Why Your Arms are NOT Growing

Oh, I got my hoodie on, too.
It must be winter in Texas. I know. Yeah.
It’s freezing.
What, 50 something degrees?
Ridiculous.
I went out for my morning walk this morning.
I like shorts, so I have my shorts on,
but I have my sweatshirt and a hoodie on. And walking.
I’m like, I probably didn’t need all this.
I know anyone that’s, like, up north that would
see me wearing this be like, this is ridiculous.
I’m such a wimp.
So I have started doing my morning stats on the treadmill
because it’s too cold to walk to start in the morning
because I don’t want to dress up in sweats and shit.
So I just do my steps and then drive to get my coffee.
Yeah.
The thing about is you get iced coffee, so it’s not
you could be on a journey to, like, this hot beverage.
Right.
But no, it’s like cold to cold, colder back home.
So, yeah, it changed the morning routine a little bit.
Yeah.
I’m still coming, like, post show.
I used to have some fasting period and
then do all my steps in and cardio.
And now it’s like the idea kind of switched.
Like, I just want to get enough movement for the day
and get my meals in because now my meals are starting
to be a little bit larger and they’re easier for me
to accumulate at the end of the day, which on prep,
you’re like, well, make sure I won’t be hungry later on.
But now it’s like, oh, man, my
meals are getting too close together.
So having to rearrange the schedule so I might
go on a short walk when I get up,
just to get outdoors and move and then come
right back home and get my first meal in.
Yeah, well, we got to figure
out how to get bigger arms. Yes.
Let’s dive into it.
So, Luke, my arms are weak.
Help me.
I think it’s a pretty common body part that people want
to be addressed, and that’s the things across the board, even,
like, when I first started training, like, I want a big
arms, wear a T shirt season and tank tops.
See, arms you train.
I think within that, a lot of
people, it’s not a weak body part.
I don’t mean to come across as, like, root or
anything, but there’s overall development that needs to happen.
Right.
It’s not that arms are weak.
It’s kind of like, well, everything’s kind of weak.
We just need some overall size.
And I think once you start looking at more
contest photos, looking at more physiques, you start to
see the imbalance that might be there.
And it’s really hard for people
to pick out that on themselves. Yeah.
For me, where it stands out the most is when
you pull up into a front double, and people don’t
typically pull that out as their initial assessment.
It’s like one of the big things I’m looking on.
The front double is like tricep
hang, especially from a back double.
Are we seeing that external rotation
that allows to show it?
And I think it kind of starts to become a relative
game, kind of like you said, where the arms relative to
the physique and a lot of these poses and then kind
of going from there based on your programming on that.
But I definitely wanted to go ahead.
No, I think you’re right.
It’s truly like the front and double is such
an exposing pose because there’s the lats, the chest,
all those are lengthened out a lot.
So if you’re not round, you’re
not really going to be alive.
There legs, obviously, it is what it is.
They’re straight on.
And then that also gives a
pretty good display of the arm.
So you really show, I think, in that
post where you would really have any imbalance.
And if you’re like, oh, wow.
No, I really don’t have any lats or chest.
It’s like, well, okay, maybe we should think about
before we allocate a whole day just to arms
and take that away from these other body parts.
But you’re right.
It’s like a post proposed assessment,
front double, rear, double, side chest.
That’s a big display of the whole side of the arm.
How’s it look in relation to
the shoulder, chest, hamstring hang?
Is all that in place, or is it just truly like
you just want big arms, but you just already have a
balanced physique anyway, first off, I get that rules that out.
So this is not for you.
If you have just a relatively balanced physique and
you need a lot more stage weight, well, that
should be your focus, not on arm training.
Truly have an imbalance where you’ve been putting on good
size, which I think you should be a few years
down the road of putting on overall growth before you’re
like, okay, arms are not moving at the same rate.
What do I do from there?
And I think starts to shift that
design around how we would program training.
There’s a lot of common issues that I currently like.
Why is the body part weak?
And it’s addressing a lot of the issues
we see and just poor training as well.
Do you have something that
immediately come to your mind?
I think it’s just like a lack of use
of things that would allow you to be accurate.
Like, we went over this in the applied hypertrophy module
about like choosing exercises that are going to allow you
to drive tension directionally where you want it.
