6 Facts for Building Bigger Arms
Big arms have been the symbol of machoism and badassery for a long time. Ask someone to flex their muscles and he’ll probably flash you with their biceps. Muscular arms are fancied by men and women alike.
Although arms are one of the most sought-after muscle groups, you don’t see a lot of people walking around with shredded bis and tris. A few tweaks to your training and nutrition can take your arm size to the next level.
1. Train the Weaker Muscle Group First
Most people have an imbalance between their biceps and triceps unless they’re a genetic freak. Many people like training their stronger muscle group first. Doing this can lead to the strong muscle getting stronger and the weak muscle group getting weaker.
If your biceps are stronger than your triceps, you should train your triceps at the beginning of your workouts. If you train your weaker muscle group later in the workout, you might already be fatigued and wouldn’t be able to train your muscle effectively.
2. Advanced Training Techniques
Advanced training techniques can help you take your gains to the next level. You should have at least one advanced training technique in your arm workout. This helps you pump extra blood into your muscles.
Blood flow restriction training (BFR), supersets, drop sets, intraset stretching is some of the training principles you should follow in your workouts. There are enough variations of the advanced techniques so you won’t get bored of them.
3. Add Volume and Intensity
Most people make the mistake of sticking with the same volume and intensity throughout their workouts. Volume is the number of sets you’ll be performing. Intensity, though a little vague, is how much effort you’re going to put in the set.
Changing the number of sets and repetitions every couple of weeks can ignite muscle growth and can add inches to your arms. You should switch between high volume, low intensity and low volume, high-intensity workouts to take your gains to the next level.
4. Target Your Arms from All Angles
Your biceps consist of two heads and your triceps have three heads. There is no one exercise which can target all the heads at the same time. You need to be doing different exercises to target your muscles from different angles.
Your biceps have a long and a short head. The short bicep head is worked when you have a wide grip and the narrow grip works the long head. Overhead exercises while training triceps work the long head while most of the other exercises work the medial and short head.
5. Shock the Muscles
If you have been working out, but don’t see any results, it could be because you’ve hit a plateau. If you do the same thing in every workout, your muscles will get used to them and will stop responding.
Do something new in every workout and keep your muscles guessing. Perform a new exercise, change up the intensity or volume, target your muscles from a different angle or use an advanced training technique to shock your muscles.
6. Eat Big and Be Patient
You don’t build muscle in the gym. You break your muscles in the gym, and they repair and grow bigger while you’re outside the gym. Your diet and nutrition should be on point to speed up your recovery and muscle growth.
Rest is an important aspect of your training. No matter how hard you workout, you won’t see the results until your body is properly rested. You need at least 6-8 hours of sleep every night to see optimal results.
How often do you train your arms? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
*Header image courtesy of Envato Elements.
