Ok here:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=746517
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=797992
There you go 8 weeks… and theres not ONE SINGULAR curl in it !
Have fun with it.
[quote]Corkonian wrote:
Ok here:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=746517
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=797992
There you go 8 weeks… and theres not ONE SINGULAR curl in it !
Have fun with it.[/quote]
Nice, I consider you my friend from now.
By the way, the guy on the first article, looks skinnier than me.
as for the second article, I am already doing that on tuesday and thursday.
ok,maybe we misunderstand each other ,or it is me that misunderstood.
well I wont focus on anything else that was said I will focus on giving my opinion on your question of “how to I get big arms”
IMO,people over think things,they try and get exact diets and exact routines,when infact the human body is a simple machine.
you need fuel,and a stimulus and with those 2 then you will grow.however slowly it may be. just eat and lift heavy things and your body will do what it needs to do to lift more heavy things.
I dont know if you posted your diet up here but I would assume from hearing the first few posts that you infact do not have enough protien in your diet to aide in muscle growth. you need food,lots of it clean food lots of fats protein and moderate carbs in the form of vegies and non processed grains.
working the arms is actualy simple there is no trick to it.
things that focus on arms are curls,reverse curls ( these work great on forearms as well).do not neglect the triceps at all these are very important.
kickbacks,pullovers ect
I personally find it easy to grow in arm size but I DO NOT work biceps often.
I do alot of back work like rows,cable pulldowns,bar bell rows,dumb bell rows,deadlifts
and dumb bell presses for chest,shoulder presses,standing military presses and that is my whole upper body work out.
only other arm thing i do is cable pull overs for triceps and also for back.
I want my lats and traps to be huge so that is what my main focus at this time.
my goal is to be close to 300 pounds with a killer V-taper
I found that just by putting a load on my arms to support the back and chest work that my arms get stronger to keep up with the added weight the back has to work with.
but just work them more eat more and they should come along.
not to lead this thread stray,but would this man be any relations to you?
Get your bench to 350+
[quote]nichaaron wrote:
not to lead this thread stray,but would this man be any relations to you?
[/quote]
Cousin. But he is a beliver on get huge first and bodybuild later.
[quote]Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+[/quote]
That is why the question was asked on the first place, if arms are not strong enough, bench will never be 350+
[quote]juanjromero wrote:
Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+
That is why the question was asked on the first place, if arms are not strong enough, bench will never be 350+[/quote]
To reiterate prevoius posts, it’s going to take time.
Focus on classic programs that make your numbers on the bench and other big lifts go steadily up.
Don’t try and be a smartarse just add a rep here 5 pounds there…
There are many, many resources here for this … Dan John, Jack Reape, Dave Tate, Poliquin…
The article on Doug hepburn last week…Do some research.
Learn to stuff your face till you feel sick.
Listen and be grateful to veterans like Thibs and X, and be more positive.
My bicep I would say are my lagging area on me. Everybody has one. Most guys it’s calves or legs it seems. I sneeze my calves and quads grow. That would have to be my dominant area are for me don’t really need to do anything for my legs they just grow.
Anyway what has worked for me is gaining about 15-20lbs. Doesn’t have to be completely lean muscle when i’m up in the BF 14-17% range seems to work best for me. My arms grow at a very fast rate. Once I lean down I come out with around inch of new mucle on my arms. Don’t know why it completely works that way for me but I know it does so i’m not arguing. higher % Body Fat helps develop muscle faster I find also this isn’t to be an excuse to make yourself into a fat fuck however.
Might help might not my biceps never shrunk when doing curls however so don’t know what to say about that.
[quote]juanjromero wrote:
Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+
That is why the question was asked on the first place, if arms are not strong enough, bench will never be 350+[/quote]
And how do you get them to be strong enough? You bench heavier weights.
Seriously, as Nichaaron said, do not overcomplicate this. It’s not rocket science, especially with only 1 year of training under your belt.
Also, don’t obsessively measure your body parts. All that’s going to do is to wind up making you constantly second guess what you are doing (as in this thread) and leave you running around in circles.
Just focus on:
-
eating enough food to continue to gain weight (try for 1 lb a week at least and see how your body does with that in terms of BF%). Your arms aren’t going to grow unless you are gaining weight (I believe Poliquin’s forumula was 15 lbs for every 1 inch on your arms, not perfect but it’s a good estimation).
-
Doing more work every time you hit the gym. Either lift more weight or the same weight for more reps. You NEED progressive overload if you want your muscles to grow. If you can’t lift more next time around, you either need to lower your frequency or eat more (there are other possibilities, but at this point I doubt they apply to you).
