Have you started noticing that your arms are lacking in size compared to the rest of your body? Whether it’s your triceps, biceps, or both, there are many different ways that you can approach this issue. The goal is to shock your arms to stimulate massive growth, the growth that you are not currently noticing. What this means is that what you are currently doing is not effective for muscle building when it comes to these particular muscles. So, before getting into what you can do, you must look at what you are currently doing to understand why you are not getting the results you would like in this particular area.
What Are You Doing Now?
What does your current workout program look like? Examine it based on what muscles you work, when you work them, how much rest you get, and what exercises you are doing. To further address your current fitness program, it would also be a good idea to look at the amount of focus that you are putting on your arm muscles. Are you leaving biceps out and only incorporating them as accessory muscles in lifts such as the deadlift and pull-up? Do they have their own dedicated day, even if it’s after another muscle?
What You Can Change
You have the ability to change the exercises that you do, when you do them, and the amount of rest that you get. These are the three variables that you can play around with. So, let’s address them a little bit more below so you have a better feel for what you can do to stimulate muscle growth in your arms.
Arm Exercises
It is not essential that you focus completely on arm workouts as the biceps and triceps get worked out a lot when you are performing compound movements that focus on the back and chest. However, you do want to dedicate a bit of time to working out your arm muscles. Some examples of great bicep exercises to add into your routine include the preacher curl, barbell curl, dumbbell curl, and rope hammer curl. Some great triceps exercises include weighted triceps dips, skull crushers, bench dips, and the close grip bench press.
When To Do Them
When you do the arm exercises can be broken down into a few different categories. There is the aspect of when you perform the arm exercises within the week, and when you perform them within the specific workout as well. Within the week, you can play around with the options. Many like to train the biceps directly on one day, and indirectly on another day, every week. If you think more volume will work, then give that a try. If you are barely training the arms or leaving them for the last of each workout, then you may want to perform them earlier in as you will have more energy and can push yourself more in the lift. This does mean you let your other lifts take a bit of a back seat, but they are ahead of your arms so it is acceptable to do this.
Amount of Rest
The amount of rest factors into both the amount of rest that you have in between each set and the amount of rest you have between each workout. Between sets, you will want to break around 45 to 90 seconds between each set. You can play this by feel as you should have a good idea on whether you should wait a little longer or if you are ready for the next set. In regards to rest between workouts, you have to realize that your body needs sufficient rest in order for the muscles to grow. This means that you will want to give the arms at least a 48 hour break to recover before you hit them again. 72 hours would be ideal, but not absolutely necessary if you are only training them indirectly on every second workout.
Remember, the amount of rest you get also factors into the sleep you get at night. You need to be well rested as when you are sleeping your muscles have the best chance to grow. Your nutrition will also factor into the muscle’s ability to grow. You will need to have an excess in your calorie intake, so you should make sure you practice the basics of a bulking diet. You will also need to make sure that you have sufficient protein take, ideally a little more than one gram of protein per pound of body weight. If all this is in order, then changing your workout around based on the suggestions in this article should provide you with some results.
How To Beat A Plateau
A plateau occurring means that you are not able to increase your lift amount or you are not seeing any visible changes any more. If this occurs, you will want to try and beat it immediately. This may be as simple as taking a week to rest your body if you have been training for a long while or as intense as trying a program like the Somanabolic Muscle Maximizer. If you want, you can also play around with your workout program to try and beat the halt in results. This can be done by switching out certain exercises for other ones that train the same muscle, changing your lifting tempo, and possibly changing your lifting days (when each muscle group is worked) as well.
There really is no one piece of advice that can be given to assure you that your arms will see maximum growth. There are many different variables that can factor into why you are not getting the results that you want. What can be said though, is that even by implementing the proper methods of growing muscle in your arms, it will take a while before incredible results are noticed. You can examine your diet and workout program to see if there are any obvious reasons for your lack of results. If you are progressing with all other muscle groups, then you obviously want to play with your arm workout timing, exercises, and everything in that aspect.
With all that said, if you are looking to shock your arms for maximal muscle growth then you should take the time to test out many different modifications to your plan so you can find something that stimulates arm training results.