Big arms are a symbol of masculinity. They command respect and are a testament to a man’s strength and power. Besides, they make women go crazy and other men jealous. It’s like the male version of having nice curves: they make you more attractive to the opposite sex.
Therefore, they make you feel more confident in every aspect of life. Nothing is more impressive than a set of bulging biceps that look ready to burst out of your shirt sleeves. However, the only problem is that building large, muscular arms isn’t exactly an easy task and often even after spending hours at the gym, people only see minimal gains.
Luckily, you are reading these lines and this means you are halfway towards building bigger arms.
Arm Workout Basics
Before you hit the gym and overexert yourself by doing constant biceps and triceps workouts, it is important that you are aware of a few workout basics. These include:
Train 3 Times Per Week
Many people think working out every day leads to larger muscles. However, this is clearly a misconception. Muscle mass is actually built during the rest days and between the workout sessions. Therefore, give your muscles appropriate time to rest, particularly your arms and train 3 times per week.
Work Out In 30-Minute Sessions
When compared to other muscles in the body, arm muscles tend to get injured way easily. Therefore, working them out for over half an hour or 45 minutes could increase the risk of getting hurt. This means, when performing arm workouts, always make sure to keep the sessions to 30 minutes only.
Bump Up The Intensity
So, now that you are finally going for shorter 30-minute sessions, it’s important you make the most of the time. Therefore, bump up the intensity, lift the heaviest weights, and do as many reps as possible in order to pump your muscles to the max.
Train To Fail
Pumping your muscles to the max is a method known as “Training to Failure”. Therefore, reaching the point of muscle failure is critical for the growth of muscle mass. So, get out of your comfort zone and instead of performing the same workout again, introduce some high-intensity changes into your routine.
Proper Form For Each Exercise
When it comes to building bigger arms, it is important you use the proper form to get maximum benefits and avoid painful injuries. Keep in mind that an exercise without proper form is never an exercise. In fact, it only results in a disturbing lot of pain.
Work The Entire Body
A common mistake most people make is focusing primarily on building arm mass. If you don’t work your core or legs, you will probably end up with larger ripped arms and skinny body and legs. Therefore, during the days you aren’t working on your arms, spend some time working other muscle groups.
Building Bigger Arms
When it comes to building bigger arms, you have to go the extra mile and choose exercises that help build muscle mass. Here are some of the best exercises for building arm muscle mass:
Straight Bar Curls
Straight bar curls is a good mass building exercise for beginners. They make your biceps fill with blood and just grow in size and muscle mass.
However, in order to increase the intensity of this exercise, it is recommended that you get a spotter. This way, you could get help during the forced reps and also avoid negative reps and partial reps.
This workout is done in a slow and controlled motion. First keep your feet at shoulder width length. The motion involves keeping your palms up while holding the bar making sure its just below your chin. Then slowly bend your arms till its fully extended. Please do not lock your arms at this point. Then go back to the starting position again.
Bicep Machine Curls
Bicep machine curls have the capability of completely killing your biceps, in a good way of course. However, do get help from your training partner with the forced negative and when you fail completely positively.
The workout will hurt a lot, but your biceps will grow in terms of muscle mass gained. Just a heads up, you will probably be sore the next day too.
French Curls Aka Skull Crushers
The proper way to perform French curls is often not taught. Most people you see will come down to their nose or forehead while performing the exercise.
This is why they are also called “Skull Crushers” because if your drop the weight, well… you get the picture. French curls generally work on your triceps and help greatly in building bigger arms.
In my opinion, doing this workout with a curl bar is a better option than using a straight bar. The straight bar forces you to hold your wrist an unnatural way especially when executing the move that goes behind your head unlike the curl bar.
Triceps Cable Extensions
Similar to cable preacher curls, this mass building exercise will keep a load on the muscle at its highest contraction point.
Therefore, it will force you into working your triceps harder, thus helping you gain more muscle mass.
For maximum gain, use a straight bar and not a rope, as this position puts massive focus on the head of the muscle and ropes don’t allow your triceps to contract fully.
Other Exercises
Other muscle mass building exercises for arms include dumbbell curls, chin-ups, cable preacher curls, incline supinated curls, hammer curls and seated barbell curls.
So, now that you are familiar with the tips mentioned above, building bigger arms won’t be a problem. However, do keep in mind that when it comes to building muscles, the resting period is equally important as the workout period. Therefore, you need to get at least 8 hours of sleep daily, to help your muscles recover and grow.
