[quote]comedypedro wrote:
Im NOT speaking from personnal experience here cos Ive always squated but the general opinion these days seems to be that you do need to squat to increase arms because your body seeks to be balanced. Same with the lifting a car thing, after a certain point your body wont let your bi’s get any bigger until the tri’s are brought up because of balance. Like I said this is the general opinion, Ive always worked everything so its not personnal experience.[/quote]
Yes, your body as a whole has to grow. That is why people should be told to train their entire bodies. This should not be explained in ways that make people believe that they should avoid actually isolating certain body parts, however. I have seen people on this board writing posts as if they were laughing at other people who actually trained their biceps directly. That’s retarded. Somewhere along the way, someone took this concept too far.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
comedypedro wrote:
Ok I meant that Chad’s programs work WELL as in better than say a bodypart split with never changing parameters.
Who would never change “parameters”? I do a “bodypart split” if this is what working each body part individually on seperate training days is called. The changing “parameter” is either the weight lifted or the rep scheme. Why even make this that complicated?[/quote]
Who would never change parameters?
I know people who do the same workout, week in week out. What is better, doing that or following something like ABBH?
Ive used splits myself and got gains but full body workouts work best for me; I was just using splits as an example.
All due respect Prof but Im not sure what point youre trying to argue!!
Yes, your body as a whole has to grow. That is why people should be told to train their entire bodies. This should not be explained in ways that make people believe that they should avoid actually isolating certain body parts, however. I have seen people on this board writing posts as if they were laughing at other people who actually trained their biceps directly. That’s retarded. Somewhere along the way, someone took this concept too far.[/quote]
Agreed but I think a lot of it is strength/functional guys having a go at people who want big arms for asthetic reasons.
I can’t speak for Prof,but from my point of view it gets a little tiring to hear people say body part splits are ineffective or are not as effective because such and such coach says so when alot of us have been using it for years and have had great results.
I think the reason so many people have jumped on the “no isolation work” bandwagon is because they want to be a part of something. Just like when people get enraged when somebody insults their favorite coach or trainer, they attach themselves so much to one ideology just because it allows themselves to associate with a “winner.” That way, they can feel superior to others they see doing isolation work in the gym because they are doing it the “right” way and the guy doing curls is doing it “wrong”, even though his arms are 2" bigger. But of course he is a genetic freak or is on juice!
I’m not trying to attack anybody, but I think a lot of people just lose sight of common sense.
Regarding the issue of splits, I don’t think there is such a great difference between full body workouts and body part splits as it may seem. Doing compound exercises for one “body part” will definitely tax muscles of other “body parts” to a certain degree and thus in certain cases even provide similar frequency as full body workouts, e.g. benching on “chest day”, military presses on “shoulder day” and dips on “arm day”.
I believe the reason why body part splits have gotten such a bad reputation is for example that some trainees tend to use the fact that it’s “arm day” to do a few sloppy curls and call it a day and the like. With decent exercise selection and variation of volume and intensity, body part splits definitely can be effective.
To quote CT directly from the referenced article ‘Canadian cannons’
"I must confess I’ve never been a big fan of training arms directly. However, now that I find myself in the Testosterone “spotlight,” an Olympic lifter physique just isn’t going to cut it. As much as I hate the fact, it’s still true that in the strength-training world you can judge a book by its cover.
When I started writing for Testosterone magazine I’d developed my body mostly with the Olympic lifts. This made for a very powerful body, tree trunk legs, a back like a gorilla, and bowling-ball traps. The problem was that I ended up with the arm development of an anorectic pre-teen gymnast. While the biceps may not play much of a role in performance enhancement, they do have a great influence on how people perceive you (and how you perceive yourself), so I had to do something and do it fast!"
Isolation bicep v. compound movements argument has to be rather rhetorical by now. exercise selection is dependent upon training goals. I can relate to CT in the quotation because for the 1st time in a year i will be adding direct bicep work because i will be ‘judged by my cover’ while doing S & C work with HS football come summer. Consequently, my job will be easier if my arms are bigger. Sadly, arm size is often the litmus test for physical fitness.
