Who Has Bigger Guns?

Training Bodybuilding
21

I don’t train my arms. I used to do it, but then I realised it’s not something I HAVE to do. I’m well aware of the fact that I’m never getting world-class arms with my workouts, but for the time being, it’s enough. It’s all about keeping your body PROPORTIONATE. My arms are perfectly fine for my other body and therefore need no direct work. I’m 5’9 155 lb and I definitely don’t need any specialisation. Besides, I never liked doing curls. Skipping direct arm work is purely my own decision, not something some internet-guru told me to do.

Maybe when I’m over 180 lb I’ll start curling (not in the squat rack!) again. If there is need that is.

22

[quote]Professor X wrote:
trap_builder wrote:
BarneyFife wrote:

I do not understand why people think that not training the arms is the way to make them big.

you ARE training your arms while you are rowing and pressing, you are just not training them exclusively.

No shit, Sherlock, but no one even 5 years ago would have ever said that this was enough for full biceps development. [/quote]

Agreed - I can’t even believe anyone thinks this way, how much else has changed in 5 years? Trends come and go, what bodypart is everyone obsessed with these days? Are we currently on the “don’t work your arms directly” bandwagon? how do these trends come about? how does such an idea meet critical mass until everyone (well lots of people) believe it?

Barneyfife? slept with your wife? (only an Aussie would get that)

23

[quote]Massif wrote:
I have 18.5 inch arms and haven’t included direct arm work in my routines. That said, my arms are solid, but lack shape, especially around the elbow joint.[/quote]

Could that be genetic? Many people suffer the “two finger gap” due to the attachment point of muscle to tendon - myself included.

And what’s everyone’s opinion on dips and chin-ups for arms? Compound exercises, yet both well known mass builders.

24

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Who started this movement to avoid direct biceps training? Further, why is anyone following?[/quote]

I think the original idea was assuming that many trainees were as a matter of course including too much direct arm work and neglecting the bigger movements.

-Fireplug

25

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Who started this movement to avoid direct biceps training? Further, why is anyone following?[/quote]

Right now, I do little direct arm work less than six sets a week. I am keeping my lifting basic, deads, squats, presses, rows, chins and dips. I do include grip work, and PT includes countless pushup varitions.

Why do I do this? I am not a body builder. I train for general strength and am preparing for a strongman meet. I feel I need to focus on the ‘money’ excercises, and arm work cuts into both my time and recovery.

Since the begining of this year, I have put on more size and gained more strength than I have for months previous. My arms have grown. Sure, if I blasted my arms directly I would probally have bigger guns, but that is not a priority right now (talk to me this summer and we’ll see where my focus is).

I am not saying anybody is wrong or right, but this is what is working for me, and explains why I don’t target biceps or triceps.

26

This whole necessary to do direct arm work has me baffled. I just wonder what the not necessary camp feels about direct shoulder work?? What do the necessary to do arm work feel? Just wondering if the not necessary folks are 100% in that line of thought…

27

[quote]Professor X wrote:
trap_builder wrote:
BarneyFife wrote:

I do not understand why people think that not training the arms is the way to make them big.

you ARE training your arms while you are rowing and pressing, you are just not training them exclusively.

No shit, Sherlock, but no one even 5 years ago would have ever said that this was enough for full biceps development. [/quote]

The fact that you need direct arm work to get the best results does not mean that everybody does.

I know a couple of people who have an amazing biceps peak who don’t train their arms directly. I dont think we all activate our different muscles involved in rowing in the same percentajes as anyone else, therefore rowing will produce different growth effects on different people.

I think this issue is more of “what you like to do” more than what you need to do, unless you are a competing bodybuilder. I believe this because naturally we will go very intense on what we like to do, instead of what we think we need to do.

For example, if you are a person who does not like direct arm work, you can sort of compensate the direct arm work with more compounds. After doing 10 x 3 for rows, just wait some minutes until you are ready for more (instead of going to the smith and “finishing” your muscles), and then change the rowing grip and invert the sets x reps to 3 x 10, or even 5 x 5 if you don’t like high reps like me.

Nobody lives their life exactly like anyone else, therefore I dont think we should all agree on how to train arms the same way.

