Arm Size Made Simple

Arm size is one of the key features of a muscular and athletic frame in all. Arguably one of the key parts of an impressive physique, ask most men what they hope to achieve from any training regimen and with the years beach season fast approaching who wouldn’t want to be able to display great upper arm size.

Arm Mass Anatomy

When you ask people, what makes an impressive arm the first reaction will usually be the two Biceps portions (the long and short head). Not so many people will say the often-overlooked muscle that is the brachialis muscle (that sits underneath the bicep muscles), this muscle makes considerable contribution to the size of the arm.

While a feature of great arms is of course large biceps sitting between the shoulder and the elbow, it must be stated that the largest portion of the arm is the Triceps muscles.

These muscles give the arm the powerful horse shoe shape on the upper back of the arm and contribute the most to the shear mass of the upper arm and consist of the lateral head (the diagonal chunk on top of the arm bone, the long head (the large muscle on the back of the arm) and the medial head (the smaller of the 3 that sits closest to the elbow).

Features

To truly stress all the musculature of the upper arm and create as much potential for size improvement there must be a real mix of repetition ranges to maximise the stress on the muscles, heavy and light loads, angles of movements to hit all the muscle groups and alterations in grip to isolate certain muscles more.

The reason for this is that certain muscles respond to more load, some to certain hand positions, and some are isolated more with certain shoulder positions.

Methods of madness

The workout itself contains certain methods such as

1. Slow Eccentrics- these involve lowering the weight under control to cause greater damage to the muscle tissue.

2. Isometric Pauses -to isolate certain ranges as well as to maintain good control over the muscles though the contractions.

3. Constant tension sets- no lockouts throughout the movements to keep tension on the muscles and pump the muscle full of blood.

The Workout

Now, to the session that is going to build impressive upper arm mass ready for the summer months.

A1- Close Grip Bench Press 4 x 6 reps with 3 seconds lower

A2- Weighted Chin-up 4 x 5-6 reps with 3 seconds lower

B1- Hammer Curl with pause 3 x 8-10 reps 2 second pause at top

B2- Dip with upright torso 3 x 8 2 seconds lower, 1 second pause at bottom

C1- Incline DB Curl 3 x 10-12 reps 2 second pause at top

C2- Overhead Cable Extension 3 x 12 2 second pause at top

D1- Close grip Push-up 3 x Fail

D2- Empty Olympic Bar Curl 3 x Fail

Constant Tension sets within movements- Keep muscles under contraction for entirety of sets