Bigger Arms in Four Weeks!

How would you like to kick start your arm training program that will start adding new size to your arms in as little as 4 weeks?

I thought you might be interested Training arms is fun. Really, it's just so much fun knowing that with each passing workout they get bigger and bigger.

Unlike legs, which can be brutally hard (Which explains all the big arms and little legs out there), training arms is super exciting and requires little work (relative to big muscle groups such as the back and legs).

Sometimes, I just get the urge to add a little more size to my arms and just train the hell out of them. I'll usually get this way just before summer when I know my arms are going to hanging out of a t-shirt.

I get a ton of questions about how to build big arms so, I thought, why not put together a quick and dirty arm training program. So, for this month's workout, I thought I'd pass on a 4 week arm routine.

The first thing I have to say about building big arms is that they need to be given priority over everything else. What you want to do is train them first in your weight lifting cycle and you'll only train arms and nothing else. This way, you give them 100 percent of your effort and attention. Rest assured that once you start to do this, your arms will start to grow (assuming your diet is in place).

What were going to do is break up the routine into sections. There are 6 sections that you will follow for this particular arm routine. They are:

• Prioritization
• Exercise Routine
• Diet
• Supplementation
• Water
• Rest

So let's get into it.

Prioritization

The first and most important thing that you must do with any body part is to prioritize that area. What you will do is train this body part first and foremost. So, we want to build bigger arms so the best thing to do is start our training cycle with arms.

This is very important. Because we want to build a huge set of arms, we will only train arms on the start of our training cycle and nothing else. That means you won't train chest, back or any other body part with arms.

The Routine

The training routine is going to be very specialized so be prepared to put in the work in order to grow some huge arms. The first thing to do is take a look at your current training program and get rid of the stuff you don't need. Get rid of any exercise with cables, levers or pulleys. If you have cable cross overs or anything like that, get rid of them.

What we're going to do here is prime your body for growth. To do this, we need to do some heavy, compound lifting. You don't build big muscles using cables and machines. You get big muscles by using heavy compound exercises. Don't let anyone tell you different because there is absolutely no question about this one.

The next thing you want to do is incorporate muscle building exercises into your program. This means adding the following exercises to your routine:

Chest:

• Bench Press (barbell or dumbbells)
• Incline Press (barbell or dumbbells)
• Dips

Back:

• Bent Over Barbell Rows
• Deadlifts
• Close Grip Pull downs

Shoulders:

• Seated Press (barbells or dumbbells)

Legs:

• Squats
• Leg Press

Biceps:

• Barbell Curls
• Dumbbell Curls

Triceps:

• Close Grip Bench Press
• Lying Triceps Extensions

Abs:

• Incline sit ups (or roman chair sit ups)

Calves:

• Standing Calf Raises

It is very important that you get these exercises into your routine and drop all cable movements or other exercises that have no direct impact on growth. Here is the goal of your new weight training routine: To train each body part, hard and heavy with core compound movements while getting the optimal rest in order to grow like a madman. Remember this and you will grow beyond your wildest dreams.

Let's take a look at the workout schedule:Day 1:

The Core Arm Workout

The arm routine you are going to follow is two fold. The first thing is you're going to pump your arms with blood using compound movements. The second thing is to alternate certain exercises. Here is the routine:

Biceps, Triceps, and Abs

Biceps super set with triceps

Exercise 1:

Standing barbell curls super set with close grip bench presses;

Warm up 1 x 20 reps
First set: 1 x 12 reps
Second set: 1 x 10 reps
Third set: 1 x 7 reps
Fourth set: 1 x 7 reps

Exercise 2:

Seated alternate dumbbell curls super set with standing triceps extensions;

First set: 1 x 12 reps
Second set: 1 x 10 reps
Third set: 1 x 7 reps
Fourth set: 1 x 7 reps

Exercise 3:

Preacher curls super set with lying triceps extensions;

First set: 1 x 10 reps
Second set: 1 x 8 reps
Third set: 1 x 8 reps
Fourth set: 1 x 12 reps

Abs

Crunches

4 x 20 reps

For those of you who don't know what a super set is, it's this:

Train two opposing muscle groups with little rest in between each exercise.

An example of super setting is alternating biceps curls with triceps push-down with minimum rest between exercises. So, you would first do a set of biceps curls and then head over to do a set of triceps push-down with little or no rest in between this period. That's one super set.

What's the use of a super set? Let me give you a quick story. Back in my body building days, I was training in Toronto, Canada and one of the guys I used to compete against start training at our local gym. I remember this guy because he was huge! His arms in particular were an awesome sight. Anyways, I noticed something very peculiar in the way he trained his arms.

He super setted all of his upper arm movements. At the time, I couldn't understand it. I mean, he didn't use super heavy weight for his movements. He used moderate weight and practised control on all of his exercises. Anyways, I asked him why he trained his arms this way and he said it made his arms feel like they were about to explode. This method pumped his arms up to super size like no other program. So, I decided to try it out and to this day, this is my main arm workout. That was 20 years ago!

I use this routine on all of my arm workouts and have been using it for a long time. I don't change the workout because it works for me every time. The workout will pump your arms up like they've never been pumped before.

The second thing you're going to do is alternate the first biceps exercise. That is, for the first two weeks, you're going to do heavy barbell curls for your first exercise and than for following two weeks, you're going to do alternate dumbbell curls first and barbell curls as your second exercise. Here it is:

Week 1 and 2: Biceps / Triceps / Abs

Week 3 and 4: Biceps / Triceps / Abs

As you can see, we've alternated standing barbell curls with seated dumbbell curls for the last 2 weeks.

This will be your arm routine for the first 4 weeks.

If you need to see exercise illustrations and descriptions of each exercise go to building muscle 101's weight lifting exercises here.