28

[quote]trap_builder wrote:
Professor X wrote:
trap_builder wrote:
BarneyFife wrote:

I do not understand why people think that not training the arms is the way to make them big.

you ARE training your arms while you are rowing and pressing, you are just not training them exclusively.

No shit, Sherlock, but no one even 5 years ago would have ever said that this was enough for full biceps development.

The fact that you need direct arm work to get the best results does not mean that everybody does.

I know a couple of people who have an amazing biceps peak who don’t train their arms directly. I dont think we all activate our different muscles involved in rowing in the same percentajes as anyone else, therefore rowing will produce different growth effects on different people.

I think this issue is more of “what you like to do” more than what you need to do, unless you are a competing bodybuilder. I believe this because naturally we will go very intense on what we like to do, instead of what we think we need to do.

For example, if you are a person who does not like direct arm work, you can sort of compensate the direct arm work with more compounds. After doing 10 x 3 for rows, just wait some minutes until you are ready for more (instead of going to the smith and “finishing” your muscles), and then change the rowing grip and invert the sets x reps to 3 x 10, or even 5 x 5 if you don’t like high reps like me.

Nobody lives their life exactly like anyone else, therefore I dont think we should all agree on how to train arms the same way.
[/quote]

Does not like direct arm work? Is that like people who don’t like squats? This is stupid. If you want to develop your entire body to an upper limit, you don’t go around ignoring certain muscle groups because you don’t like training it. For some reason, this seems to actually make sense to some people with regards to biceps when no one would say the same about legs or back training. I am not just looking to “activate” my biceps. I am looking for the most strength and size in them that I can build along with everything else.

29

[quote]fireplug52 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Who started this movement to avoid direct biceps training? Further, why is anyone following?

I think the original idea was assuming that many trainees were as a matter of course including too much direct arm work and neglecting the bigger movements.

-Fireplug[/quote]

Exactly. Many beginners do 15 sets of curls and never row.

30

Yeah, I’ll go against the grain a little bit here.

If you are a beginner, you are wasting your time trying to get big guns when you could be putting on mass on some bigger muscle groups.

So, a couple years down the road, when you start to actually carry a bit of muscle, then you’ll say, shit, my arms are looking a bit small.

By then, you probably know enough to put in arm work without sacrificing everything else.

If you’ve been doing your rows, your chins and your deadlifts, your biceps should be coming along for the ride as you progress. I don’t mean outstanding, and I don’t mean they’ll look as if you did direct arm work, but they’ll be ready for it when you add it in.

31

Part of the problem is that everyone probably has a different idea of what “direct arm work” means. We should be talking about specific movements, not just lumping them into a broad category. Do chins count as direct arm work? Or are we talking about the most extreme isolation exercises.

And what really matters is whether people are getting the good results from what they are doing. If you don’t need to do them, and you don’t want to do them, then you should not do them. But if you are not getting the results you want, maybe you could consider them.

Also the first post said that person A does the big lifts only, and person B does the big lifts and arm work, obviously person B will get better results unless their arm work meantthey had to cut back on the big lifts … that wasn’t explicitly stated though. So assuming everything is the same then person B would do better, unless they were somehow overtraining by adding their arm work?

I don’t think anyone would argue that skipping out on the big lifts and only doing arm work will get great results (which is what a lot of people used to do / still do)

32

[quote]Professor X wrote:
trap_builder wrote:
Professor X wrote:
trap_builder wrote:
BarneyFife wrote:

I do not understand why people think that not training the arms is the way to make them big.

you ARE training your arms while you are rowing and pressing, you are just not training them exclusively.

No shit, Sherlock, but no one even 5 years ago would have ever said that this was enough for full biceps development.

The fact that you need direct arm work to get the best results does not mean that everybody does.

I know a couple of people who have an amazing biceps peak who don’t train their arms directly. I dont think we all activate our different muscles involved in rowing in the same percentajes as anyone else, therefore rowing will produce different growth effects on different people.

I think this issue is more of “what you like to do” more than what you need to do, unless you are a competing bodybuilder. I believe this because naturally we will go very intense on what we like to do, instead of what we think we need to do.

