Ultimate Guide to Superior Arms

“How can I get my arms bigger?” I hear this question all the time, especially from beginners.

Massive arms are considered one of the most important characteristics of a bodybuilder. They are the most visible parts and are the best visual indicator of pure strength.

Luckily for us, the mental barrier to put effort into training the arms is quite low. Since almost everyone associates big arms with strength and successful resistance training, this does not really come as a surprise.

Big arms tell the whole world that you lift.

So, the motivation to train the arms seems to be naturally given. Let’s have a look at how to put that motivation into practice. Let’s make your arms look great.

Related: V-Shape 101: How to Build Massive 3D Shoulders

The Muscles of the Arms

Before I tell you how to kill your arm workout with concrete exercises and workout tips, let’s have a look at different muscle groups.

Our arms consist of three major muscle groups. These are the biceps, the triceps, and the forearms. Each of them can be trained in isolation.

• Biceps: The main function of the biceps is to curl the arm. It is involved in every curling and pulling movements. It is probably the most iconic muscle. Together with the chest, it is an all-time favorite. I do not really understand the hype though. The bicep is relatively small compared to the triceps and less visible than the forearms. Nonetheless, if somebody asks you to show your muscles, you probably will start to flex your biceps.
• Triceps: The main function of the triceps is to straighten the arms. Hence, it is involved in all pushing exercises as well as arm extension movements. The triceps is the biggest and hence the most important muscle for massive arms. If you want people to notice a serious size difference in your arms, focus your efforts on developing a superior triceps.
• Forearms: The forearms are mainly responsible for moving your wrist and hand (fingers). Forearms are awesome. It is the only muscle group that is permanently visible. If we are fully dressed it is often difficult to spot a good physique, but if you have big forearms, people will notice. For me, this was always the main motivator to focus on underarm development.

The biceps and the triceps are antagonistic to each other and a perfect example of opposing muscle groups. During a barbell curl, the biceps would be the agonist – prime mover – while the triceps acts as the antagonist. During a typical triceps movement as a triceps extension, this logic would be reversed.

The following exercises are all you need to develop killer arms.

10 Awesome Arm Exercises

• Standing Barbell Curl (Biceps): The single best bicep exercise out there. It is almost a compound movement since it forces your body to engage in a stabilization activity. It will also remain in your program at every proficiency stage. Depending on your workout program, you should do this exercise either at the beginning of your biceps routine or at the end of your back routine. You can do the barbell curl either in the normal 10-12 repetition range doing a strict movement, which targets only your biceps (the main exercise you should do for biceps training) or with heavy weight while cheating a bit during the upward movement in the beginning. The idea is that you will use your back and shoulders to catapult the weight up during the concentric movement. The main reason for this is the different strength availability during the curl itself. The beginning of the barbell curl is easier than overcoming the horizontal part due to a difference in lever length. The good thing about doing heavy curls is the irrelevance of proper technique to isolate the biceps. Similar to the heavy upright row, a heavy barbell will target several of your muscle groups significantly and hence stimulate growth. This makes the whole workout logic simple and easy to perform without too much focus on the details. So if you do only one bicep exercise, make it this one.
• Hammer Curls (Biceps and Forearms): A really useful exercise as it not only targets the biceps and can be perfectly done after the barbell curl. Hammer Curls are also nice to target the forearms. Do this exercise more toward the end of your workout.
• Alternated Dumbbell Curls (Biceps): The major advantage of dumbbell curls is the possibility to rotate your wrist. A good example is the hammer curl above. This allows you to train the biceps from different angles and contributes to a fuller overall development of the muscle.
• Concentration Curls (Biceps): A very good isolation exercise for the biceps. According to Arnold Schwarzenegger, this exercise develops the peak of your biceps, which makes it higher during the flexing. If you are interested in developing a more defined biceps, this is the exercise for you.
• Triceps Pushdown (Triceps): Perfect exercise to either warm up the triceps or to finish it off at the end of a long chest, shoulder, or arm workout.
• Narrow Grip Bench Press (Triceps and Chest): Will target the chest and the triceps, but the main focus is triceps mass development. This exercise can be done at any time during your training. Depending on your goal, you can do heavy sets or train in the hypertrophy range.
• Barbell Triceps Extension (Triceps): A very good pure triceps isolation exercise. It can be done standing or seated (skull crusher). Nice additional exercise if you chose to have a pure arm day in your training routine with high volume.
• Dips (Triceps and Lower Chest): If you want to train the triceps, make sure you keep your torso in an upright position and do not lean forward. This will maximize the triceps engagement and reduce the help from the chest. Very good exercise to finish off the triceps at the end of a chest or arms workout.
• Reverse Barbell Curls (Forearms): This is mainly done to develop your forearms, but will also target the biceps. Since the weight is usually not so heavy, it will mainly work the forearms. It is a very good finisher for your arm workout in general and should be done at the end of your routine.
• Wrist Curls (Forearms): Pure forearm exercise. It can be done with barbells or dumbbells and also behind the body. The only exercise that targets the inner side of your forearms. Should be included during your arm day or at the end of other workout sessions.

