by Steve Robinson

Created on: January 12, 2010

The best way to build puny spaghetti arms into big guns that you can be proud of is to use an approach that has worked to build the biggest arms on the planet. There are three keys that must be followed; otherwise you may have to wear long sleeved shirts forever.

NUTRITION

Muscles will not increase in size unless they receive adequate nutrition to repair the damage caused by training. You need to eat at least one gram of fat per pound of bodyweight but two is better. You also need to eat more calories and these nutrients need to be available at all times. Bodybuilders eat 4to 6 times a day and many supplement their regular food with protein shakes; especially before and after their workouts, and before going to bed.

Creatine has been proven to increase muscle size and strength and it seems to work best when taken during or immediately after your training session.

EXERCISES

Using the heaviest weight possible is the best way to increase muscle size Exercises that isolate the arm muscles should be limited or eliminated because compound exercises, those that use more than one muscle to move the weight, allow you to use heavier weight. Save isolation exercises for shaping your arms once they’re huge.

CLOSE GRIP BENCH PRESS

These are similar to the regular bench press but the weight is brought down lower, stopping at the top of the rib cage. Hands are spaced approximately 12 in apart and the elbows remain close to your body throughout.

TRICEPS EXTENTIONS

Done lying down as in skull crushers, extended over head, or pressed down using a cable, they all allow the triceps to get a full stretch and the longer a muscle is, the more it can roll up and flex. Each angle offers something different and hit different areas of the triceps.

BARBELL CURL

Arnold Schwarzenegger swore by them and relied on traditional straight bar curls to build perhaps the greatest biceps of all time. Use strict form most of the time but occasionally add on weight that you can barely curl for several reps and use your body to swing the weight; called cheat curls. This will allow you to increase the weight for regular, strict curls.

STANDING DUMBELL CURLS

Stand to make it less strict so you can use more weight and start by curling with both arms at the same time. When you can do no more, switch to doing one arm at a time. You can use a little body English to get more reps and one arm gets to rest while the other is doing the work.

SETS, REPS, and TRAINING DAYS

Do 3 to 5 sets for each and because muscles have both fast and slow twitch muscle fiber, you need to do a variety of reps. Do 12 reps on the first set and add weight so that your next set allows you to get 8 to 10, then add more weight and squeeze out 6. Try to either add weight or do more reps during every work out.

Muscles grow when you rest and because arms are involved in many other exercises they often are given adequate rest. The two best options are 1) to train your biceps separately from your triceps, doing triceps with other pushing exercises that work the chest and shoulders and do your biceps with back exercises or 2) doing them together but separating them by a day from other upper body exercises.

Many people find that their forearms get adequate training from doing other exercises, so they weren’t included here however, the same rules apply to them; heavy weight and basic exercises just use higher reps because, like calves, they respond best to reps of 12 to 15.

If you incorporate proper nutrition and increased calories, using heavy weight and compound exercises, and a sensible number of reps and sets, you can build bigger, more impressive arms.  If you don’t, you may be forever stuck with spindly, noodle arms.

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