How To Get Bigger Arms with CrossFit Games Athlete Dan Bailey

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What's up, guys? I'm Dan Bailey.

Kevin Jordan.

And I'm Roy Styles.

And we're going to take you through the ultimate arm workout. Today. We're going to write some movements up on the whiteboard, grab a little pre workout and then get started.

Ender performance endurance. Yeah.

I'm going to do the alpha surge and the megawatt. Mix them together. I love the pump from the alpha surge.

I'm gonna add some carnitine in there.

All right, Royce, what's your favorites?

My favorite go to was gonna be the cable seated curls. Kind of like an isolation paw set.

Been a big fan of static holds. So like just a dumbbell curl with one arm, but then the other arm's held at 90 degrees.

Okay.

For triceps, I'd say two of my go to movements would be the dumbbell skull crushers. I really like those for adding of size, you know, if you like. To help get you stronger, too, at a lot of that mass. Triceps and then rope press down as far as biceps curls. I kind of like the static idea you had, but then something just like a preacher, the machine over there, you know, they give you a nice little pump at the end of the workouts, which is what everyone wants essentially, with the bicep and tricep workout. So those are my faves.

Seated cable.

Seated cable.

Pause Reps. You said three sets of 15. Yeah.

I'd say the preacher machine. Now, typically, I do four sets, 12 to 8. I would say for the average person, I'd say three sets, 12 to 8.

Reps. Static hold, dumbbell curls.

You wrote your workout the ugliest. What's that? I said you wrote your workout the ugliest.

It's your workout.

Don't listen. 3 by 8 to 12 as well.

Cool.

All right, we got biceps.

Figured we can do some cable kickbacks.

3 to 15.

I'd say skull crushers. 3 to 3, 12. 8 to 12 again.

DB single arm extensions. Seated single arm. That's the plan, I think.

That's the plan.

That's the plan right there.

Would you go through all biceps, all triceps? Because what I like to do personally every now and then is I'll do it.

Yeah, we bounce. So basically, you want to go one bicep, one tricep. One bicep, one triceP.

I'll alternate every now and then, though. I will go through. Personally, I'll go through all of them for beginners, though. I wouldn't recommend it.

Let's go. Let's get it.

Come through.

I'm counting in my head. 1, 2, 3, 1.

You hit some curls in the hotel room before you got here or something. I mean, those things are already, like, popping out of your skin, brother.

Jeez.

That's the one right there. That's the one.

Yep. One, two, two, three. There you go. One, two, three.

Yep.

So basically, why this one is better and my preference is I feel it takes your body out of it, and the only tension is going to be focused only on the biceps. That's it.

It felt easy at the start. At the start, the last, like, five were like. Okay, I'm there now.

There you go. Yes, sir.

Get them 20 tools up. There you go.

Nice little popes.

They going crazy.

Nice, brother. Oh, yeah.

Quick pump. There it is. Now we're gonna start the triceps now, right?

Yeah, triceps.

Let's go first. First.

Make sure you warm up the elbows when you do these. For anyone out there, I'd say let's just grab a 10 to start. You know what I mean? Just kind of get the elbows a little warmed up, then load it up after that.

I like to do them on a flat bench, personally. Typically, a lot of times, especially someone like me, my elbows kind of bow out. So I try and force them in a little bit. Try and really isolate the triceps.

Like, the bigger you are, the more. Yeah, it's harder to keep your elbows.

That's a little tip I use. And then other than that, just keeping your arm over the chest, bending the elbow, nice controlled pace, and obviously breathing. So for me, like I said, I like to really warm up. Elbows, hands in narrow, and just bend.

Oh.

At the top, I would straighten the arms, but I wouldn't lock them so hard. You know what I mean? Keep the elbows kind of soft.

That does feel better.

Good job, boys.

Now we'll throw a little weight on here.

Some weight on that thing.

All right, we're gonna go hit preacher curls now on the machine over here.

I mean, you could. You could definitely be in the open arm workout, you know, I could. Let's see it. I for sure could. You know what I'm saying?

But right now. Yeah, right now, we need a little wasp.

Do you normally go for reps or do you try to get. You try to go as heavy as possible.

Definitely not heavy as possible. With arms. I just try and get a good pump, go more for reps, but I still don't go past. I still do a little bit of progressive overload, so I'll, you know, try and get stronger also. But I'm not really trying to lift for strength with arms, you know? But I. I'll typically do anywhere as high as 15, no more than 8.

Gotcha.

So, really, for me, arms is more of a feel type thing.

You know, you stay seated or standing.

I stand when I do this, actually. Yeah, just me. I like to kind of isolate the biceps. A lot of times when people do this, bad ends up happening, you know, So I actually stand up and I'll lean over intentionally just to really isolate the bias.

Don't need a lot of weight at all. Just get a nice little pump.

