Bodybuilding Workout: The Magic Arm Routine

By: MuscleSports.net

12 week routine that will take your arms up 1 inch all natural!

When I was a beginning bodybuilder/powerlifter I used to train my arms religiously twice a week blitzing them one workout with heavy weight one workout, then reps the next! At first, they grew from 15" to 16" then they just stopped growing. I didn't make anything gains at all for a complete year - zilch for the next year!

I tried every damn workout I could find from the magazine at the time, lurching from one extreme workout to another with little to zero progress. After a year of this crap my arms measured exactly 16 1/8 inches. I gained just an 1/8 of an inch on my arms over 24 months. My chest, shoulders, legs, & back all grew, but my arms remained looking the damn same as everything else progressed! Then everything changed after some research inot the past. I changed my workout philoshy and my workouts for arms and gave them a day of their own.

I had been following all the professional bodybuilders and splitting up my arm workouts with other body parts. Hey, this stuff worked for them, so it's got to work for me, right? Well, it worked for a little while like I said in the beginning, my arms jump up about 1 inch after one year. After that time though my arms only gained 1/8 of an inch over the next 24 months, while other body parts have improved. Hey, as a natural bodybuilder I was not on any kind of gear so I knew that I wasn't going to jump up to 20 inches or anything like that, but I did believe I could hit 17.5 or 18 and with my medium sized bone structure, an 18” arm would look huge.

MY NEW PLAN:

I am not a big believer in making changes just for the sake of change, but something had to be done if I was going to get out of this funk. This is where I got rid of all the modern training stuff and decided to go old school with my arm training. I tried all the routine of anyone I could think of who had big arms during the 50s or 60s, as these are the times when allot of these guys had to train without drugs for long stretches, so their workouts ware geared more towards what I wanted.

As I kept looking up old workout routines, I started to narrow my search on 2 bodybuilders, Chuck Sipes, and Leroy Colbert. They were doing these crazy ass workouts for their arms both biceps and triceps together on the same days with even what would be describe today with silly weights. Overhead barbell extension with 225 pounds for 8 repetitions followed by cheat curls with the same wight for as many reps as possible for multiple sets. You don't see that kind of training today; it is way more specialized and not as brutal on the joints. The thing is these 2 men had huge arms for their size and all power to go with it, so I was going to adopt these principle into my own workout especially my arm training to get them growing again.

New Training Principles:

Arms would be trained twice a week not just after chest and back workouts.
On chest & back workouts you picked 2 exercises for 3 sets as you would always do but the reps were increased to a rep range of 10-12 for both triceps and biceps. The emphasis was more on getting a good blood pump & stretch.
Arms training day would be after shoulder workout: shoulders were a good warmup and did not tire out either the triceps or biceps.
Triceps would be worked first followed by biceps then forearms last.
Triceps exercises would go from basics like close grip benches to the more specific such as Pressdowns and DB Extensions.
Biceps training would be just like triceps going from basic exercise to those more concentrated on specific parts of the biceps muscle.
All exercises will be performed with as much weight as possible with little to zero cheating to make the target muscle do the work.
All sets pushed to positive failure plus one forced rep!

Those were the principles that I had to follow each, and every arm workout and boy did they work. I thought that my arms would be sore and would not recover in time for my chest & back workouts the next rotation, but I quickly found out that even as a natural bodybuilder your arms recover quick enough for them to be worked twice a week.

Over the course of 12 weeks my arms grew from about 15.9 inches up to 17 full inches unpumped - THAT IS AN INCREASE OF 1 INCH IN 12 WEEKS!! I had never seen growth in my arms like this ever! They weren't fat, flabby or loaded with water. They were solid, hard with clear lines of separation in the biceps and triceps, hell when my arms were pumped after training, I could see the split in my biceps. I hadn't seen that ever in my arms. Below is the arm routine I used for the next 3 years to finally get my arms up to 18 1/4" @ 5'8", weighing a solid 188 pounds!

Triceps - After Chest Workout (Mondays)

Seated One Arm Dumbbell Overhead Ext. 3 Sets 10-12 Reps (Full range of motion, keeping elbows pointed towards the ceiling.)
V-Bar Triceps Pressdowns 3 Set of 10-12 Reps (Lean into motion while pressing arms to full lockout squeezing the triceps at the bottom of each rep.)

Biceps - After Back Workout (Tuesdays)

45&dreg; Seated Incline Dumbbell Curls 3 sets of 12-15 Reps (Keep arm perpendicular to the floor avoiding all temptation to use momentum only using your biceps to curl the weight up. Alternate arms until you have very good control of the movement before trying both arms at a time.)
Machine Scott Curls 3 Set of 12-15 Reps (Keep the weight manageable and always make sure your armpits stay locked to the pad and avoid using your back to help move the weight this is a biceps movement not a compound movement!)

Arm Routine Thursdays (After Shoulder Workout)

Triceps:

Overhead Straight Bar Extension 4 Sets of 5-12 Reps (Increasing weight each set until your final two which should be at max weight for max rep of 5-6 reps!)
Straight Bar Pressdowns 3 Sets of 6-10 Reps (Pyramid your weight up each set pushing for at least 6 reps per set.)
Triceps Dips 3 Set MAX Reps (Do 3 set of max reps using Bodyweight. Keep your torso upright to place all the emphasis onto your triceps - GO TO FAILURE!!!)

Biceps:

Wide Grip Straight Bar Curls 4 Sets of 6-10 Reps (Using a grip about 1 inch beyond shoulder width, pull your elbows back in toward your sides and curl the barbell up keeping your torso straight using just the strength of your biceps until failure, then lean forward slightly and force out as many short reps as possible. Pyramid up increasing the weight each set making sure to complete all strict reps within the rep range before doing the burnouts!)
One arm Dumbbell Scott Curls 3 Set 6-12 Reps (Using MAX force curl the weight up from full extension squeezing at the top of the movement while always keep your armpit and chest attached to the bench to avoid cheating. Push hard on this ONE!)
Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls 3 Sets of max reps (Pick a weight you know you can get 8 reps with and rest 10 seconds and preform another 5 reps, rest another 10 seconds and preform another 3-5 reps. Repeat the sequence for all 3 sets)

Forearms:

Seated Barbell Wrist Curls 4 Sets of MAX Reps (Use a weight that is neither heavy nor light and do max rep until your forearms are pumped to the max. Repeat for all 3 sets.)

Conclusion: This routine took my arms to another level. After one training cycle (12 Weeks) my arms were bigger and fuller from wrist to shoulder. Gone were those 16 1/8" okay biceps replaced brand new 17" arms that sported more shape and muscle separation. The whole routine was based off of the greats of the past who relied more on effort, recovery and nutrition than the pharmaceutical culture of today. Give the routine a solid try for 12 weeks, you will see your own arms busting through the sleeves of your shirts after a short while!

Tags: Bedrock Training Arms