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The Gun Show

By Carlos Torres

It's what most men want, bigger arms. The muscles of our upper arms are the "show off" muscles. Whenever someone asks you to flex your muscle, you usually flex your bicep. So how do I get bigger arms? The answer may surprise you. Most guys think they need to do endless number of sets of bicep curls, and tricep exercises to build bigger arms. You read in magazines and articles and see guys at the gym doing a whole workout just for their arms. What a waste of time and energy! There is a much more efficient way to build bigger arms without having to do many isolation exercises for your arms.

First, you want to start with your base of support, your core or spine. Think of your body as a tree with branches. Your tree is the spine and it's musculature and the branches are your arms. If the branches of the tree grew too large, the tree would lean over and possibly collapse. Your body works the same way. Your body will not allow you to build bigger arms if it doesn't have enough musculature and strength in it's core. It's your bodies way of protecting itself from injury.

You want to do exercises that strengthen your lower back and abs before you do anything else. Exercises like the deadlift, overhead squat, lower back extensions, supermans and abdominal exercises are a good start.

Second, you want to add muscle to your upper body. According to strength training expert Pavel Tsatsouline you need about 15 pounds of lean upper body muscle to add just one inch to your arms. If you are taller then it's probably more. So it makes sense you should focus on the exercises that build upper body mass to build bigger arms. So for biceps, focus on exercises like pulldowns, pullups, & rows using an underhand grip. For triceps focus on exercises like the bench press, shoulder press, and dips. These exercises will add mass to your upper body and at the same time put a lot of tension on your biceps and triceps, much more than just doing a bunch of isolation exercises for your biceps and triceps.

Lastly, you should do some bicep and tricep exercises to get the most out of your arm building program. The exercise that puts the most stress on your biceps is the preacher curl. When you do this exercise, make sure you come down slowly (about 3 seconds on the descent) and get a good stretch at the bottom then come up almost all the way up making sure not to lose tension in the bicep. You do not want to come up all the way because you will lose tension on the biceps. You can also mix in other exercises into your biceps routine like standing bicep curls, concentration curls, etc? For your triceps, the exercise that probably puts the most stress would be tricep dips. To perform this exercise, place both hands on the edge of the bench facing away from it and prop your feet up on another bench or chair keeping you legs straight. Go down to almost 90 degrees or whatever your range of motion allows. Go all the way up and contract your triceps hard at the top. The eccentric portion(lowering) should be about 3 seconds and the concentric portion (contraction) about 1 to 2 seconds and pause at the top for a count of 1. You can also mix in some other triceps exercises like close grip bench press, skull crushers, and tricep pushdowns. Doing a total of 3 to 6 sets and 8 to 12 repetitions for your arms each time you work them out is more than enough since you get enough stimulus from working the rest of the body.

In summary, to build bigger arms, start by getting your core stronger, then the upper body, then finish off with some isolation exercises for your arms.

About the Author:

Carlos Torres is a certified Personal Trainer with a degree in Exercise & Sports Science located in San Antonio, Texas. For questions and comments, send an email to .