Four science-backed strategies to build bigger arms: increase weekly training volume up to 30 sets, do isolation exercises first in your workout, progressively add weight to those movements, and stick with the same exercises rather than constantly switching them.
Questions this video answers
Six, 18, and 30 weekly sets for the biceps and triceps.
A 2010 paper in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Roughly 20 or more weekly sets (including indirect work from compound exercises).
If you're like me, then chances are one of the reasons you first started lifting weights was to build big, powerful looking arms like in the movies.
And I wouldn't blame you, as the.
Arms are one of the first body parts you notice on someone and could dramatically improve your physique. But you've also probably come to the realization that building bigger arms is no easy feat and and is a much slower process than most people perceive it to be. Even if you choose all the right exercises and do all the right workouts, growing your arms can often seem painfully slow. However, if you're serious about maximizing your arm growth, then luckily there are a few exercise strategies that research indicates are able to considerably speed up the process. And in this video, that's exactly what I'll cover so that you can build bigger, more powerful looking arms as fast as possible. The first step you need to take is to ensure that you're performing enough volume, since we know that there's a positive relationship between weekly volume and muscle growth. So if you haven't been seeing the results you've been hoping for in terms of your arm growth, then increasing the amount of weekly sets you dedicate to your arm training would likely be the solution. Illustrating this, a 2019 paper on trained men compared the effect of performing six, 18 or 30 weekly sets for the biceps and triceps after eight weeks. They found that there was a significant dose response effect observed for biceps growth and total weekly sets, with a similar trend seen with the triceps as well, meaning that more volume did indeed lead to faster growth of the arms, which multiple other studies have found as well. Now, this doesn't mean that you should ramp up your volume to do as many sets as possible every week, but it does mean that gradually increasing your weekly volume for the arms can speed up growth. For instance, you can add a set per week to your existing arms exercises or add additional exercises to gradually build up to roughly 20 or more weekly sets for the biceps and triceps, depending on how frequently you train them, which includes the indirect work you get from compound exercises. Then, once your progress stagnates, reduce your volume back to what you were initially doing in order to mitigate fatigue and resensitize your muscle for free further growth when you repeat the process. Now, although typically you'll want to perform your heavy compound exercises first in your workout, if your goal is to prioritize arm development, then you can and should move your arm exercises to the beginning of your workout. This is because multiple studies have found a trend where lifters get better gains for exercises that are done early in a session. For instance, a 2010 paper from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research compared the effects of performing compound exercises before arm isolation exercises versus doing the arm isolation exercises before the compound exercises in a workout after 12 weeks. They found significantly greater triceps growth when the arm isolation exercises were done first, and a similar trend was found for the biceps as well. This finding was also replicated in another study which led researchers to conclude that if an exercise is important for individual training goals, it should be performed at the beginning of the training session, whether or not it's a large or small muscle group exercise, simply meaning that during your upper body workouts or push and pull workouts, for example, moving your arms exercises to the beginning of the workout can help prioritize and speed up the growth of your arms. In addition to moving the order of your arm isolation exercises, you'll want to also focus on progressing them week to week, just as you would your compound exercises. This is especially important for arm growth since, as indicated by the researchers in this 2017 paper that analyze the relationship between muscle growth and strength, changes in performance on isolation movements seem to have a stronger relationship to changes in muscle size and than changes in performance on compound movements do, which is likely because they have less of a skill component to them than compound movements. Thus, week to week you should be focusing on slowly increasing the number of reps you can do per set and or the amount of weight you can lift with your arm isolation exercises as the progression you make with them over time will likely be the result of increased arm growth. Now, in order to best implement the previous tip and see the best results, it's vital that you avoid frequently changing up your designated arm isolation exercises. The idea that you have to confuse or shock your muscles into growth by subjecting them to new stimuli and new exercises every single week just isn't a very good approach and has very little validity to it. The key to building muscle isn't merely changing the types of stimuli every week, but increasing it by forcing them to do a little more week after week. So instead you want to pick the right set of arm isolation exercises, which I show how to do in some of my previous arm videos, and then stick to those same exercises week after week with a focus on getting stronger with them as previously discussed. This way you'll be able to more consistently track your progress with them, and over time you'll be miles ahead of the average gym goer trying to continually confuse his muscles without actually making any solid progress. But all in all, properly implement the tips I previously mentioned and I guarantee you'll start to notice major changes in your arm growth in no time. So to sum the video up, here.
Are the main points to keep in mind. I do also just want to mention, kind of as a precaution is that if you're a beginner and just starting out in the gym, then isolation exercises, especially for the arms, should really be just an afterthought. You can your main focus when starting out in the gym needs to be on progressing and mastering the main compound movements as these exercises are what's gonna provide the most bang for your buck. And then as you progress and gain more experience in the gym is when you can then start adding additional isolation exercises in order to stimulate further growth.
And if you're looking for an all.
In one evidence based program that applies these principles and lays everything out for.
You such that you can build muscle.
And lose fat as efficiently as possible.
From your starting point, then what you.
Can do is simply head over to builtwithscience.com and take my starting point analysis quiz I have up in order to discover what program and what approach is best for you. Anyways, if you haven't already, I'd really appreciate a follow on my Instagram. I post a lot of informative content and additional workouts on there which I think a lot of you will find useful. And lastly, if you enjoyed this video then please don't forget to give it a like Leave a comment down below. Subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and turn on notifications for my.
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