The ONLY 2 Exercises You Need For Massive Arms

If you want to grow your twigs into thick, defined arms, you've come to the right place. After cutting out all the fluff and focusing on just two sides backed exercises, my arms grew bigger and fuller than they ever have. But don't just take my word for it. I asked the top natural bodybuilders and muscle growth researchers the same question. If you could only pick one biceps exercise and one triceps exercise, what would you pick? And they all pointed to the same two weird exercises I've been using. So, like most people, I started in the gym with just standard bicep curls. And I'm not gonna lie, they did the job. But after I passed my newbie gains phase, my arms became a lot harder to grow. And that's when I started learning more about the potential downsides of regular curls. They challenge your biceps, mostly in the middle position when your arm is flexed. But this is a similar type of challenge your biceps already get from back exercises like rows and pull ups, which also tend to be most difficult when your arm is in that same position. Plus, because the biceps cross all the way over the shoulder, exercises like dumbbell curls don't stretch your biceps as much as they could be by exercises where your arms stay behind you. Which, at least based on research for other muscle groups, seems to be a powerful way to stimulate more growth. But to discover the best exercise for your biceps, scientists from a brand new 2025 study ran an exercise comparison. They split participants into two groups. One group did only incline curls for eight weeks, whereas the other group did preacher curls. Now, although both these exercises work the biceps, the challenge they place on them is actually very different. During incline curls, your arms hang behind your body, providing an even greater stretch on the biceps. But the exercise is still hardest right around the middle, just like regular curls. With preacher curls, however, your arm is placed in a free the front of your body, so the biceps aren't stretched as much. But unlike the incline curls, this setup now challenges your biceps much more at the bottom position when your arm is almost fully extended. So with the study design, the researchers wanted to find out what causes more growth. An exercise that focuses more on stretching the biceps, or an exercise that focuses more on challenging the biceps than most at the bottom, when the bicep is still quite stretched, but just not stretched quite as much as it is during incline curls. And the results were confusing. Incline curls led to more growth in the upper part of the arm, but preacher curls led to more growth in the lower part of the arm. Another study that's yet to be released tested the exact same thing but using MRI for more accurate measurement and they got similar results. So what does this mean? Well, theoretically, to maximize growth in all parts of your biceps, you'd want an exercise where the the challenge is hardest at the bottom, just like they are with preacher curls, but without the arm held in front of the body so the biceps are more stretched. Which leads me to the weird exercise most of the fitness experts I spoke to recommended, starting with pro natural bodybuilder and elite coach Alberto Nunez.

So for me personally, I really like those creature curl benches or tables that are really wide where I can lean back and have my humerus in spite it's not full shoulder extension, but they're right at about my midline and basically perform a curl like this.

Daniel Plotkin, one of the science advisors for us at Built with Science, has designed and published several muscle growth studies and explains why this exercise is so effective.

I'm gonna have to go with a reverse preacher curl. It covers a lot of bases that wouldn't be covered with those compound back movements where the exercises are typically hardest in the mid to shortened position sometimes.

So by lying back on a preacher curl bench, your biceps are still challenged near the bottom, just like they would be during a normal preacher curl. But your arms are positioned in more of a stretch because they aren't held in front of the body. Plus, it comes with another unique benefit that most dumbbell curls miss out on.

And I found it very beneficial to just have something on my arm when I'm curling. I really like the stability aspect of it. When you think about it like, you know, arms like it can move all over the place. That's something people forget is like the bigger you get, probably the more strict form you need because it's very easy for you to use your own body weight to contaminate an exercise.

However, Dr. Mike, Ph.D. researcher and competitive bodybuilder, actually recommended an even weirder exercise that still applies a similar concept.

Flat bench dumbbell curl. Really puts that tension at the maximum stretch and lengthened position of the muscles. It has that same feel for your biceps that stiff legged deadlifts done properly have. Your hamstrings, you know what I'm talking about, like they're getting pulled apart with maximum tension at the stretch. There's just no replacement for that. Once you try it. It's like the crystal of champagne of bicep exercises. You're like all the rest of this.