So it’s like the commonality of how common
do you see fucking barbell curls and a
skull crusher on an easy bar. Right.
It’s like from an alignment standpoint and being
able to drive pinching where you want.
It like the amount of torque that’s going through the
elbow, which is one of the biggest problems we see
is elbow pain with our arm training is like, yeah,
we probably have a list of exercise.
It would be better options than
the ones that we’re choosing.
And so a lot of times it will come down
not only to execution, which I’m sure we’re going to
get into, but just starting with choosing the right exercise
right before we even get into some of the execution
pieces, choose the ones that allow that person to get
into the position that they need to in order to
drive hyper intention to the target tissues.
Yeah, I think that’s a great assessment point
of someone that’s my first inclination or what?
You might see someone like, hey, I need more arms.
I’m going to do more arm training and
more volume, and that might just create more
of an issue that you’re occurring.
It doesn’t mean we know more
doesn’t always equal more growth.
It might mean more connective
tissue stress and joint stress.
I think you’re absolutely right.
The right exercises need to be in place, and that’s
going to give you longevity within your train blocks, and
that longevity will create the growth you need.
Because my issues when I’ve been doing more
arm work, usually for me, arms grow pretty
quickly and I’m doing more pressing and pulling.
But it’s the same issues that occur with a
lot of arm training is that connected tissue stress.
So I’ll get, like, medial epicondylitis or like, golfer’s
elbow in those forearm flexors, getting really irritated from
all, like, the curl work in its rowing, and
then also gets just pain right at the tip
of my elbow from tricep pressing.
But what I found is that for one, I’m picking
movements that didn’t align well and that bind joints, and
I’m still forcing those movement patterns to occur, and that
just accumulates a lot of connective issues.
So with arm training, yeah, it’s definitely getting in positions
where you can actually execute and be at a point
where you can drive tension and not have all the
joints binding and causing a lot of stress.
And it’s just what we go over in our applied
hypertrophy module of how to assess and set that up.
I think starting within that increasing set quality, one
started biceps or biceps or triceps, I wouldn’t care.
Yeah.
I think with biceps, you just have a
lot of opportunities to create braces that would
allow the quality to be high. Right.
Like preacher curl variations.
Even, like, with a regular curl, I’ve had people
just leaning up against a preacher bench where their
elbows have to touch the whole time.
Like doing it unilateral, kind of keeping it
some sort of like touch sensation that forces
position to stay where it needs to be.
And you can avoid a lot of the issues
that are typically we see with bicep training, which
is just shoulder involvement of some sort, whether it
be pulling and shoulder forward elevation, shrug type of
a thing with like a drag curl type of
curl variation or something along those lines.
And it’s typically around limiting
shoulder involvement for most people. Yeah.
You don’t want to be turning this thing, like into
some type of weird power clean variation which you see.
Right, guys swing and this is like
maybe some older thoughts of certain body
building segments of like just sloppy curls. Right.
Big weight, moving it with some sloppy, shitty
form, and you’re moving a lot of weight.
But how are you moving all that weight?
Well, getting going with the lower back and
the quads and then shoulder finish it.
And there’s a little bit of bicep in there somewhere.
So, yeah, I think taking the non movers
out and creating that brace, it would be
very beneficial for a lot of people, obviously.
It’s like, hey, it’s the biceps.
Where does it do it flexes the
elbow, a little bit of shoulder flexion.
It’s pretty minimal, but it’s not going to be to
where we’re having to really if you have your curl
and you move a little bit at the shoulder, it’s
not a huge deal that I’m going to make.
But for the most part, this is going to
be just moving at the elbow alone and trying
to lock every single joint otherwise in place.
The feet, knees, hips, shoulders, lock everything down to where
you only move across the joint, where that muscle takes
action, and then where that muscle taking action, where other
planes do we need to work in?
So with the biceps with the arm by the
side, potentially some type of abducted, externally rotated position,
you could do like showing us his cable crossover.
You could do a cable crossover or even
a preacher curl is basically the same idea.
You’re kind of opened up in that position.
The upper arm is braced, and it
gives you some really good stability.
Of course, when we talk about this knocking out
like a functional shoulder stability aspect with a cable
crossover, getting in that position of having to stabilize
the shoulder on your own and curl, but then
you have to justify if you have really poor
shoulder stability, you’re also probably going to not create
a very good bicep output doing that.
