If you have been stuck with your arm training, meaning that you haven't seen any progress in a while, it doesn't mean that you have hit your upper limits of arm potential. I would say that most drug free trainees fall short of what they are capable of achieving regarding the building of the arms. There are certain key variables that when properly applied can take your arms to a new level. What's the next level? I'm talking about adding another inch or two on your arms without increasing your body fat level.
Here are 2 variables that i have personally applied to bring my arms to the next level
1) If you want bigger arms train your back and legs intensely. The bigger the muscle group the impact on the overall body. When you train the legs and back intensely the stress from the workout leads to a rise in your body's natural production of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Testosterone (Test). As you know injectable Test and HGH are taken to bring levels of muscle mass to insane levels, but this isn't without potential negative side effects. You can bring your own levels up naturally by working the big areas of the body intensely. Intensely in this case means hitting the legs and back with exercises such as the squat and deadlift for 10-20 rep sets.
2) Train your arms with low volume workouts and high volume workouts. Low volume workouts in this case means workouts that are so intense that you your arms are zapped in a few sets. Zapped means a drastic fall off in strength by the end of the workout. Low volume training or intensity training is short in duration and all out. The goal with this training is to beat a muscle up as quickly as possible with as much intensity (not duration) as possible. The weights you lift in this workout should be heavy as possible while still allowing you to lift in good style. Utilization of drop sets, forced reps, negatives etc. are encouraged as well. This type of training specifically works on increasing the actual thickness of the muscle fibers, it is this type of training that will give your arms that thick dense appearance.
An example of this type of training for biceps would be:
Cheat barbell curls (2 warm ups of 10 reps) 6-8 reps taken to failure emphasizing the negative on each rep
immediately reduce the weight by 20-30lbs and continue to failure with forced reps and negatives
again reduce the weight by 20-30lbs and continue to failure with forced reps and negatives
if your up to it repeat until your down to the empty bar
rest and repeat a second time
Chin ups palms with facing your head 2 sets to failure
Hammer curls (same method as barbell curls)
High volume workouts encourage enhanced glycogen retention when combined with a diet rich (not excessive) carbohydrate intake. Enhancing stored glycogen within a muscle causes a muscle to look fuller, leaner, more vascular and bigger. High volume workouts allow you to actually lift more weight when you go to your high intensity workouts, the opposite is also true, high intensity workouts will allow you to lift more on your high volume workouts as well. This type of training is done with minimal rest between exercises, in fact go straight to the next exercise works extremely well. With this type of workout you select 2-3 exercises for biceps and 2-3 for the triceps. These exercises can be alternated back and forth until you complete the sequence or you can perform two in superset fashion, and move onto the next two when you have completed a few sets for the first.
Use of drop sets and partials are encouraged with this type of training. The repetition style should be continuos tension, non lockout style to encourage muscle pumping. With this type of training you perform as many sets as it takes to get the maximum pump, you end when your pump starts to subside.
An example of this type of training would be:
Barbell curls for 20 reps
immediately followed by
triceps push down 20 reps
immediately followed by
chin ups 10-20 reps (or as many as you can do)
immediately followed by
parallel bar dips 15-20 reps (or as many as you can do)
rest 45 seconds and repeat or go straight in.
There are more powerful variables that allow you to take your arms to the next level but these 2 work very well, try them.
Lawrence
www.LawrenceHosannah.com