Arming yourself for war.

By Kerry O’Brien. E-mail: kobrien@psy.otago.ac.nz

The natural reaction of a male when asked by someone to “show us your muscles” is to role up their sleeve and contract their bicept as hard as they can. Invariably I find that most guys turn red in the face from either the exertion of making their arm look as big as possible, or from embarrassment at the disappointed reaction from the audience. For some bizarre reason, throughout history (or certainly up until woman’s magazines started undermining the male ego) the measure of mans masculinity was related to the size of his arms. The common mantra during Arnies early training days  in the 70s was that “curls get the girls”. After perming my hair, and having little success with the ladies, I realised they were referring to arm curls. With that mistake behind me, I went about training my arms with a passion. Over the past 9 years I have added 6 inches to my arms (yet strangely nobody to my love life), and would like to share with you what I found to be the most productive arm training routine.

The present routine assumes the reader has some general knowledge on how to perform basic arm exercises. If you don’t fit this category then one of the trainers at your facility will be able to help you with the exercises I will be suggesting. This routine is suitable for both muscle heads and those just wishing to tighten and shape their arms.

If you wish to specialise on your arms then train them on a separate day from other muscle groups. We will start by training the biceps first as it gives you time to warm up the elbows and avoid injury when training the triceps.

The Routine:

Biceps:                                                            Sets                  Reps

Standing one arm dumbbell curls                 2                      6-10 reps

Preacher Bench Curls                                    2                      6-10 reps

Hammer Curls                                                2                      8-12 reps

Triceps:                                                           Sets                  Reps

Close Grip Bench Press                                  2                      6-10 reps

Straight Bar Tricept Push Downs                  2                      6-10 reps

Rope Tricep Push Downs                              2                      8-12 reps

The How’s, Why, and Wherefore:

• The number of reps, sets and exercises may seem low, but you must remember that the arms are a small muscle group in comparison to the back or legs, so they need less volume. The biceps also receive a lot of work indirectly when doing pulling exercises for your back, and the triceps when doing pressing movements for your chest and shoulders. Therefore you don’t want to over-train them as this will result in atrophy (muscle loss). Remember the key is to stimulate not annihilate.


•Standing one arm dumbbell curls is the first exercise and should be executed with your elbow slightly forward of, but vertically inline with, the top of your hipbone. When curling your arm up, turn the dumbbell out so that the palm of your hand faces your shoulder. Keep your head over the top of your arm and concentrate on contracting the bicept as hard as possible before SLOWLY lowering the dumbbell back down.


•Preacher bench curls are an excellent isolation exercise and overall mass builder, and when performed correctly are great for lengthening the biceps and avoiding the gorilla look you see some men with. Ensure you always extend arm down to absolute bottom and slowly squeeze the weight back up towards you. Do not rest at the top, but keep the tension on at all times.


•Hammer Curls work both the biceps (largely via the bracialis) and the top forearm muscle that connects on to your arm near the outside of your bicept. It’s a great overall finishing exercise, which is why I recommend higher reps for this exercise. The added pump you get from doing the higher reps helps flush the arm with new blood and activate slow twitch muscle fibres. The more muscle fibres that grow in size, regardless of the type (slow vs fast), the more overall arm size you will get.


•Close grip bench press. The triceps make up 2/3rds of your overall arm size and are extremely powerful, so we want to start training this larger muscle with a compound exercise that allows you to use a lot of weight. I prefer close grip bench to lying triceps extensions, as it is less likely to injure the elbow tendons. Position your hands on the bar with 8-10 inches between them, and your thumbs gripping around the bar. Slowly lower the bar to the top of your rib cage. If you can’t go all the way down to your ribs then it is ok to stop an inch or two short. Press the weight back up so it finishes above your nipple line. Do not bring the weight back over above your face, this brings the chest into play and removes some tension from the triceps. You will more than likely need a spotter for this exercise.


•Straight Bar Triceps Push Downs. I’m going to suggest a way of doing these that you may not have employed before. We want to use this as a mass building exercise, so we want to use a lot of weight but not swing the body when pushing down. To do this you need to position yourself over top of the bar so that the cable will is running up your chest and along the side of your face. This allows you to keep your centre of gravity over the weight, and prevents you swinging back and losing balance with each rep. You are allowed to move your elbows out to the side, away from your waste a bit. You will find this to be a very powerful position that allows you to use more weight than you have before, try not to abuse this fact by using poor form as well.


•Rope Triceps Push Downs. This exercise is great for adding shape and separation to triceps, and is primarily designed to hit the outer head of the triceps. Once again a variation of this exercise is to move your elbows out away from you’re your sides and lean over top of your rope grip. You will find this puts extra tension on the outer head of the triceps. Do not use a lot of weight on this exercise, concentrate instead on squeezing the muscle at the lock out position.


Points to Think About:
Although form is extremely important for avoiding injury, don’t sacrifice muscle feeling for picture perfect form. In other words, don’t worry about what the exercise looks like when performing it, instead focus on whether the muscle is being worked properly. After all the exercises themselves are just a means to an end, the real focus should be on the muscle and feeling it work. It doesn’t matter what the exercise looks like if it doesn’t achieve this simple goal. Always use a full range of motion, and be sure to stretch between each set. Good Luck and happy training.