I think it comes to where you put it. Right.
Like not putting output exercise.
It’s like putting it in that prep work where
you’re gaining that access to here before you even
start the session, if you know you’re going to
be exposed somewhere in this plane.
So commonly that would be thinking more in a push
setting, like using this to gain external rotation access.
So we’re having to press overhead, then we’re doing
that rather than like an actual movement within training.
Yeah.
That’s starting to get down a whole other
let’s not go down that road path.
It does bring up a point that I’m going to
write down and make sure that I hit on at
some point talking today shoulder stability because it’s an issue.
But anyway, for biceps within any of these curls, exercise
that we do want to make sure I say do
the curl motion before you even get to the machine
or the dumbbell, whatever it may be, and look at
that arm path and where your wrist and elbow and
shoulder are set up in a comfortable position.
Whatever machine you get in, whatever curl you do, you
want to be able to stay in that position.
So a lot of bodybuilders really suck getting externally
rotated and curling with the palm directly up.
Usually it’s some type of slight internal rotation.
And if you curled just standing there, it would
kind of like come over to the other pecks.
Kind of a cross body curl, right? Yes.
And then you get in the easy bar
that forces you in this position and you’re
like, there’s some awkward motion there.
It’s usually really hard to lock out.
And if you fatigue, you’ll see it like
their pinkies start coming down and they’re just
like holding this is me, this is me.
I’m like holding it by just my
thumbs and my elbows are out.
I’m like, I’m not really doing a Bicep curl anymore.
It’s kind of like more of this hammer curl variation.
So I think that’s an assessment point.
Like, how do you curl just stand in there, find a
way to do that through whatever means you need to.
So whether like Luke and I both like the single
arm dumbbell curl with a lean to that side to
where you can line up the shoulder, elbow and wrist
directly at a 90 to the ground.
That way that Bicep is lined up perfectly
and you can align your joints really well.
If you’re like that type of bodybuilder that does the cross
body curl, you can do that same setup with like a
cable curl, too, especially what’s nice with the cable curl, too
is you can kind of adjust in that motion where you
want the peak tension or let it let it off a
little bit as like an extra note there.
So I’d say, hey, starting off, we probably want some
type of curl arm by the side, something that loads
kind of mid range, which dumbbell would be great still
option or even a cable would be good to option
two from there, the Bicep also curls with the shoulder
and some flexion that AIDS a little bit of flexion.
So like we said, a preacher curl is
another great variation that we both really like.
So those are some two primary ones, I would say.
Yeah, those would be primary and then considering something
a little bit more in shorter extension, like some
sort of stretch position curl, like an inclined cable
or even an incline dumbbell, even though technically the
profile is not the greatest.
And then something within like a
neutral for like a breaker Radialis. Right.
Like a hammer curl variation of some sort. Yeah.
And the same principles apply
that we just talked about.
How do you curl just standing there without any load
and find a way to do that so it can
be a dumbbell hammer curl as far as it being
cross body or not, that’s going to really, I think,
dictate just by how you would curl just stand there.
So you might already be curling kind of cross
body and so you just move into a neutral
grip and do your hammer curl and that variation,
reverse curls to get all four arm work.
Yeah.
Do you do much for reverse curling? No.
I get so beat up I get to the point where
it affects my back training if I do it too much.
Got you.
I will typically just stick with a hammer curl.
I feel like that hits enough break your radials.
On top of all the other trainers, I do
find my issue with the medial epicondylitis, the golfer’s
elbow was that wrist flexors are overworked and my
wrist extensors were kind of underworked.
So although there’s a lot of curling that
I do which trains the Brachio Radialis, my
wrist extensors don’t get a lot of training.
We’re always in that kind of like flex position.
So I will do on my bicep days
like dumbbell wrist extensions, more of like a
prehab thing than a hypertrophy thing.
But hell, if they get bigger too, I won’t complain.
So usually my last bite of exercise I will
superset those to where it kind of be knocked
a little bit extra out as well.
Going between I’ll hang my forearm off like a preacher
bench with dumbbells and just do it that way.
Or I guess if you have like a wrist
roller, I don’t really like the wrist roller.
It’s like moving around and playing your arms
around and already have to stand on something.
And so I just deal with the dumbbell is pretty fine.
