or strength throughout the full ROM…
There are many good deadlifters with rather unimpressive bis (even on this site)… However, someone who went from the 25’s to curling the 80’s or more for medium reps or more usually has some rather impressive biceps.
Deadlifts will likely help you with strength/size/density of tendons (some anyway), bones etc… Plus they may help with your trap strength which helps curling strength… But, if you don’t do anything which actually takes the bis through some sort of range of motion under load and progress on it, then adding 400+ lbs to your deadlift isn’t going to do a whole lot for your bis… There is no reason for the body to add much size there at all…
Adding bodyweight happens via food, specific stress + progression + genetics/levers/hormones etc determine how much muscle you gain and where… Deadlifts (and rows etc) all train primarily muscles other than the arm flexors (via actual ROM, sometimes depending on technique, i.e. muscles retracting the scapulae etc)… So if you have lagging arms at 120 lbs, you can possibly just deadlift and squat and bench press and your arms will grow along some (mostly lateral and medial head of the tris probably), but your bis will still be small compared to everything else (and your arms in general) which receives heavy direct stimulation, i.e. lower back, hams, upper back and traps for deads, emphasis depending on technique etc.
The point of direct arm work is specific strengthening of your arm musculature without tiring out everything else (or when everything else is tired), working around injuries perhaps, and making sure you can actually improve those muscles which are natural weak areas for you (let’s say you’re a chest or chest+delt bencher or whatever).
So everything from tricep press variants, extensions, chin-ups with shitty technique (on purpose perhaps, but careful about those tendons) to curl variants can help you there and allow you to increase your arm size relative to everything else… Something all the “add 20 lbs of bw for 1 inch on your arms” people apparently either don’t care about or don’t know how to do. Plus that usually assumes that you give your arms at least some direct attention anyway…
Lots of people do direct arm work and never really get anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that direct arm work is responsible for that. The people are the problem.
[quote]
I think Deadlifts can indirectly build arm size by increasing your overall muscle mass.
[/quote] Honestly… On a bodybuilding forum especially… This doesn’t matter one bit… If I get an inch of bicep growth out of going up from 135 to 700 or so on the deadlift, so what? Everything else will have grown so much more by then… Such “bleed-over” (or whatever you would call it) increases are way too small to truly matter, and besides, practically every serious trainee does plenty of heavy back work anyway, so why even mention this?
Even the strength bleed-over you may get can be more of a curse than a blessing (or won’t change anything at all)… If you can curl the 80’s (or whatever) with 17 inch arms, that’s nice, but… Well… Kind of a waste? Just about no one goes past the 100’s with half-way decent technique (and besides, you have tendons too), so where do you go from there if you want your arms to much more, assuming your tris aren’t lagging or anything? I think bug(eisha, from BOI) was in a somewhat similar situation being able to curl the 70’s or so pretty easily and being very strong on rows etc, great back and all, but his arms were 16 or something like that…
So I don’t think starting out with just deadlifts for pulling work until you get “strong” (like that’s even going to happen to many that way with no assistance work whatsoever
[quote]
I understand of course that you need to do curls and isolation movements to build half decent arms but saying deadlifts have nothing at all to do with arm size is a bit much. [/quote]
Now it makes more sense… And you probably should have posted the entire quote at the beginning.
If my post comes across as abrasive or anything, sorry about that… I’m just tired of the topic as we’ve gone through this so often already…
Some guys have great arm genetics and get big arms from back work (not deadlifts alone usually though… Never seen it happen, sorry)… Maybe guys with short arms etc… And people with, frankly, shitty back training technique (you can do kroc rows with your arm flexors and rear delts/long head of tris etc and a little lat or you can do them with your scap retractors and lots of lat… But both doesn’t work too well imo, you’d have to turn it into half a curl to get the bis in for real with proper back technique, and I don’t personally think that your bis are designed to be prime movers while rowing 275 lbs in one hand, but whatever).
The rest of us have to work their arms via arm exercises and find the right way to go about it…
