Arm training is another area of fitness that has a weird
stigma around it. If you look in any gym and see a young kid working out, most
likely he/she will be doing curls at some point that day.
The muscles in the arms are just like any muscle in the body
but they are never trained the same way. Most programs I see, arm training is
thrown in there with a random rep range, and some crazy variation. There is no
thought process going into making the muscles stronger.
The problem with this is that first off, these muscles are
there to aid an assist your joints and other areas of your body, so weak arm
muscles can lead to problems down the road. Second off, and more important,
your glam muscles won’t be as big.
How Should You Train Your Arms
1.) Program your arm training
The way your arms should be trained is just like the rest of
your body. The means in your programming, if you are in a strength phase, your
biceps and triceps are also in a strength phase.
How many people do you see working a 5×5 on their arms, not
many.
The benefits you will see by programming your arm training
in an effective manner is night and day.
2.) Stop doing curls every single day
For some people, they attack their arms so often that they
don’t give the muscle time to recover.
Just like I referenced above, arm training must be
programmed, follow your program!
This goes for any muscle but I see so many people in the gym
doing some variation or curl or tricep extension every time they are there, yet
they still wonder why their arms don’t grow.
3.) Use compound movements
Just because the muscles of the arm aren’t large in
comparison to other major muscle groups, does not mean that they should only be
done with isolation movements.
Step away from the cable press-downs for the day and try
doing some heavy close-grip bench press. Focus on getting stronger in that
movement and the carry over to your normal bench press will be exciting.
Start getting good at dips until you can add some weight to them.
Have you ever seen someone who does weighted dips with good form? If you have
you know that they always have impressive triceps, there is a reason for that.
For biceps start doing some bicep focused chin-ups. To take
focus off of your back, try keep your shoulders rounded forward and pull
through the bicep.
You can also try out some underhand barbell rows as another
compound exercise that will target the biceps.
These compound type movements will promote strength and
muscle gain in those areas, which is what many people are missing.
4.) Know the angles
Although I promote compound movements for these muscle
groups, it does not mean that isolation exercises don’t have their place.
If you are going to be using isolation exercises for your
arms then become familiar with the types of angles that work each muscle and
how to use them.
For the biceps you can have your elbows by your side, placed
in front of your, and placed behind you.
By your side: ex.
Standing Bicep Curl- The emphasis of this angle is at the mid-point of the
curl, so make sure you focus on that part of the movement
In front of you: ex.
Preacher Curl- The emphasis of this angle is at the top of the movement, so
squeeze hard at the top and make sure the weight is sufficient for this angle.
Behind you: ex.
Spider Curl- The emphasis is at the bottom of the movement, so keep control at
the bottom and use the correct muscle to pull through that point.
For the triceps there are similar angles but the main two
would be elbows in front, and elbows in front of.
Within these two angles they can both be done in the normal
pressing down motion or can be done with and overheard motion such as a
skull-crusher or overhead tricep extension.
The best thing you can do to see results in a particular area is to do the things you aren’t doing and get damn good at them.
JNHealthandFitness@aol.com