To put it bluntly, big arms=you know your shit. Conversely, i will be loathe to allow these football players touch any exercise that directly isolates upper arm flexors, since except for the few D-1 recruits, most are beginners, with training knowledge ONLY of muscle comic biceps and benching.
Overall, this is a discussion of priorities. Assuming an established foundation, trainers focused primarily on performance will have little need for direct bicep work (see CT quote). However, trainers in the bodybuilding orbit NOT doing direct bicep work are almost laughable, since progress in BB is judged visually, and leaving a piece intentionally out of the puzzle is foolish.
-k
[quote]keysersozae wrote:
To quote CT directly from the referenced article ‘Canadian cannons’
"I must confess I’ve never been a big fan of training arms directly. However, now that I find myself in the Testosterone “spotlight,” an Olympic lifter physique just isn’t going to cut it. As much as I hate the fact, it’s still true that in the strength-training world you can judge a book by its cover.
When I started writing for Testosterone magazine I’d developed my body mostly with the Olympic lifts. This made for a very powerful body, tree trunk legs, a back like a gorilla, and bowling-ball traps. The problem was that I ended up with the arm development of an anorectic pre-teen gymnast. While the biceps may not play much of a role in performance enhancement, they do have a great influence on how people perceive you (and how you perceive yourself), so I had to do something and do it fast!"
Isolation bicep v. compound movements argument has to be rather rhetorical by now. exercise selection is dependent upon training goals. I can relate to CT in the quotation because for the 1st time in a year i will be adding direct bicep work because i will be ‘judged by my cover’ while doing S & C work with HS football come summer. Consequently, my job will be easier if my arms are bigger. Sadly, arm size is often the litmus test for physical fitness.
To put it bluntly, big arms=you know your shit. Conversely, i will be loathe to allow these football players touch any exercise that directly isolates upper arm flexors, since except for the few D-1 recruits, most are beginners, with training knowledge ONLY of muscle comic biceps and benching.
Overall, this is a discussion of priorities. Assuming an established foundation, trainers focused primarily on performance will have little need for direct bicep work (see CT quote). However, trainers in the bodybuilding orbit NOT doing direct bicep work are almost laughable, since progress in BB is judged visually, and leaving a piece intentionally out of the puzzle is foolish.
-k
[/quote]
Oh, to answer the original poster’s question, you could try Waterbury’s Perfect 10 program to build up your arms.
Just because a lifting program doesn’t
call for direct arm work doesn’t mean that you can’t include direct arm work if you want to; especially if it’s a weak point for you.
Case in point: I’m currently doing TBT and am also taking an MMA class. With all the grappling and submission work, it became clear my forearms and grip strength needed to improve so I’ve added exercises that will help me improve those two areas in each workout.
No program is set in stone. You can always mix and match, move things around and customize them to fit YOUR NEEDS.
Be careful about the degree thing, its more oganisational skills than anything for most people. Some right gizzards get into Universities. They do well because they are organised and get the work in.
I know people with Sports Science BSc and MSc Ex/Nut and they know fuck all about anything in particular let alone what to do and eat pertaining to exercise.
Some of the smartest people don’t have degrees at all.
[quote]BarneyFife wrote:
Boondoggler wrote:
I’ve found myself facing a similar situation. I’m half way considering doing curls once a week…
With due respect.
Curls once a week would cost you, oh, about ten minutes or so of time weekly, if that? I don’t think they are going to make you become overtrained either any time soon. So is it really something that you should be considering, or something you should just do? Do you think about taking a crap for several hours before you decide too? Is it hard for you to get dressed in the morning.?[/quote]
What a stupid ass response. I’m already trying to cut my training time down. My workout takes me about 1.5 hours as is. Full body workout, all compound lifts/movements. I have to run to school/work/gym and I have a very physically demanding job as well. If I started doing isolation work for every body part I wasn’t happy with I’d be in the gym for 2+ hours. Needless to say my CNS is taxed enough as is.