All the blood in my body is in my arms.

We got eight to 12 on the board for that static hold. I'm like eight.

Eight.

Like, eight's gonna be enough.

Yeah.

Give us a look.

Feeling full right now.

There it is. You don't feel that part.

That looks like a good one.

So I'm gonna do something a little different.

Just kind of switch up the grip a little bit.

Yeah, everyone got their own grip. You can even do it without the grip. You can just do it straight with the cable. See how he has his leg up? I like to use the same leg, and then I have my opposite arm hold for stabilization. You don't really necessarily have to do it with the same leg or opposite leg. It just depends on your balance level. As long as you're making sure your kickback is great form, great technique, and you're actually holding it up and pausing on that come up, it's gonna feel. It's gonna feel great.

Not in a long time, man. If I do, I'll use dumbbells. So it's good to kind of do stuff like this. Mix it up a little bit var.

Good job, dan.

That's a burner right there.

Yeah, it is good to go.

Yeah. We got the static hole, right?

Static hole. Now the big one. Yeah. It's just a dumbbell curl like you would normally do. Right. But while you're working one arm, the one arm is working, the other arm is just holding the weight at 90 degrees. If you want to grow, you want to get stronger, you want to get better, you got to stress the muscle, right? So this is just one different way that you can do that. By just holding weight here, holding a static hold, forcing the weight up and the bicep to just hold that contraction point right at 90 degrees while your other arm's working. And then going to work on that arm afterwards is like, serious burn. Like, it's just really hard on the arm. So hold here.

And then get all 8 to 12 reps on your one arm. Once you hit that last rep, you bring that other arm down to 90.

Whose bright idea wasn't to do these at the end?

And then if you're doing four sets. Right. When we start with the static on this one on the first set, start with the static over here on the next set.

Right.

You get the balance of both.

That's good.

Feeling this. Is that it on the burners?

There's one more tricep up there.

DB Extension, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep.

We're gonna do a overhead dumbbell extension. Single arm. You can do double. Single. You can do seated. Standing. I prefer seated.

Why do you prefer seated over?

Just the balance aspect of it, Especially if you're going a little heavy, you know, you might end up losing balance. I think you're going to be able to control the dumbbell actually tricep a little bit better.

Ah, there it is.

How it's better to go overhead with tricep stuff instead of, like, push downs.

Personally, I do both. Honestly, I don't really know what the argument is. But like you said, for push downs, one of my favorite is just the rope. Rope press down. I feel like that's a staple in my tricep exercises.

Like, for sure. Like on a push down a rope, like the. The bar, whatever. You're gonna be able to do more weight.

Yeah, exactly.

You're gonna be able to move more.

Yeah.

A heavier load than what you can here. But I don't know why you wouldn't do both.

You know what I mean? I would recommend doing a good comb.

There you go.

Feels good.

Feels good.

I'm used to just the way we do things. Yeah. We crank out reps as fast as we can for CrossFit. Yeah. Yeah. It's always for time. Yeah. The good thing that comes with that is like the intensity level. Is it through the roof?

You going to, you know, step on stage anytime soon? I think I got a ways to go before that would be the case. You look good in Speedo, dude. Oh, man, I appreciate that, bro.

Yeah.

Is that something you visualize or like, what is the. Okay. All right.

Yeah.

Appreciate it. I photoshopped a picture of your face on and I put it in my room. Right. It's a poster on your ceiling. Yeah. So we should have Dan go do a bodybuilding show and then we have Kevin go do a competition.

You gotta coach me through that. And then I'll coach you through a weekend competition. A local throwdown.

That's it?

That's the workout.

We're gonna go grab some post workout. You gotta get your protein in after a good arm pump.

Let's get it, let's get it, let's get it. He wants a nut buster, huh?

That one.

That one, sure.

I'm doing Formula one ignition and a little more creatine. Always good to get some carbs in after obviously protein just for recovery and I'm going with. I think we got peanut butter floating around here somewhere. Yeah, Kevin's got it down there. It's gonna be my flavor.

I got the salted peanut butter formula one. I usually take this with admission. Like Dan said, get those carbs in there, help utilize the nutrients, help them absorb a little faster. Then about an hour after this I usually go with the whole food meal. So that's my post workout.

I got a strawberry. This has grown on me. I, I was taking the cinnamon toast crunch for a long time and then I tried the strawberry one. It really just changed the game for me because I kind of like a sweet flavor but not too, too sweet. My go to stack for my post workout is I normally do Formula one creatine and the ignition helps me get a little bit of anything after my workout.

Alright guys, that's it. Thanks for tuning in to the ultimate arm day. Go ahead and comment down below what you thought. Remember, you can change any of the rep schemes, the sets depending on your ability level and just have fun with it, go hard and have a good time in the gym.