Anyway, I think those would be making sure
that you’re aligned in all those exercises that
you choose and those would be kind of
your three that would really knock everything out.
Right.
Standing supinated bicep curl.
I guess that’s the point.
Would you move from a neutral to a grip in the curl?
No, I would keep it supinated and then let the
neutral grip hammer curl take care of that aspect.
And then a preacher curl, then something like
with the shoulder behind you or upper arm
behind you, like an inclined curl.
Or like I said, we had that single arm cable curl you
could do and kind of get in that same position, right?
Yes, I know I mentioned that first, but a standing
dumbbell curl creature curl, then like a single arm cable
curl with that arm a little bit more behind you.
That covers pretty much all functions of
the bicep in different shoulder positions. Yeah.
And I think the piece that ties this all
together is just understanding that as you move into
movements that align better or a little bit stricter
with form progressions in the logbook and acute standpoint
is probably needed to be a little bit more
patient just because of how isolated the action is.
I see a lot of people get very frustrated with like
type a need log book to progress now type of thing.
It’s like, hey man, if you did 14 reps
last week and you got 14 this week and
attempted the 15th, that’s still progress, right.
Even if you didn’t complete the 15th.
So it’s a little bit more on the patient side
with logbook progressions and looking at the month to month
trends rather than I just say that because I see
a lot of people get aggravated with it.
No, you’re completely right.
I mean, a lot of these just load very light.
Think about a cable curl, it’s
like £30 on your cable curl.
The next one up is like, oh
man, drop off four reps or something.
You’re right.
Just because the logbook is not
moving doesn’t mean there’s not good
stimulus occurring and adaptation occurring.
You might notice like, oh, the 8th rep
felt a little bit easier this time.
And I think even jumping between
rep ranges helps as well.
Just to space out.
If you have an issue looking at the log book every
time and not seeing stuff move, like one week hit 15,
then the next week you can move to ten s and
then you rotate those rep range patterns or movements.
If you want just to have some time to actually see the
gauge and need to move now, it depends on your level.
So we’re talking about someone that’s probably in
the intermediate stage or even the advanced stage
and all your other movements are probably moving
maybe every other week, maybe stuff.
It takes several weeks to really move.
So arm training. Yeah.
This might be something that’s going to take
several weeks or even might even be blocked
to block where you’re seeing that change increase.
But it doesn’t mean to do more because I
know we talked about like, hey, I’m recovering great.
You should see performance improvement.
If not, then maybe you need to be
training a little bit more with arms.
You need the time to be able to truly assess that.
I think, like Luke said, it’s probably more so block
to block where you really need to assess it.
I agree with that.
I think that brings us to triceps.
Yeah, triceps lovely. Yeah.
Common issue, at least for me, like I mentioned, was
elbow pain and picking the wrong movements or movements were
great to start, and then they just end in catastrophe,
which it’s like the skull crusher because I get a
great tricep output out of it. I get pumped.
There’s a ton of distortion in the muscle.
But after like six weeks, they’re
just elbows are beat to shit.
And then I take like another six
weeks off of even barely training triceps.
So, yeah, picking the right exercise off the bat
of which is within your ability is so important.
And the same thing goes with biceps.
How do you move without under any load?
What is your access in those positions and
then finding movement patterns that fit within that?
I think that’s an interesting point because I run into
a similar issue you probably saw in the forums.
I had to pull the sculpture that I
had in my plan for a different variation.
It’s just like a movement I get a lot out of,
but it’s like, man, I got like ten weeks of runway
and that’s it before I’m having to pull it.
It’s affecting other things.
So I think that comes to what are the
main hitters with the movement selections that we’re choosing.
So big fan of some sort of compound pattern, for
sure, whether that’s a JM press, close grip press, depth
of some sort when mitigating elbow pain there.
I see a lot of value in either doing
an end range extension to prime elbow joints and
get triceps firing at a pretty high level.
Not as like a work type of a thing, just as
like getting into that position like an isometric hold or even
taking it as far as doing work sets before.
But the reason I don’t go down that
route is trying not to throttle performance on
the compound variation for most people.
And then we’re kind of getting into push down variations
and maybe some sort of skull that’s going to be
a little bit easier on the elbow joint. Yeah.
So I think within the context of what your needs are
development wise for a compound movement, if you can kind of
knock out two birds with 1 St, that’s pretty ideal.
