big arms Archives - X-REP.COM

Small Bones, Big Arms

Q: I’ve been training like a madman for six months, but my arms haven’t budged. I’m getting stronger, and I do see more veins on my biceps, but my arms are still skinny. A guy at the gym told me it’s because I have small bones. My wrists are under 7 inches around, and he said I can’t expect much size with small wrists. Is that true?

A: Um, in a word, NO. It’s not true. The size of your wrist has nothing to do with where your biceps and triceps attach, how much muscle-fiber density your muscles have, or your ability to pack on muscle mass.

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5-Minute Blasts for Fast Arm Mass

Q: Help! I need more arm mass, and I’m hoping to add about an inch quickly. I’m using the Direct/Indirect 4X Mass Workout [pages 30-32]. It has only one direct arm workout a week [on Wednesday with delts]. Can I add some extra arm work on Friday when I train chest and back again?

A: Absolutely, but you don’t want to do full arm workouts on Friday’s chest/back day. Instead, we’ve found a couple of quick-hit two-move combos that will do the trick to get your arm mass up so they’ll be looking huge and thick. [Read more…]

Arm Bomb to Get Your Freak On

Q: I’ve been using the POF Direct/Indirect Mass Workout in the 4X 2.0 e-book. Doing great! I’m loving it and I feel much bigger already. But my arms are my weakest muscle groups, so I’m thinking about doing a second arm workout on Saturday. That would have me training five days a week instead of four. Is that okay?

A: That’s a great program—and because you’re using moderate-weight, growth-threshold training, you can tolerate more frequent work for most bodyparts; however… [Read more…]

Best Moves for Big Arms

Q: I love [3D Positions of Flexion training]. It makes sense and has helped me bring up my chest and delts with fewer sets. My question is about biceps. For the contracted-position exercise, which is best: one-arm spider curls or concentration curls? Or are they about the same?

A: In the X-traordinary Arms e-book we explain the in-for-out/out-for-in principle. For biceps that means that to focus on the outer head for peak, you use an inner-grip exercise. Concentration curls are about as “in” as you can get… [Read more…]

Old School, New Muscle Arm Size

Q: I’m 55, so I appreciate that you have sections in Anabolic Reload and Stretch Overload for us old guys. My plan is to use the Pure-Positions Workout in Stretch Overload first for a few months, as it is slightly less traumatic. I like an all-isolation “contracted-position” day, all-midrange day, and an all-stretch day. My question is about no direct arm work on Wednesday, the all-midrange workout. I understand that the big exercises for chest and back train arms on that day, but my arms are a weak point. Can I add an exercise for bi’s and tri’s for more arm size?

A: Questions like this confirm our suspicions that many trainees get our ebooks and go right to the workouts—most don’t read the chapter text that goes with it… [Read more…]

Full Inch of New Arm Muscle in 3 Weeks

Q: You guys are awesome! Anabolic Reload put a half-inch on my arms in less than a month. My arms have always lagged, so I’m blown away. I hit each muscle twice a week with about 12 sets. I didn’t want to reduce my sets on all, so I just did [STX] for arms. I started with the high-rep set followed by a heavy set, then I added a rest/pause every arm workout like the program says. My sleeves got tight almost immediately. Just want to thank you for getting my puny arms up bigger than they’ve ever been. I plan on trying this for each muscle through the winter. [Read more…]

Big Arms, Veins, and Muscle Gains

Q: I notice you guys never really mention doing dips for triceps. I know Mike Mentzer said that the parallel bar dip is one of the best triceps exercises—and he had some big arms with some of the biggest, most vascular tri’s I’ve ever seen from the “moderate-steroid era.” Do you consider dips a good triceps move?

A: Dips can work well as a compound, or midrange, exercise for triceps—in place of close-grip bench presses, for example… [Read more…]

Cut Back to Grow Muscle

Q: Before the start of my spring/summer job a month ago, my muscle development was progressing nicely. I was using your Positions of Flexion and X-Rep techniques on my three-days-a-week split: chest/bi’s, legs, and back/tri’s. My strength-and-size gains were steadily increasing. Then I started my summer job, and I was a lot sorer after my workouts, I take longer to recover, and I’m losing the size I had in my arms. The job is 40 hours a week of outdoor physical labor. I thought that by eating frequently with adequate protein and eight hours of sleep each night, I’d be fine, but that’s not working. Do you have any suggestions to help get me back on the muscle-building track, especially in the arm department?