For example, if you are a person who does not like direct arm work, you can sort of compensate the direct arm work with more compounds. After doing 10 x 3 for rows, just wait some minutes until you are ready for more (instead of going to the smith and “finishing” your muscles), and then change the rowing grip and invert the sets x reps to 3 x 10, or even 5 x 5 if you don’t like high reps like me.

Nobody lives their life exactly like anyone else, therefore I dont think we should all agree on how to train arms the same way.

Does not like direct arm work? Is that like people who don’t like squats? This is stupid. If you want to develop your entire body to an upper limit, you don’t go around ignoring certain muscle groups because you don’t like training it. For some reason, this seems to actually make sense to some people with regards to biceps when no one would say the same about legs or back training. I am not just looking to “activate” my biceps. I am looking for the most strength and size in them that I can build along with everything else.[/quote]

X, you of all people should know that you can’t “ignore” biceps if you are pulling, chinning, and rowing. Are you honestly stating that one is “ignoring” the biceps if one doesn’t “isolate” them? Come on!

And maybe you didn’t mean to do so (I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt) but to compare squats and biceps curls is ridiculous. One exercise works the entire body (at the very least some pretty sizable muscle groups) and the other works a relatively small muscle group.

[quote]This is stupid.[/quote] It’s pretty much your way or the highway…all the time, isn’t it?

33

[quote]throttle132 wrote:
X, you of all people should know that you can’t “ignore” biceps if you are pulling, chinning, and rowing. Are you honestly stating that one is “ignoring” the biceps if one doesn’t “isolate” them? Come on!

And maybe you didn’t mean to do so (I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt) but to compare squats and biceps curls is ridiculous. One exercise works the entire body (at the very least some pretty sizable muscle groups) and the other works a relatively small muscle group.

This is stupid. It’s pretty much your way or the highway…all the time, isn’t it?
[/quote]

Calves are a small muscle group as well. Let’s also not train those directly. Why train triceps directly? Hell, why even do shrugs to train traps directly? In fact, let’s not do any isolation movements at all. I’m down with avoiding giving any muscle group any direct attention because…that makes sense.

34

Tricep makes up a bigger portion of your arm and I don’t think anyone needs to do any direct tricep work (other than weighted dips/bench/press) to have size/strength.

35

for what it’s worth, i jumped on the ‘no isolation for arms bandwagon’ awhile back, and it’s a huge regret of mine. although my arms grew as i grew <at their bigges they were just shy of 18 inches and i was 210-ish pounds>, my biceps quality was really lacking.

and i was pretty much pulling every fucking day.

anyways i learned my lesson and i will now give my biceps as much wolume through direct work as they can handle without damaging my performance.

ignore direct biceps work <and in some cases direct triceps work, although i think triceps need less direct work than biceps in a balanced routine> and your biceps will be far from their best.

36

[quote]fireplug52 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Who started this movement to avoid direct biceps training? Further, why is anyone following?

I think the original idea was assuming that many trainees were as a matter of course including too much direct arm work and neglecting the bigger movements.

-Fireplug[/quote]

i agree, i think that’s where it started. we’ve all seen the small 150 pound kids spending much more time with dumbell curls than with the basic compound movements.

37

direct calves work is a must for anyone who wants big calves who isn’t either:

a> genetically gifted with big calves

b> and ex-fat boy.

c> involved in a sport that builds big calves <sprinting, biking, track, etc>

38

This thread has convinced me to do curls twice a week.

Don’t most powerlifters do direct bicep work to avoid tearing thme during heavy deads?

39

[quote]Dirty Tiger wrote:
This thread has convinced me to do curls twice a week.

Don’t most powerlifters do direct bicep work to avoid tearing thme during heavy deads?[/quote]

nope.

40

[quote]CU AeroStallion wrote:
Ok, hypothetical question.

You got two people, which has bigger guns, person A or B?

A) Does Presses and Rows and Pulldowns exclusively.

B) Does that plus curls (not in a squat rack) and tricep extensions.

Person A benches benches 50 more pounds than person B, and rows/pulls down 30 lbs more, but doesn’t directly work his arms.

Who do y’all think would have a better exhibit at the gun show? A or B?

I think A[/quote]

Person C (the guy doing curls in the squat rack) has bigger guns.