So if you need triceps and chest.
Okay, well, we could do a close grip bench press
and hit a little bit on both ends of that.
Or if you needed, like triceps and delts.
Well, hey, maybe we could do some type of
incline pressing, close grip variation, or that might even
be the same thing with a dip, which I
would lean more towards, probably Delta triceps on a
dip, depending on how you set it up.
But regardless, say, picking that compound movement, you
can get a lot out of it.
And like you said, it’s nice to have a path to really
load a lot over time and see some good progression with.
So, yeah, it does give you a
lot of runway within the movement pattern.
Now, some people are going to be very dominant
pressures and maybe certain muscle groups over others.
So maybe it’s still not enough tricep stimulus, and that’s
when you need that extra isolation work in place.
Ideally, Loading something when the muscles stretched is
going to have potentially more of the hypertrophy
stimulus there and cause that adaptation you want.
However, that’s also why people get
a lot of elbow issues.
So, yeah, depending on the application, if you’re
doing something like after all your press work,
you could probably go right into like a
stretch position and tricep work.
You might still have the issue and you
might need to do some push downs first.
It just depends, or if we’re talking just on arm
day, which we’ll get into the split design here in
a second, then you might need to do, like more
pre activation or just warming up basically in a push
down and not having to be your true work sets.
But again, I don’t think it’s a huge issue if those
need to be your work sets, and that’s going to keep
you sustainable over your long period of season, if that’s what
does well, that has a lot more value than just only
getting eight weeks to where like, oh, now my elbows are
beat up and I need to switch it back.
So that comes in like your own individual
needs of what you need to program.
But again, within these positions, it’s still where do
you have your own ability to align well with?
So within like a push down position, same
thing goes with their biceps, as most body
pillars kind of move in an elbow extension
position, which is not directly at the side.
So like a cross body is really what most time I see.
And actually how I stay really comfortable with that
little bit of internal shoulder rotation, which if you
have like a prime bar set up for a
push down and it allows you to pick a
grip that could be shoulder width for you, but
it also allows for some internal rotation to occur.
That’s pretty ideal.
And it’s bilateral.
So you also can create a little bit more stability.
But also it’s a time efficiency
standpoint because that’s the issue.
When I get to the end of the workout, it’s
hard for me to do one arm on everything.
It’s like I just want to do some
bilateral movements and be convenient with time.
Yeah, that’s where the Spud bar comes in,
because those hooks allow for the same thing. Right.
Those spudhooks allow that rotation and then
just straight on extension from there.
And I think there’s a lot of value within having
some sort of variable set up for that push down.
That’s a good tip on those because you show me those
Spud straps for push downs, which if you’re not watching the
video, it’s basically just like a toe strap you stick your
hand in and it breaks the bottom of your palm.
So instead of Loading the whole palm itself,
like with the prime handle or Dhandle.
If you get really beat up in your forearm
flexors and you just want to take like a
moving part away and be more braced.
Those are awesome to do and I kind of
used even if you don’t have those straps, it’s
just a loop of nylon is all it is.
So it’s something you could probably pick up
at Home Depot and do it that way.
But yeah, those are great from limiting
some extra stress and getting in a
good position that feels comfortable.
I think one value too is like having that
bilateral pattern, but also doing like a day where
you do have a single arm push down because
for your stronger individuals, for people more intermediate, there
can be some bracing things that on a push
down limited on like a bilateral you’re right.
It turns into like AB work, right?
You’re like trying to lean into it just to say.
And then you progressively see over the
block as the load goes, the person
starts leaning and leaning and leaning.
How much did you actually progress versus
just counter force the weight more?
So I think there is a value if time
efficiency isn’t an issue and like a single arm
push down for that standpoint because we can positionally
stay in a better spot for the most part.
And I’ll use those Bud straps
for that too, just for that.
Same like trying to limit flexor involvement.
Well, I think that’s probably like for anyone that
has gym access, that set up could work anywhere.
A single arm push down almost every gym I’ve ever
been to has a cable and a D handle.
If you do have the straps, cool.
If not, a Dhandle would perfectly work fine.
And you can easily set up yourself to where
you’re right in the right position to align that
cable with how that arm is going to move.
So it’s a great set up to do and
that’s what’s been able to allow me to keep
training triceps, and that’s what I do.
