We all want bigger arms right? We all want to fill the sleeves of our t-shirts.
And we have so many exercises we can choose from. From traditional curls to preacher curls to triceps extensions, to kickbacks.
But I’m going to list out four of the best exercises you should be doing if you want bigger arms.
Close-Grip Bench Press
When you think about big arms, you’re probably thinking about big biceps right? Yes, big biceps will be the main attribute to arm fullness and size, but we can’t neglect the triceps and the role they play in developing big, full arms.
And my favorite exercise to build big triceps is the close-grip bench press, and here’s why:
With the close-grip version of the bench press, we’re going to be transferring a lot of work from the pecs, where it would be with a traditional bench press, and move it to the triceps.
And this is still a compound movement, and it’s for that reason we’re able to load this lift heavier. Using heavy loads, we can really place a high level of tension and activation on the triceps and stimulate growth.
Then using progressive overload, we can continue to progress this exercise like any of our traditional compound movements.
Chin-Ups
When we think about pull-ups and chin-ups, we usually don’t think about our arms. We think about building back strength right?
With Pull-ups, in the over-over grip, yes we are going to be putting a lot of work on our lats and rear delts.
But, when we go to our palms-up grip with our chin ups, we’re going to be putting a lot of work on the biceps!
And as a compound movement, just like with the close-grip bench press, we can load chin-ups fairly heavy using a weight belt. We’ll also be putting some extra work on our back and our pulling strength.
Strict Curl
Okay so we’ve got the most traditional arm exercise in the book. As I mentioned earlier in the video, there are multiple kinds of curls that we can choose from, but my choice is the traditional bar curl with my back against a wall. This is what we call the strict curl.
Now when we do traditional curls, it is very easy to resort to momentum, even without realizing it, to complete the movement.
Or, most times, you’ll see lifters performing curls with their elbows swaying forward in front of their body. But here’s the thing. This defeats the purpose of the curl because this particular movement is actually being done mostly with the shoulders, namely the front delts.
So if I’m allowing my elbows to sway forward when I curl, I’m actually not placing much tension on my biceps at all.
Now, if I perform my curls with my back against a wall, there’s very little opportunity for me to take advantage of momentum or swaying to complete my reps.
Instead, it’ll take all of that tension and put it where it should be: on the biceps. And this will lead…to bigger biceps!
Dips
So one of the biggest themes of this video is compound movements. I’m a big fan of compound movements because, as I’ve said a couple times now, we can load them fairly heavy.
And we’re spending time putting work on multiple muscle groups at a time and getting more bang for our buck, which we aren’t doing when we perform isolation exercises.
And dips are going to finish this list because, again, we have the ability to load them with a weight belt, and we’re going to be placing a lot of tension on our triceps, shoulders and chest.
Here we’re going to be focused on lowering ourselves down slowly to the deepest position we can, and then drive up to the lockout position.
Locking out our arms under progressively heavier load is going to lead to exceptional triceps growth.
Comentarios