4-Week Blast For Arm Growth

When people choose exercises to train their arms, they often choose
exercises by what kind of exercises gives the most pump. Of course, you get
more pumped if you train the same part of the arms with more than one
exercise, but it’s not the best to do for maximal muscle or strength
development. Biceps have two heads, and triceps have three. So, how many
exercises do you need to blast your workout and get all muscle heads
working?
Simple math tells us you need to do five exercises for an optimal arm
workout! How could you possibly know what muscle head you are activating
with one exercise? It’s pretty easy, actually. You just put your arm in different
directions to activate different muscle heads.
For triceps, you need to do one exercise with your elbow over your
head, one exercise with your elbow in the front of you, and one exercise with
your elbow pointing against your stomach.
For biceps, you should do one exercise with your elbows at your sides
and one exercise with your elbows pointing forward like a Scott Curl. I cycle
these exercises in my regular program and do some exercises after max
effort and dynamic effort upper body.
For this article, I'm going to assume you train by muscle group. The
program I’m about to suggest is based on the fact you have one day set
aside for arms training. If you train in the same way as I do, cycle the
exercises in where it fits. Otherwise, use this day in your regular program.
I think it’s important to cycle between heavy sets and high rep sets
since the heavy sets get your muscles used to work with heavy loads and
strengthen the muscle tissue (the tendons and the joints). When your
muscles work with a higher load, you can also train with higher weights for
high reps. The high reps get your muscles more elastic and increase the
blood flow, which will benefit your recovery and increase lactic acid transport.
Some studies suggest heavy and high reps could trigger the release of
growth hormone. I’m not sure if this is actually the case, but personally, I feel
a big difference when I put high reps in my program!
 To gain strength for most exercises, I don’t think you should go to
failure because the recovery will suffer. Specific to arm training, though, your
arm muscles don’t include any big complex movement, so they will recover
much faster than legs, chest, and back. Go to failure, and often! The arm
muscles can recover in 24-48 hours. However, your joints and nearby tissue
need more time to recover, so don’t train your arms more than twice a week.
Below are four different examples of how an arms session could look.
You can either follow this as a program for four weeks and start over or pick
inspiration from it to set up your own program. The rest between the sets
should be 30-45 seconds.
If you train your arms like this, you will have a big arm hanging out from
your car window while driving through the town this summer.
Week 1 Week 3
 Hammer curl with dumbbells 6x6 reps  Biceps curl with rope 6x6 reps
 Seated Scott curl with Z-bar 4x20 reps  Seated Scott curl with dumbbells 4x20 reps
 Rope pushdowns 4x12 reps  Close-grip bench press from pins 6x6 reps
 Close-grip bench press 6x6 reps  Overhead triceps extensions with rope 4x12
reps
 Overhead dumbbell extensions, both hands
4x12 reps  Dumbbell kickback (both arms) 4x12 reps

Week 2 Week 4
 Biceps curl with Z-bar 4x12 reps  Shaking curls with a powerlifting bar with
weights attached in bands 4x20 reps
 Standing Scott curl with dumbbells 4x8 reps
 Seated Scott curl with kettlebells in a fixed
 Banded pushdowns 100 reps
grip with kettlebell over your hands 6x6 reps
 Tate press 6x6 reps
 Close-grip push-ups 3xmax reps
 Lying triceps extensions behind-the-neck
 Dips (weighted) 6x6 reps
4x20 reps
 Skull crushers with Z-bar 6x6 reps

After reading this article, I hope that you will understand how and why
you should choose exercises in a more effective way. For fitness people,
exercises are often chosen with the pump as a reference. Powerlifters often
choose to do triceps work at the end of their training session. In reality, it's
important to really make the best out of your training to gain more muscles
and strength.