I’ll do bilateral one day and the other
day I’ll do like a single arm pattern.
Depending on what day it is, I might have
the push down variation first and then on the
other day might be the JM press.
On the JM press, though, I’m moving from my
other heavier pressing days, so the triceps already have
gotten quite a bit of work in so the
elbows feel good moving to it.
The other day I don’t have as much pressing
and so I’ll do the push down first. Yeah.
So just one way to work with it.
And then on that other day too, I don’t
have any type of really that much overhead stuff.
It works out programming wise.
But anyway, talking about overhead pressing, I
still think you like doing the incline.
Do you do it on incline,
the dumbbell extensions, the Skullcrusher extensions?
Yeah.
On the incline relative to the access I have. Yeah.
Flat if you don’t have a whole lot of access
so that you can stay a little bit over the
shoulder joint and then progressively more inclined, the more access
you have, more for gain that shoulder stability. Right.
So where the extreme would be literally sitting in
something that’s like our chair and doing that single
arm scalp crusher from behind the head, not only
for training that triceps in a stretch position, but
for the crossover transfer into overhead pressing, because developing
that stability capacity in the overhead position. Yeah.
I guess I won’t make this a tangent at all.
But some issue around your arm training and your arms
not growing could be your lack of shoulder stability.
So to be able to lock down the
shoulder and create output in the muscle you’re
attending, you need to be braced.
So if you lack function, if you get overhead
with something and you’re, like, shaky with it, it’s
probably an issue that needs to be addressed.
And so what we’re talking about here,
like getting in that overhead tricep position
helps you train that function.
But you probably also need some functional
aspects of training to strengthen those rotator
cuffs and stabilizers your Sartorius, not your
Sartorius, your anterior ceratus and everything that
would stabilize your shoulder.
You need to strengthen in different planes.
So once you get in those other
positions, you can put good output there.
But that could be an issue.
I know in my left shoulder, I have less
stability within it, and I can tell my bilateral
movement it’s an issue, and it’ll be lagging.
And I also happens to be, like a little
bit smaller shoulder and my little bit smaller arm.
And so this directly gets into, like, hey, if your arms
are weak, maybe you can train all you want, but you’re
just not being able to even direct the force through.
Or it could be neurological and there’s some
nerve entrapment or something going on with that.
Or it’s just been down regulated to protect and
guard against the area because it’s not stable.
So gaining stability would be huge if
you’re noticing, especially asymmetry within arms.
But in general, it’s something we should be doing.
We don’t do as body builders.
So getting in these positions, like Luke’s
talking about, like an overhead tricep extension,
it would train that capacity to some
extent and help develop that strengthening.
Now, Luke, I’d say getting in that dumbbell position
on a bench, I’m still internally rotated, and it’s
like I can’t keep my elbow directly up.
I can’t get that full, like,
external rotation on the shoulder.
Where do we move from there?
Probably the cable over here. Yeah.
That’s my preference because I can just put
my torso in the position where it directly
aligns with the cable and extend from there.
That’s actually the variation I’m running right now.
Yeah.
You could even move, like a military bench up to the
cable if you want to do like seated and more braced.
But it’s usually such light Loading,
you can just stand embrace.
And then I think you get that
extra ability of training the core slightly
without taking away from a movement pattern.
But yeah, I would assess what can you
get to overhead and set your cable up
exactly like that and move through that exact
range with just grabbing the cable in place.
And I really like this.
I think I’ve heard someone call them
like sword draws or something before.
Do you hear them call that
like Samurai polls or something?
No, that’s when I start writing my
program, like single arm cable overhead.
You’re like, oh, that sounds too like pink dumbbell.
Like Joe Bennett would say right
now they were doing Samurai poles.
You’re like, yeah, we kind of touched on
it as we walked through this podcast.
But I do think there’s some value in talking
about programming, just like how we are programming it.
Yeah, definitely.
That I think hits on improving your set quality.
Yeah, for sure.
As a start point. Right.
So if your arms are growing, are
you getting quality arm training already?
I think improving your movement patterns, making sure
you’re selecting the ones that are going to
be best for you for your alignment, run
that first in what you’re currently doing.
And then also we should look at the
actual session design with training week body parts
and that weak body part in general.
And then of course, like the split over the week.