I’m 6’5 235 (just weighed myself an hour ago, new PR for me!) and I think I’m still way too small to be worrying about arm size. You don’t know my goals, you don’t know how I train. My original response to this thread was to let this guy know I’m seeing similar results. The curl comment was more sarcasm than anything.
I notice that in my prison career if an inmate has big arms it’s usually from long workouts with everything thrown at them from everywhere: lots of sets, high reps, angles, cheat reps, and shoulder raises from every head (they just stack chairs on top of each other and do raises like that). These inmates are also proficient at dips and pullups. One thing they don’t do because its hard to is use heavy weights. It’s basically annihilation with moderate poundages. They get plenty of rest obviously. Maybe an idea would be to overtrain, and then lay off the arms for two weeks. Just food for thought.
One thing that was a problem for me personally is direct arm work taking away from my pushes and pulls, so if I have a workout devoted to them the sets are limited. I don’t get the time to rest or hit the gym 5x weekly. I think my arms are fine, they ain’t huge though.
In my gym (outside jail of course), the guys with the biggest arms and usually the guys who put away the most food.
[quote]Boondoggler wrote:
What a stupid ass response. I’m already trying to cut my training time down. My workout takes me about 1.5 hours as is. Full body workout, all compound lifts/movements. I have to run to school/work/gym and I have a very physically demanding job as well. If I started doing isolation work for every body part I wasn’t happy with I’d be in the gym for 2+ hours. Needless to say my CNS is taxed enough as is.
I’m 6’5 235 (just weighed myself an hour ago, new PR for me!) and I think I’m still way too small to be worrying about arm size. You don’t know my goals, you don’t know how I train. My original response to this thread was to let this guy know I’m seeing similar results. The curl comment was more sarcasm than anything.[/quote]
You know what’s really stupid? the fact that you think splitting your training into specific body parts being trained will lead to you spending hours in the gym. Now THAT’S stupid. I am usually done in the gym in about 40-45min. There is no reason to be training for an hour and a half unless you are doing cardio afterwards. Your poor understanding of training is probably why you only weigh 235lbs at that height. Good luck.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Boondoggler wrote:
What a stupid ass response. I’m already trying to cut my training time down. My workout takes me about 1.5 hours as is. Full body workout, all compound lifts/movements. I have to run to school/work/gym and I have a very physically demanding job as well. If I started doing isolation work for every body part I wasn’t happy with I’d be in the gym for 2+ hours. Needless to say my CNS is taxed enough as is.
I’m 6’5 235 (just weighed myself an hour ago, new PR for me!) and I think I’m still way too small to be worrying about arm size. You don’t know my goals, you don’t know how I train. My original response to this thread was to let this guy know I’m seeing similar results. The curl comment was more sarcasm than anything.
You know what’s really stupid? the fact that you think splitting your training into specific body parts being trained will lead to you spending hours in the gym. Now THAT’S stupid. I am usually done in the gym in about 40-45min. There is no reason to be training for an hour and a half unless you are doing cardio afterwards. Your poor understanding of training is probably why you only weigh 235lbs at that height. Good luck.[/quote]
No, I never said splitting my routine would lead to longer workouts. I said adding additional isolation sets to make up for lagging body parts would lead to longer workouts. I already have major imbalance issues I’m trying to work out due to a lifetime of pitching. The additional sets I do to try and alleviate the imbalces are why my workouts are already so long. And the only reason I’ve never weighed more than 235 is because I’ve never tried. I played college football at the div. 1 level. I played baseball at the Junior college level. This is the first time since I was five years old my training hadn’t been focused on improving my peformance in sports. So around x-mas time I decided to see if I could put on some weight. So far I’ve put on about 30 pounds. Believe it or not there are more ways to train then what you have found works for yourself.