1. DITCH THE EGO LIFTING AND TRAIN THE MUSCLE
The main reason most people aren’t building bigger arms is universal among lifters around the world: using terrible form and not putting the biceps and triceps under actual tension because other muscle groups are forced to assist. Using more weight than can be handled in decent form is why most people never build the arms they should have. Believe me when I say that nobody cares how much you weight you use for curls or skullcrushers. They see your arms, and those arms are either impressive or not. Lighten up and do it right, and your arms will have a fighting chance to reach that magic 20 inches.
2. MASTER YOUR MIND-MUSCLE CONNECTION
There’s a difference between merely using good form and truly working the muscle, even though both look the same to an observer. You need to feel the biceps and triceps muscles contract and stretch under resistance as you do your reps. An effective way to get better at this is to pantomime the exercises without weight. For example, mimic the motion of a barbell curl, slowly flexing the biceps as you curl upward and consciously stretching them as you lower your arms. (An advanced technique to facilitate this would be to flex the triceps as you lower the resistance.) Once you’re in total control of your muscles and can feel them working throughout every inch of the rep, your results will be greatly magnified.
3. HEAVY CHEST AND BACK WORK = BIGGER TRICEPS AND BICEPS
The triceps get plenty of ancillary work when you perform pressing movements for the chest, and the biceps are involved in all types of rows and pull-downs for the back. If you slack on heavy chest and back work, you’re missing out on a substantial amount of residual work—and growth—for your arms. I’ve known men who put most of their training time and energy into heavy, compound movements, with little or no direct arm work. All of them had good-size arms, and some had outright huge arms. The opposite doesn’t seem to bear true. Those who focus mainly on direct arm work with isolation movements and hardly do any heavy chest or back training never get past a certain point of development.
4. HAVE A DEDICATED ARM DAY
If your arms haven’t budged the tape measure in many moons, you aren’t doing them any favors by working them after larger torso muscles such as the chest, back, or shoulders. As much as I’m a huge advocate of the Push/Pull/Legs training split, even I concede this point. After working a large torso muscle group, you’re already partially fatigued and simply incapable of applying 100 percent effort to the arms. Devote a dedicated workout day to arms, where that’s all you train. If you want to do a bit of calves or abs afterward, that’s fine. But working your bi’s and tri’s when you’re fresh is the best move if you want them to grow.
5. HIT THEM TWICE A WEEK
To prioritize your arms, I strongly suggest that you train them twice a week. By that, I don’t mean you should have two dedicated arm days. For most guys, that would have you overtrained fast. Rather, have one full arm day, then hit the biceps and triceps after another body part. You could do biceps after chest or triceps after delts, for example. You could even adopt this split:
- Push (Chest, shoulders, triceps)
- Pull (Back and biceps)
- Legs
- Arms
- OFF, repeat
I would only do three exercises for three sets each on those days you train larger body parts first (whether you follow P/P/L or a “bro split”), performing straight sets in the 8- to 12-rep range. This is more than enough to keep them full and make sure they aren’t going too long between workouts. Even though I said two dedicated arm workouts a week are probably too much for most men to recover from, working them just once a week may not be enough stimulation either. Do a longer, tougher workout, along with a shorter one that isn’t quite so demanding on your recovery. This strategy has worked well for many.