I even lean towards people that I know have
addressed the execution side, not overly jumping straight to
an arm day just because I think there’s a
lot of room within just general program designed to
bring frequency up where we can kind of take
care of the volume metric there.
I mean, it’s the same concept me
and you talk about with shoulder training.
It’s like they’re smaller.
They can pretty much take a beating as
long as joints are holding up fine.
Like we can probably run the frequency
card here and just start to train
them on days that you typically would.
So like, if we’re starting to talk about pulling
a volume card within programming outside of the confines
of our normal setups for arm training, I’m starting
to place it in areas like leg days where
it’s like what’s, three sets of a curl, two
sets of a curl before we go train legs?
Probably nothing relative to diminishing
performance within leg training.
Yeah, no, I would agree there.
And I think you have to start looking at your
volume like you had laid out by body part. Right.
How many sets you have to do for adequate biceps
stimulus for the week, whatever it is, ten sets.
Just think of it.
How do you arrange that to give
enough output and stimulus on a day?
And then do you need more frequency to recover?
Or if it’s so much in one day, maybe you
need to have it on another day and that’s when
you move to that second day of training.
So I think getting outside like, well, this is push
day and I only train push muscles on that day.
We’re not training movement patterns.
It’s just how do you want to arrange the volume?
And it has to make sense though too,
because some stuff doesn’t pair well and then
it’s hard to flow through certain aspects.
But with arm training it’s pretty quick to
warm them up and you can really lay
it out to where it could be effective.
So I think, yeah, for one, if you already have a
set up, then having some usually arm training on the end
of your compound work and that’s usually how we do it.
I would typically never put it in the beginning ever.
It’s going to take away from the big
picture of what you really want, the big
ticket items of like chest delts back.
So you probably already have some tacked on to the
end of a session if we need to bump it
up, if it’s low within that session, I still think
that would be like a starting point.
And so it depends what you’re doing.
Usually we’re running like a push pull leg type set up.
So you’re already training arms probably every four
to five days, if that’s not enough.
And you do notice that with at the end
of your push or your pull session, fatigue is
higher, the set quality is just low.
Like you’re not really getting pumps.
That might mean to move some of that
volume to beginning of another session and that
could easily enhance the quality of that volume.
So it’s the whole thing.
It’s like volume quality.
It’s not that you might do more like,
how do we make it even better?
Well, you can put at the beginning of the session.
So, yeah, like Luke said, you could add
some bicep work at the beginning of legs.
That is like the DC set up how I used to run it.
It was like a bicep move,
a forearm move, calves, Ham squads.
I wouldn’t train it like that necessarily with calves in there
before my leg work, but that was the idea and it
was so like low tax movements to do prior to legs.
I feel like if it was really an issue, you could probably
do like a bicep and a tricep push down and the tricep
push down would be like, and I would have it to where
like that day would be a little bit higher reps so you
could get in and have some stimulus, but it’s not going to
carry over into impact your pushing days and that way you get
some extra tricep work because I know you hear people talk about
biceps in the beginning of legs.
It’s like, well, where do I put my extra tricep work?
It’s like, well, yeah, okay.
On pull days it might affect pull downs
or you won’t want to put it first. Your push days.
You don’t want to put it first there.
And so try to do another day.
Then it’s like, I don’t want
to do another day just yet.
I think you could easily do, like, three sets
of biceps triceps, like superset them, knock it out,
and then go into your leg work from there.
I think it’s a start point. Yeah.
What I’ve done in the past, just depending on how
the program is set up, is like before quads a
bicep movement and then before Hams a tricep movement.
Okay.
If you have split leg day, if you have a
split leg day, like, doing it that way will kind
of help with getting that extra day in.
But I do think one thing is that
can affect quality is exercise, sequencing, or ordering.
Like, how many times have you tried to do
a fucking push down after doing a lateral? Oh, my God.
Trying to keep your shoulder locked down to output with
your tricep is the worst feeling in the world.
So not stringing like, three sets of
1520 unilateral straight into a push down.
Like, there’s some value in thought processes
like that that can also improve quality.
Yeah. Just the flow. Right.
So if we’re at that point, we already have our volume
late out there, we can’t do any more arm work before
legs do we now justify the actual arm day?
Because at some point your session might get too
long and you need to break it up.
And you’d have to look at probably where your rest
days are and what that initial setup is and where
can you move it to where it wouldn’t maybe be
as impactful as taking volume away from their areas.