-
Focus on the basics. This means both compound and isolation exercises, but using the “basic variations”. Such as
chest- flat DB/BB bench/incline DB/BB bench/weighted dips
Upper back/lower back- Deadlifts/rows
Middle back- chins/pull-ups/pull-downs
Biceps- standing BB curl
Triceps- Dips/Close grip bench/Reverse grip bench/lying triceps extensions
Forearms- BB wrist curl/reverse BB curl
Quads- Front squat/Back squat/Leg press
Hamstrings- Leg curls/Romanian Deadlifts
Calves- seated calf raise/Leg Press Calf Raise/Machine hack squat calf raise
You don’t necessarily want to do all of the above (though I’m not telling you not to, some people do splits right from the get go, others work up to it). You want to pick the exercise(s) for each body part that YOU feel work the best for YOU. And try to get brutally strong on them for reps.
What does your training split look like at the moment?
[quote]Cprimero wrote:
juanjromero wrote:
Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+
That is why the question was asked on the first place, if arms are not strong enough, bench will never be 350+
To reiterate prevoius posts, it’s going to take time.
Focus on classic programs that make your numbers on the bench and other big lifts go steadily up.
Don’t try and be a smartarse just add a rep here 5 pounds there…
There are many, many resources here for this … Dan John, Jack Reape, Dave tate, Poliquin…
The article on Doug hepburn last week…Do some research.
Learn to stuff your face till you feel sick.
Listen and be grateful to veterans like Thibs and X, and be more positive.
[/quote]
I am like pi$$ed about all this. I don’t want to make questions about benching, squatting, dl. I am already done my research about that and is easy to find it on internet. Is the refining what interest me, the kind of thing specific to me. I am starting, but always plan ahead. I am not talking of tell me today how to do it and left my plan to start doing that. I know already what i will do at gym next three months. I don’t have a trainer, I don’t even have a partner because everybody goes there just to curl, bench and left.
I am asking, to start writing my workouts for Q4 of this year. once I increased bench, squat and DL. I realize how stupid I was posting pics of just one week on squat, but the results were so amazing that I pretended to share it with people I tought would care about an skinny guy giving his first step away from that condition: my mistake.
I thank you for you sincer interes on help me, I think that on first I did not post enough background information to avoid the typical advices about eat big, lift big. I am doing it in a consistent way: planned. with daily, weekly, monthly and quarter goals. I am not here to play, I am here to stay.
Last year was my bodybeach goal stupid waste of time, using db like a girl. but the only thing left from that time, is my will to be huge and have learned the correct form: slow, controlled and steady proper form.
I am a Zulu, a Thor Hammer’s Holder. with no fear on heart but will to prevail. And nothing but God and [maybe] lesions, will stop me or delay me from becoming a bodybuilder.
[quote]Blacken wrote:
My bicep I would say are my lagging area on me. Everybody has one. Most guys it’s calves or legs it seems. I sneeze my calves and quads grow. That would have to be my dominant area are for me don’t really need to do anything for my legs they just grow.
Anyway what has worked for me is gaining about 15-20lbs. Doesn’t have to be completely lean muscle when i’m up in the BF 14-17% range seems to work best for me. My arms grow at a very fast rate. Once I lean down I come out with around inch of new mucle on my arms. Don’t know why it completely works that way for me but I know it does so i’m not arguing. higher % Body Fat helps develop muscle faster I find also this isn’t to be an excuse to make yourself into a fat fuck however.
Might help might not my biceps never shrunk when doing curls however so don’t know what to say about that.[/quote]
Maybe that approach will help me, I think i am sabotaging myself, controlling the bf%. I am on that. I am squatting and eating like an animal, but instead of getting fat (I AM GROWING), the leaner and vascular I am becoming.
When you concentrate on arms how long of a time period do you spend working them?
My arms pretty much are an after thought for me until they no longer pull up the sleeves on my smedium shirt. Then I concentrate on them for the summer and they never seem to grow, all of a sudden months later they are popping out but then i’m back to forgetting about them and they shrink. By time summer returns I’m unhappy again.
Oh yeah I never saw this routine that you do that makes your arm shrink. Can you list it so I know what to avoid?
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
juanjromero wrote:
Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+
What does your training split look like at the moment?[/quote]
Monday/Wednesday/Friday
20rep squat increasing 5pounds every day
straight arm bar pull over: 1x20
Pullups/dips (dips I don’t do it anymore as it make me feel as I did nothing on legs, etc. I think that is blood leaving legs and rushing to other bodyparts, crazy tougths of mine)
Leg Press 3x8-10
(I do the first and adjust the weight up acordingly)
standing Leg curls 3x5-8
standing Calf raise 3x24 (8 Open toes, 8 closed, 8 straight)
Hack Squat 4x3-5
If I survive: ligth deadlift.
All done in controlled way, pauses at least 15seg no more than 45 depending on the excercise.
Tuesday/Thursday
I switch this every week, One week chest on tuesday, other week back
Chest (A):
DB Press increasing weight 3x10-8-5
DB Flies 3x8
DB Curls: 1x5
close grip bech: 3x8
Dips / Tricep overhead extension (Superset)
DB Hammer Curls: 1x5
Pull over acrros the bench 3x10
Peck deck
Chest (B):
Bench press 4x5
Incline bench press: 4x8
Decline bench press: 3x8
DB Flies 3x8
PeckDeck (Superset): 3x (1x5 heavy, 1x8 lighter with pause on contraction).
