Arm Training

[Chip Bronson]

thanks donkey kong. i've been training for many years and have tried just about everything, including your method. having seen such huge improvments with hst, i am eager to apply it to arm training as i've outlined, 3x/week. on the other 2 days, tuesday and thursday, i'd train the rest of the body using compound movements for moderate-to-heavy weight in the 10-rep range. this should hold onto most of my mass while adding to the arms. i hope to add a solid 1/2"+ to arms using this method over 6-8 weeks. i'll be starting it next month and will keep you guys posted in case anyone else wants to try.

 

[Neodavid]

So your HST went well, eh? What happened?

Me, I ended up exactly where I started before my injury, so in a way I guess it was succesful. Normally I would have just laid off and gotten smaller.

thanks donkey kong. i've been training for many years and have tried just about everything, including your method. having seen such huge improvments with hst, i am eager to apply it to arm training as i've outlined, 3x/week. on the other 2 days, tuesday and thursday, i'd train the rest of the body using compound movements for moderate-to-heavy weight in the 10-rep range. this should hold onto most of my mass while adding to the arms. i hope to add a solid 1/2"+ to arms using this method over 6-8 weeks. i'll be starting it next month and will keep you guys posted in case anyone else wants to try.

 

[Chip Bronson]

hst went really well. it just happened that my arm injury had started to finally heal by last february so i was finally able to consistently push and pull heavier weights. still not pushing 100% but im just being careful for now.

the first hst cycle gave me a few lbs and i went down to 13% bf from 14% dso that was cool. the second one, im in week 6 now, has already given me a few more lbs. by the end of 2 cycles, i should be up about 8-10lbs and down to, hopefully, around 12% bf. legs are noticeably bigger even though i have not measured. hams are thick and calves have actually grown. chest, back and shoulders are all bigger and stronger. arms are up to almost 17.5".

the system is GREAT. it's simple. 3x/week is fantastic. never miss a workout and look forward to each and every workout as a result of not being burned-out. i cant say enough good things about it. i was going to post pics after the first hst cycle but decided to wait and post after cycel 2 so as to show more marked improvement... i hope... lol...

So your HST went well, eh? What happened?

Me, I ended up exactly where I started before my injury, so in a way I guess it was succesful. Normally I would have just laid off and gotten smaller.

 

[Grizzly]

I may have to go to a higher volume for arms, lower weight and different exercises. Any other suggestions welcome.

Thanks

I would suggest that this is your problem already. How many sets do you do for arms? 12-16 for bis and 12-16 for tris? Don't your tris take enough of a beating doing 20some sets of presses throughout the week? Don't the bis get hit enough with set upon set of pulling through the week?

I'll relate a personal story here. I haven't trained my arms directly in over a year. They still tape at 19.25-19.5. My tris are as big as ever(except maybe that one time when I tried 2g of test/wk and was taping at 20.5). Point is, at 500mg test/wk and 400mg eq/wk, I do NOTHING excpet heavy presses and pulls and my arms are pretty much as big as ever. My tris are progressing rather nicely and I anticipate them to be bigger than ever within the next few months.

People talk a good game about overtraining and how smaller muscle groups need less work/sets/volume/etc. but they don't seem to practice it very well.

 

[Bob Smith]

Chippy, glad to hear about your results on HST!

As for your arm specialization program, you could either do it as you mentioned, or you could just do arms first in your workouts instead of giving them a full day. I mean, arms only take about 15 minutes to train so why make 3 special trips to the gym for them? You could do them M, W, F and an upper/lower of full body routine at maintenance levels 2x week for everything else. That way youre still only in the gym 3 days/wk.

the system is GREAT. it's simple. 3x/week is fantastic. never miss a workout and look forward to each and every workout as a result of not being burned-out.

You hit the nail on the head for one of the main reasons why I like HST.

 

[Chip Bronson]

'the system is GREAT. it's simple. 3x/week is fantastic. never miss a workout and look forward to each and every workout as a result of not being burned-out.'

yep, this pretty much clinched it for me too. the rest is icing on the cake.

bob, your idea may be cool actually. that's why i like to run this shit by you bro. should i be doing the full body maintenance routine 2x/week as you wrote, or 3x/week along with the arms?

As for your arm specialization program, you could either do it as you mentioned, or you could just do arms first in your workouts instead of giving them a full day. I mean, arms only take about 15 minutes to train so why make 3 special trips to the gym for them? You could do them M, W, F and an upper/lower of full body routine at maintenance levels 2x week for everything else. That way youre still only in the gym 3 days/wk.

 

[Bob Smith]

bob, your idea may be cool actually. that's why i like to run this shit by you bro. should i be doing the full body maintenance routine 2x/week as you wrote, or 3x/week along with the arms?

Six of one, half dozen of the other. If youre just looking at maintaining everything else, 2x/wk would be sufficient for that. And since its another small muscle group and wouldnt require a whole lot of effort/energy expenditure, you could also do calves HST style. Gotta love huge calves.

 

[Chip Bronson]

too fucking funny bob. lol... i was thinking this as well regarding the calves. you just need 4-5 sets anyway. great idea. bang out the arms and calves 3x/week (mon, wed, fri) and the rest of the body 2x/week (mon, fri) to get a bit of a break (wed is only arms and calves) that way and prevent overtraining. i'm doing this split as we've discussed starting next month. should be real fucking cool and i'm looking forward to it. thanks again for all the help bob.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. If youre just looking at maintaining everything else, 2x/wk would be sufficient for that. And since its another small muscle group and wouldnt require a whole lot of effort/energy expenditure, you could also do calves HST style. Gotta love huge calves.

 

[Bob Smith]

Anytime, my friend. Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[Juggernauttx]

u are right bob i do need to change what would u recommend ?

You are doing high reps, do the opposite and do low reps with heavier weight. Flexors respond better to lower reps and heavier weights. This is why the hamstrings grows better with low reps and high sets. Biceps are flexors as well. Hit them hard and heavy.

 

[billbixby]

chains/ tris

i have a similar body structure and had the same problems with my arms.
i had above average stregth and well developed triceps, but lacked the softball bi's that were appealing. i exploxed past this problem with the implementation of chains, like a power lifter would use during bench press. i used the chains mid work out when i had gotten a good pump but was not starting to fatigue. i started off with heavy weight and doing them standing against the wall; this enambled me to cheat, but it was good for getting my muscles used to the progressive resistance. now i do them on a preacher bench with strict control and full ROM with more weight than i used to sway my back into against the wall. chains are also good to work in a curl workout to bust out of the weak point everyone has mid ROM.

also, no matter how big you bi's if your tri's don't complement them your arms will still look small, especially in any double bi pose.

 

[FOREVERHUGE]

Great workout routine. I too used to have trouble with my biceps.