General Training Advise for Arms

Beginner

Arms will grow automatically while you get stronger in your compound lifts. You will most likely have trouble holding the barbell during a deadlift and realize that forearm strength is the limiting factor in this case. Also, at the end of your back day, you might realize that the major issue is decreasing grip strength and it is difficult to keep doing heavy sets.

If you are not satisfied with arm development anymore or want to have proportionally bigger arms compared to other muscle groups, or you need a little more grip strength for heavy lifts, you can start to isolate your arms to trigger faster growth.

Overall, isolating the arms as a beginner does not bring major advantages and might even interfere with your overall progress as often the arms will be overtrained, which will prevent you from doing heavy bench presses and bend-over rows, which are necessary to progress to the next proficiency level.

If you want to include additional arm training, start out only with the barbell biceps curl and maybe one triceps exercise as a triceps extension exercise. You can use different grip width during the barbell curls to target your muscle slightly different. A narrow grip for the barbell curls puts more emphasis on the outside head of the biceps. A wide grip will instead develop your inner biceps better.

Related: Beginner’s Guide to Resistance Training

Advanced

Progressing further, you can do barbell curls and dumbbell curls (hammer curls for example) and also triceps exercises. I really like doing triceps pushdowns and narrow grip bench presses. An easy and straightforward exercise that works. Once you think you need more than those exercise to develop your arms, which is somewhat unlikely, feel free to include as many different arm workouts in your routine as you deem appropriate. I personally prefer using the same exercise, but doing supersets or drop sets instead of the normal workout routine. Once you have progressed far enough feel free to experiment with your routine and see what works best for your personal training goals. Here a little bonus. Have a look at this article from T-Nation. The message is simple and clear. Curl heavy and bench heavy and you will develop big arms. Period.

Related: How to Build Muscle: 5 Tips for Serious Mass

Biceps

If you are training the biceps, make sure you use a complete range of motion to stimulate the full muscle. Also, do not reduce the stress from the biceps. Keep your wrists in a neutral position (unless you want to target your forearms as well) with straight arms. Also, move only the elbows and not your deltoids.

If your shoulders are strongly developed, especially front deltoids, they will support the movement and take away the tension from your biceps. If you do very heavy barbell curls – a cheating movement – it is ok to get the weight up with a little help during the concentric move, but make sure the downward movement – the eccentric movement – is slow and only supported by your biceps.

In general, do as many different exercise types for the biceps as possible if you are interested in complete development.

Triceps

Generally speaking, developing triceps mass is easy, as you will train it every time you straighten your arm against resistance. The triceps are involved in so my awesome exercises, such as all kinds of bench press variations, overhead presses, and dips, including all compound exercises, which should be in your program anyway. If you want to put more emphasis on your triceps, just narrow your grip for those exercises and you are done. Doing heavy, narrow-grip bench presses is perfect to build triceps mass and strength. To finish off your muscle, you can do triceps pushdowns.

A good way to purely isolate the triceps are the triceps extension movements, either with a barbell or a dumbbell.

The most important point in triceps training is to extend them completely. Concentrate on the lockout of the movement. This is where you feel your triceps significantly. Make sure to hold this position for a while and feel the tension in your muscle.

Forearms

You can, of course, do what you want, but I would suggest training the forearms as well for two reasons.

First, developed forearms look nice and this almost year-round. Short T-shirts will perfectly show your forearms, which will hint on your overall development.

Forearm strength is crucial for heavy lifting and pulling exercises, especially during a long back workout. You don’t want your forearms to fatigue before you are done with your back workout. You never want your forearms to be the weakest part of any exercise. If you realize this, work on your forearms strength. It gives you also more stability and confidence doing heavy lifts.

“It may seem to some that concentrating on forearms right from the beginning is not that important, but I disagree—forearm and grip strength are so essential to being able to train hard and heavy that you need to develop the forearms right from day one. And since forearm growth comes slowly to some people, the sooner you get started working on it the better.” Arnold Schwarzenegger

If you want to have big forearms, you have to take training them seriously. Use one exercise that targets the upper part of the forearms (hammer curls, reversed barbell curls) and one that targets the inner forearms (wrist curls) and you will be fine.

Summary

If you want to have well-developed arms, make sure to give them the necessary attention they need. I have personally neglected them for a while and regretted it. It is true that arms are always involved in the compound movements, but I have realized over time that this is not enough to get your arms to exceptional size.

I had nice arms and could not complain about them, but it was not a “boah, look at those arms” type of development. If big arms are something you aspire to have, include a pure arm day into your workout. Don’t just train them at the end of your chest or back day. Take the arm workout as serious as your chest workout or your personal go-to exercise.

Recommended further reading: V-Shape: Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Upper Body

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