Now I will admit this is quite the weird looking exercise and even I was skeptical at first. Now, even though pumps and soreness aren't everything, I'm not going to lie. After I tried this exercise for the first time, it gave me the biggest pump and post workout soreness I have ever, ever had. Holy. That's insane. So much so that it's easily become one of my current favorites. But the downside of this version is that they do lack the stability that the preacher bench provides. And supporting your arms in this freeheld position can place a lot of demand on your front delts. So an easy fix I've been recommended by biomechanics expert coach Kassum is to position yourself sideways so that your arms are now supported by the bench. Might lose a bit of the stretch on the biceps, but it does make up for it with the extra stability, which I personally find makes this exercise a lot more comfortable. But use caution. Both of these still require a good amount of shoulder mobility and they will take some time to get used to. So don't force it if it feels off and start light. I can do regular curls with 55 pounds, but for these I'm using max 30 pounds. But because not everyone will have a preacher curl bench or feel comfortable doing the lion dumbbell curls, there's a third option with cables. Now, I have shown this in past videos, but you set up the cables to about wrist height and then curl with your arms held behind your body. While these do lack the arm support you get from using the bench, you still tick the boxes in terms of the stretch and the resistance challenge. Now, all three exercises are very similar in terms of what they're doing to the biceps. So pick the one that best suits what equipment you have available, but also feels really good on your joints. But even with the best bicep exercise, they only contribute to about one third of your arm size, the other two thirds, triceps. And unfortunately, most people use exercises that don't allow this muscle to reach their full potential, like pushdowns, close grip presses or dips. But these exercises seem to mostly work just two parts of the triceps, the lateral head and medial head, which are what beef up the triceps from the front and side. But the third head, the long head, is actually the biggest part of the triceps and beefs them up from the back and hangs down when you flex your arms. So what's the better exercise to grow all three of these areas? Luckily, scientists from a 2022 paper designed an experiment to find the answer. For 12 weeks, they had subjects perform overhead extensions with one arm and push downs with the other arm. Now, because the long head crosses over the shoulders. The whenever you do a triceps exercise with your arm overhead, this muscle gets stretched, which, as you know by now in certain muscles seems to boost growth. But surprisingly, all three heads grew more with the overhead extensions, resulting in 1.4 times overall triceps growth than the pushdowns. Now, we don't yet know why exactly the other two heads grew more, and we could definitely use another study to confirm these findings. But the researchers used mri, which is the gold standard of measurement. So the study is strong. And this is also why every single expert I spoke to chose the overhead extension as their number one triceps exercise for triceps.

Personally, I just like the overhead tricep extension with a rope. Very easy for me, I would say.

Easy bar standing or seated behind the neck. Tricep extensions are amazing. If you're already doing pressing for your chest, you're doing the motion for your triceps that has the other angles built in anyway, might as well go overhead to get all those awesome benefits.

If I had to choose one, I'd go with an overhead tricep extension with a cable, usually with my hand wrapped through the D handle and my elbow propped up. It's one of the few exercises that feels really good on my elbow, especially in that overhead position. And it checks a lot of boxes. So hardest in the lengthened position puts the long head of the tricep in a lengthened position. So can't go wrong.

But what you may have noticed is that each expert I spoke to preferred a different variation. Why?

I think this is where most people find their elbow issues over time. Very few people after the age of 30 do you see, like, skull crushing, like the 45, but, you know, we've all done that. But like, and when you see a young man doing it, you're like, okay, you probably got five more years of that, and you're gonna be joining me over here in the cables. So especially with tricep is like, pick the movement that you just feel like it's just custom made for you.

So even though Dr. Mike loves the bar overhead extensions, my body structure finds it extremely uncomfortable because it locks my hands into a fixed position. I've actually injured myself a couple times trying to force it. My personal favorite right now is either Daniel's single arm recommendation with cables because it feels easiest on my joints, or even something as simple as a standing single arm dumbbell overhead extension because it's just really easy to set up and doesn't rely on a cable machine being available, but try out the different variations and what you're looking for is the one where you feel very little to no pain in your elbows or shoulders as you do it, yet feel a great pump in your triceps after you finish your set. But whichever variation you do end up choosing, here's the key. If you're using cables, bump up the cable to about hip height and stand close to the cable so that the challenge is hardest closer to the bottom when the muscle is stretched. For the dumbbell version, keep your upper arm locked straight up and down. Don't allow it to bend too much as you get tired. And on all the variations, don't stop halfway. Get as deep a stretch in the triceps as possible by letting your hand come down behind your neck as far as it can. But now the important part. How do you actually implement these exercises into your routine? Well, first off, it's not like all other arm exercises are useless, but these are likely going to give you the most bang for your buck. So make sure they're somewhere in your current routine by doing them for three sets of ten ten to fifteen reps at least one to two times per week. And the good news is that with my new app built with Science plus, all of this programming is taken care of for you. We carefully select each exercise in your routine based not only on what's been proven to be most effective, but also based on what suits your specific the body best and what equipment you have available to you. Plus, after you start your workout program, it coaches you every single week, telling you exactly how much weight and how many reps to do based on how you've been progressing. And the same goes with your nutrition and tracking your body weight. It's honestly the only fitness app you need. You can try two weeks free@builtwithscience.com and see the difference for yourself and then give this video watch next to learn about the two best exercises to grow your shoulders. Thank you so much for watching. Hope you enjoyed this one. I'll see you next time.