The #1 Workout That BLEW UP My Arms (4 Exercises)

Thor, Captain America, Sam Sulek. What's the one thing they have that every guy wants? A big, thick, juicy set of arms. Unfortunately, God blessed me with twigs. I spammed them with curls and pushdowns. But that only got me so far. And I had no idea I wasn't hitting all the arm muscles. As soon as I trained smarter, my arm growth took off. Now, I don't want you guys to make the same mistakes I did. So today we're going to use the latest science to create the perfect workout to blow up your arms. Lets start with the biceps. So if you take a look at a standing dumbbell curl, it's hardest in the middle, right around here. But a new area of research suggests that for the most growth, you'd want an exercise that challenges the biceps closer to the bottom when it's stretched. For example, a 2023 study had subjects do either incline curls or preacher curls. Now, incline curls challenge the biceps the most in the middle, whereas preacher curls challenged the biceps the most in the beginning. The result? After nine weeks. Preacher curls led to more growth at all three measurement sites, especially in the bottom part of the biceps. And there's been similar findings in other muscles like the hamstrings, quads, and as you see later on, the triceps as well. Which makes me relatively confident in selecting preacher curls as a top tier biceps exercise. Especially since our Built with Science program members have also seen a lot of success with them. But there's a way to perform them which may get you even more growth. First off, the biceps function to not only flex the arm, but also turn the wrists inwards. So try to start the curl with a neutral grip and then turn your wrist in so your palms face up at the top. However, this will reduce the range of motion if you're using an inclined bench. So I'd only recommend doing this if you're using an actual preacher curl. Second, given the importance of the stretch, your arm should be almost fully extended to bottom. But this is usually a position that most people have never trained their biceps in. So I'd highly recommend start off with lighter weight for 10 to 20 reps, and then over time, you can go relatively heavier for around 8 to 12 reps. So there's one more curl we want to do to really blow up the arms. This one will help grow not just your biceps, but two more arm muscles. The biggest muscle of the forearm, the brachioradialis, as well as a muscle between the biceps and triceps that can help thicken your arms, called the brachialis. Now, unfortunately, there's no direct evidence looking at how well different exercises grow these muscles. But the brachioradialis sits on the side of the forearm, so simply turning your grip to neutral will line it up better with the direction of the arm path during the curl, forcing it to do more work. This grip is also theorized to reduce the involvement of the biceps and increase that of the brachialis. Now, standing hammer curls are the usual go to for these muscles. But for an even greater benefit, we can apply the earlier research we went through and perform these on a preacher curl to make it more difficult in the beginning and when the muscles are more stretched. Similar to the regular preacher curl, though, start off lighter for higher reps and work your way to 8 to 12 reps with a relatively heavier weight. But if these feel tough on your tendons, even when you use lighter weights for higher reps, then you can consider swapping them for behind the body hammer cable curls, which will still challenge the muscles more when they're stretched. Now, let's move on to the triceps. So, the triceps has three heads, the medial, lateral and long head. Now, some of these heads already grow very well from other exercises you're already doing. For example, one study published back in 2020 found that the bench press grew the lateral and medial heads quite well. But it did lead to virtually no growth in the biggest head of the triceps, the long head. This is because the long head is unique in that it's the only head that crosses the shoulder joint, so you'll need a special exercise to target it. As for the best option, the study we just covered also tested what would happen if subjects did both the bench press and skull crushers, a common triceps exercise. Now, compared to doing just the bench press alone, they found that adding the skull crushers resulted in no additional growth in the lateral head, a bit of growth in the medial head, but considerably more growth in the long head. But what exactly makes skull crushers so effective? And what about other triceps exercises? Would they be just as good at growing the long head? Well, another recent study by Mayo and colleagues provides some insight. They had subjects do tricep overhead extensions with one arm and and tricep pushdowns with the other. Similar to skull crushers, overhead extensions place the long head in a greater stretch, which, as we know from other research, seems to provide better gains. The result? After 12 weeks, the overhead extension group experienced about 1.5 times the growth in the long head. And what's interesting is that even though the lateral and medial heads weren't stretched anymore during the overhead extension, they still grew significantly more. Now we definitely need more research to find out why, but I would be pretty confident in recommending some type of overhead extension as a top tier triceps exercise, at least for the long head, but choose whatever is comfiest on your joints. You can do overhead with a rope single arm with just a cable or skull crushers using dumbbells or barbells. Aim for about 10 to 15 reps on these using moderate weight. All right guys, so before I show you the last exercise, I need to be honest with you. While all the science can definitely give you an edge, it's going to be useless if you're not nailing down the foundation. You need to push hard enough during your workouts, you need to fuel your body with the right foods, and you need to be sleeping enough. You're going to get far better results by fixing those areas than you will with any workout, no matter how science based it is. And if you're someone who needs more guidance and wants a step by step science based training and nutrition plan that takes care of all the guesswork for you so you can build muscle and lose fat as efficiently as possible, just take our quiz over at built with science.com to find the best plan for you and your body. It's helped thousands of others and I guarantee it's going to work for you. But anyways, let's move on to exercise number four. All right, so we've covered the long head, but now let's talk about the two other tricep heads. So you've already learned that pressing movements alone do a good job at growing the lateral and medial heads. For some people, that actually may be all that you need. But my pressing has always been relatively weak and my lateral head seemed to lag behind, so adding an exercise dedicated to this area really helped out. As for the best option, I found a lot of success with an exercise I first got from biomechanics expert coach Kassim. The arm position seems to both stretch and challenge the lateral head near the beginning, which as we covered, is probably beneficial for growth. To perform it, grab the cable with one hand face away and let the cable come over your opposite shoulder. Position your arm in front and across your body and then simply extend your arm while keeping your elbow locked in place. You want to aim for about 10 to 15 reps per set. Now, if you don't have access to cables, another great option is close grip push ups or something called the JM Press, but with dumbbells, think of the exercises of skull crushers and close grip Dumbbell press Had a baby. It's a great way to emphasize the lateral and medial heads since, as we saw earlier, the long head doesn't do a very good job at helping out during pressing type exercises. To perform it, lower the dumbbells down towards your neck while sliding your elbows forward. You want as much elbow bend as possible such that your forearm is parallel with the ground at the bottom. You can also let them angle out on the way down. If it's more comfy on your elbows, then simply use your triceps to extend your arms back up. However, these can be tough in the elbows, so I'd highly recommend sticking with lighter weights and aiming for about 15 to 20 controlled reps. So here's the four exercises with the reps, sets and alternatives. You can throw these exercises into your workouts throughout the week or just have a dedicated arm day where you do these all at once. But guys, the best complement to bigger arms are wider, fuller shoulders. Highly recommend giving this video. Watch next if you want to learn about a shoulder workout I've been personally doing that's been working really well. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.