What do you guys think? My current split is: Chest, back, off, arms, shoulders, legs, off. I’ve been getting pretty good results but my arms just don’t seem to want to grow (And yes I am getting stronger on the movements, and gaining weight). I was thinking of adding in another arms day, doing Chest, back, arms, shoulders, legs, arms, off.
I figured on the first day I’d do a bunch of tri’s, and then one heavy biceps exercise, and on second arm day I’d do a lot more bi’s and one heavy triceps exercise. Any thoughts?
Other notes:
Before you say ‘add mass all over’, I am working on that, and I’ve gone from 145 to close to 200, around 15% body fat at 5’9, and my arms are just over 15", so while I still have a loooong way to go I do really think I can say my arms are lagging
I’m 20 years old and bulking so my recovery levels should be high
I know only I can tell by actually trying it, I just wanted to see what people though.t
Ah yes right now I usually do:
4 x 6-8 alternating dumbbell curls
4 x 6-8 close grip bench
Then superset hammer curls and weighted dips, 3 x 8-10. I say superset but I generally wait about a minute between each one, alternating though.
Then drop set preacher curl machine, then drop set extensions or pushdowns.
Then reverse curls 3 sets.
Kind of all over the place but I am getting stronger, and feel like I get a good workout in under an hour, just don’t seem to be any bigger, according to the tape measure.
Well I do tri’s about twice as much as bi’s and the one thing i concentrate the most on for bi’s is strait bar curls heavy.Thats just me tho so Im gonna tell you what you dont wanna hear,Add mass all over.You want big arms do legs more.
I’d try hitting a few more sets, and do some barbell curls. Shit man when I started concentrating and getting my BB curl numbers up, and my close grip bench for that matter, my arms went from a puny 15.5 inches to 17.5 inches now (I also gained about 35 pounds since then too, which is not huge but deffinately much bigger.
I do about 12 sets for bis and 12 for tris. Do 4-8 reps on the BB curls and then go all the way up to 15 reps on conc. curls. Same goes for my closegrips and extensionss.
Before you say ‘add mass all over’, I am working on that, and I’ve gone from 145 to close to 200, around 15% body fat at 5’9, and my arms are just over 15",[/quote]
Care to post a pic?
If you TRULY are the stats you say you are, then adding in a day specifically for arms may indeed be a good idea, for the simple reason that it should allow you to handle heavier weights and gauge progression easier as they won’t be as fatigued as a routine which called for training arms after a larger muscle group.
Do that, hit 2-3 exercises for a wide variety of rep ranges and keep eating and adding weight to the bar and a year later should have some bigger guns.
Austin- Thanks for the advice. I actually figured the ‘heavy’ bicep exercise I’d do on the first day and the ‘heavy’ tricep exercise I’d do on bicep day would be BB curl and close grip bench, and I figure I’ll have more sets for each since I’ll be splitting it up.
Cprimero - that was actually what I did for a very long time, really had trouble progressing much on the arm stuff though cause I was usually beat by then.
NewDamage - not ready to post a pic yet, but the height and weight are definitely accurate, I really have no idea about my bodyfat, 15 was totally a guess. I’m at the “okay abs in the morning, bit of a tum after a large meal” %. Thanks for the advice, and impressive avatar pic (and lifts) btw.
[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:
NewDamage - not ready to post a pic yet, but the height and weight are definitely accurate, I really have no idea about my bodyfat, 15 was totally a guess. I’m at the “okay abs in the morning, bit of a tum after a large meal” %. Thanks for the advice, and impressive avatar pic (and lifts) btw.[/quote]
Thanks.
The only reason I ask for a pic is like you inferred, to judge the accuracy of the bodyfat statement.
Sorry I overlooked the fact you already are doing an arm day - to better answer your question I don’t think it would be a bad idea to split it up into two, either two totally different arm days with different rep ranges, or maybe train biceps on their own day and tris on their own day - as long as you’re eating and gaining weight and forcing progress and heavier poundage with proper form, in time they’ll get there.
Make sure your bicep exercises are using your biceps. Personally, I know I used to sacrifice a lot of form for weight, especially on alternating DB curls and Barbell Curls. Since Ive focused on making sure my bicep is doing all the work they’ve grown an inch, approaching 18" now.
Not saying don’t cheat, just that make sure when you cheat your biceps are still doing the work not your traps/front delts.
OP, how does your excercise selection currently look like? Are you deadlifting, chinning w/extra weight, dipping w/extra weight? If you decide to finish tri’s off after chest, you only need a couple heavy sets of board press/rack lockouts, dips and maybe 1 isolation move. Same with biceps. After heavy deads, weighted chins, and bb rows, I only need 3 sets heavy bb curl, 3 sets hammers and they are smoked. just my $.02
[quote]HolyMacaroni wrote:
have you thought about putting tri’s in after chest, and bi’s in after back?
i noticed a huge gain in size once i started following that advice.[/quote]
That is what I do as well. Another method of hitting arms that really helped me see impressive gains was doing mechanical drops sets for both biceps and triceps. If you need examples, Thibs wrote an article demoing some for biceps that you can search for. Other examples for triceps would be doing bar skullcrushers to failure and then immediately switching to closegrip bench to failure without any rest between etc.