Cable flies: to failure.
Back:
Superset 3x
1 Pull ups (as many as possible)
1 pull downs close grip
Superset 3x
Bent over rows bar, shoulder width
Bent over db rows, to failure
T rowing machine just to let the traps hold the weight
Deadlifts at the end on tuesday and thursday, adding 5pound every week.
Saturdays:
I try new excercises or do something i felt did not work on week days, mostly i do shoulders emphasizing the posterior and lateral. My goal is to do it with no traps involving.
Every morning I do push up using db on my hands (I have a problem in my wrist from the trainer guided days, it is a little painfull at the triquetum)
I do a tri-set in three positions:
Open arms, close to the sides of chest and high over my head, like bridge.
I was doing the cardio part of P90X on mornings, but it forced me to eat a lot more, so I stoped, but kempo is great, because get back flexibility. and I saw some improvement on arms and back.
I take a animal pak every morning and this month I started using BCAA before lift. I eat protein in animal or powder every 2 hours. I already wrote about.
[quote]Cprimero wrote:
Get your bench to 350+[/quote]
I support this type of advice 100%, but sadly, it didn’t quite work for me. I think my bench is at about 350+ (my best was 3 x 335lbs) and my arms are still sticks. Somewhere be tween 15 and 16 inches. But I avoided direct arm work at first as well.
To the OP, I personally think you are overcooking things and will end up hindering yourself in the long run. Get on a reliable program (I think at your level of development it should be based around the compound lifts) like Rippetoe’s Starting Strength or Defranco’s Westside for Skinny Bastards, do it for 6 months while eating as much food as you can guzzle down and I’m sure you’ll hit your 170. You are still too new to the game to know well what your body responds to and what grows easily and what doesn’t. Getting your lift numbers up doesn’t usually do a physique any harm in my humble opinion.
I am a big fan of SS by the way… I started out in January at about 180-185lbs and I trained with two guys, one who was 145lbs and one who was 150lbs. I gained 15-20lbs, one guy gained about 10-15lbs, and the other guy gained a good 15lbs. This was from January to May.
Don’t overcomplicate things! Eat a ton, lift heavy and intensely, and rest.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
When you concentrate on arms how long of a time period do you spend working them?
My arms pretty much are an after thought for me until they no longer pull up the sleeves on my smedium shirt. Then I concentrate on them for the summer and they never seem to grow, all of a sudden months later they are popping out but then i’m back to forgetting about them and they shrink. By time summer returns I’m unhappy again.
Oh yeah I never saw this routine that you do that makes your arm shrink. Can you list it so I know what to avoid?[/quote]
No, isnot a rutine, the problem arises when I devote a day to arm, whatever it be. It is not kind I lost an inch, it is just it feels “deflated” on following days, not toned and powerful as usual.
I don’t know if this still holds true or not but at first, I thought he was referring to the pump.
Then there’s the research–I think it was CP who commented on it–that after a tough training session, the muscle will actually lose circumfrence until it recovers and then ultimately repairs itself.
I’ve been researching that fact but I can’t find anything that’s applicable.
[quote]derek wrote:
I don’t know if this still holds true or not but at first, I thought he was referring to the pump.
Then there’s the research–I think it was CP who commented on it–that after a tough training session, the muscle will actually lose circumfrence until it recovers and then ultimately repairs itself.
I’ve been researching that fact but I can’t find anything that’s applicable. [/quote]
Yes, the problem was that when I used the word Pump, everybody started to say things like: “ah, you just want a pump”. and I really not care about getting pumped, i want to pump to grow.
you see, you can’t find nothing applicable. Maybe that is my way to grow and I am not following that path just because I am affraif of “shrinking” to grow.
My problem is that I can’t translate the problem without getting me in troubles.
See, if you read above, my routine is doing great for any body part but arm. everything gets that pumped feeling by days but arms. it is not a mistery they don’t grow at same pace, they are not beeing stimulated at same.
My question is just to build a program that hits arms on same way that I did for other bodyparts.
I am guessing, that my mistake is the range of rep and weight. I will try to reduce reps 3x3-5 and increase the weight to see what comes out.
the last week I added curls (db/bar) on my morning routine. to see what comes out. arm is starting to feel hard and shirt leeves sligthly tighter. you know that feeling.
I honestly don’t believe that you NEED direct arm work. At least not yet.
Think about this, when your rows fail it’s your biceps actually reaching failure, same with chins.
When you bench, it’s usually your triceps hitting the wall, same with other presses.
So if you’re hitting chins and rows and several forms of presses, I think you can devote either less time in the gym or more time and energy on the presses and rows.