A: A demanding physical-labor job can make it more difficult to grow, but not impossible. Even a high-pressure office job presents a similar problem: too much stress. It’s similar to being a hardgainer with low recovery ability and high cortisol output: You have to find the right balance and workload so you don’t overtrain, which means you sometimes have to cut back to grow.

As for your situation, we notice that while it appears you’re training each bodypart once a week on your split, that’s not really the case with arms…

When you do chest and biceps, you’re also training triceps during chest work—bench presses, etc. Then at the end of the week when you train back and triceps, you are also training biceps during back work (chins, pulldowns, etc.).

So you’re actually training arms hard and heavy twice a week, in addition to whatever you do at work, which may be why they are shrinking. Your arms are being hammered continuously with no time to recover.

First try altering your split as a way to cut back to grow: Day 1: back, biceps; Day 2: legs; Day 3: chest, triceps. If you don’t see results after a few weeks, cut back on your arm work. You may not need a full POF program for biceps and triceps, only the big midrange move plus one isolation exercise. So your anchor exercise for biceps would be barbell curls…

Do that for two sets, then follow up with one or two sets of the stretch-position exercise, incline curls…

The following week do two sets of the big midrange exercise again, but follow with one or two sets of a contracted-position exercise for biceps, like concentration curls…

That’s Split-Positions training—you still hit all three Positions of Flexion but over two workouts instead of all at one session. Here’s how your arm programs would look:

Biceps 1
Midrange: Barbell curls 2 x 9
Stretch: Incline curls 1 x 12

Biceps 2
Midrange: Barbell curls 2 x 9
Contracted: Concentration curls 1 x 12

Triceps 1
Midrange: Decline extensions 2 x 9
Stretch: Overhead extensions 1 x 12

Triceps 2
Midrange: Decline extensions 2 x 9
Contracted: Kickbacks or pushdowns 1 x 12

Feel free to substitute exercises and/or manipulate the set totals. For example, you may be able to handle two sets on the second exercises or maybe a drop set. You’ll have to experiment and monitor your recovery and hypertrophic adaptations to get the right mix of how much to cut back to grow (without cutting back too far), but the above is a good place to start to get your growth into gear.

Note: There’s more on Split-Positions training in Chapter 10 of the Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building e-book, including a complete Split-Positions mass workout program.

Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com

Big-Arms Tip

Q: I’m getting new mass and cuts using the Fat-to-Muscle Workout. Just the right amount of soreness to burn fat and add muscle. I can see it happening when I look in the mirror. The only bodypart not getting it is biceps. I do cable curls with the Negative Accentuated technique because you’ve said it’s superior to barbell curls. I do two seconds up and then six seconds down on every rep, but I don’t get that deep ache like my biceps were worked hard enough. Should I move slower on the NA set or what?

A: To clarify, we’ve said cable curls are superior to barbell curls when you want to incorporate X Reps at the end of a set. X Reps are eight-inch partials you add at the semi-stretch point when you can’t do any more full-range reps.

End-of-set X-Rep partials are impossible on barbell curls due to the radical leverage shift during the first few inches of the stroke; trying to add X Reps near the bottom after full-range exhaustion ain’t gonna happen. But with cable curls you get a more even resistance through the stroke, so you can add X Reps or a static hold at the X Spot. Sounds like cable curls are the better choice, but not so with a negative-accentuated set…

Any machine with a weight stack has drag due to friction—no matter how much it’s greased. On cable curls, for example, as you curl up, the stack is dragging on the guide rods, which makes the positive stroke harder. Then on the negative, or lowering, the drag actually makes the weight lighter—not what you want if you’re looking for more fat-to-muscle microtrauma…

So what you’re experiencing on cable curls is positive failure too early due to weight-stack drag. That means you get fewer negative reps. Also, each slow negative is lighter than it should be due to weight-stack drag. Your biceps are losing out on two fronts. (We love machines, but in this case, free weights are the better choice.)

Solution: Try regular barbell curls for your NA set—two seconds up, six seconds down. If a straight bar hurts your wrists, use dumbbells or an EZ-curl bar. Either way, you’ll produce more microtrauma with heavier negatives on every rep compared to cable curls, and that means bigger biceps with a superior fat-to-muscle aftereffect.

Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com

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