Because if you add an arm day in a
whole other day of training, you’re going to spread
out the rest of your training sessions.
So maybe you’re training push every five days or something,
you’re going to move it out every six days.
So you are in turn dropping volume
across your split for the week.
Lower, essentially less frequency,
less stimulus occurring.
So you are, in a way, deprioritizing other muscle
groups to add in this extra arm day.
I think that’s where the conversation goes.
I was going to say what I do a
lot of times, and this is actually in a
part of my program is like a shoulder arm
day where it’s like modified push more than anything.
It’s like shoulder work, one chest
movement and then arm work. Yeah.
But that’s typically off the back end of saying I’m going
to put chest a little bit more on the back burner.
And so that’s kind of where
the conversation starts to go.
For me, it’s like we can’t prioritize everything.
We have to make some decisions.
And for me right now, we both agreed that my
chest took such a leap forward this past off season.
That it’s now like a pretty dominant body part.
And it’s like, let’s devote a little
bit more time to shoulders and arms.
And I’m only doing like, for example, in
my program, it’s like that day goes Dumbo
lateral, overhead press, close grip compound.
So tricep based compound.
And then there’s like a Peck fly somewhere in there.
Yeah.
That’s the only chest work that’s in there.
And the rest of it’s, shoulders and arms.
Yeah.
So I think you can modify some sessions or if
you had off days that were there because for a
while I ran like a push pull off, legs off.
It’s like, okay, I don’t want to change the frequency.
I can just move some stuff into one of those off days.
And it may be like a shorter workout.
So, hey, these movements, my push day is
almost an hour and a half long.
I can move some of that into my off day and
maybe start there as a way to rearrange volume quality.
But I could also make it to where if I
need more work, I can put more work there.
And following a pull day, I would probably do it to
where it’s like some delt and triceps on that day.
And then I have the biceps on leg day.
So it’s not off the back
end of pull, something like that.
But I think that’s where you could
have essentially you would have pretty much
an arm day without affecting rest.
I think if you’re highly advanced and you’re
sure like, hey, I’m complete and I only
need arms, everything else can be deprioritized.
And you could have like a straight up arm day.
And I would have it to where you would make
sure you trained arms probably three days a week.
I would say triceps is the one thing that
you might have to debate only doing twice.
It just seems like it takes a little bit
less than biceps does, I think primarily, maybe potentially
because you can load it so much in pressing
versus how it gets loaded in your polls.
So, yeah, that’s just a consideration.
If you are highly advanced.
Yeah, you should be deprioritizing muscle groups.
And I do something similar in a way because I
have to prioritize, especially if you have weight requirements.
So like, leg volume right now is at
just five sets of quads and Hams.
But for me, it’s chest Delta triceps.
That’s what I need.
So at the lower volume in other areas to
be able to add more volume in the areas
that I want and be able to recover.
And I have my own.
I have a push day, pull day.
Now it’s like a back Ham because I just
have those few sets on the end of my
pull and then another back leg day.
That’s a little bit of back, a little bit
of quad, but it’s easy to recover from.
And then I’ll have a more but it’s
like a push day with delt emphasis.
That’s a good set up right now.
We’ll see if it leads to me coming out the
back end of offseason with the areas that I want.
But again, it’s an initial setup, guys.
So you set it up, you run it,
and you can adjust after a block.
I think we can spend a little bit too
much time in front of the computer screen or
paper of writing down the perfect plan.
This is me.
I will have it like thinking, going through
the session in my mind, writing it out.
Eventually you go through it and then
you’re like, oh, shit, that didn’t work.
I just have to modify it.
So just run the session and you’ll know how
you need to change it kind of intuitively.
And then after a few weeks, hey,
if it wasn’t quite right, adjust it. It’s okay.
Don’t get bogged down by trying to
set up the perfect thing on paper.
Yeah, I think that’s like a good way
to kind of wrap it up too.
It’s just like apply, adjust, apply, adjust and
kind of move from it from there. I’m not going to lie.
You send me those programs.
Sometimes I just see you sitting there, like in
front of the computer, like walking back and forth
because you’re so aggravated with writing the plane like,
fuck it, Luke, just look at it.
Yeah, it was funny because this last split I
had critique and look over and make sure I
wasn’t crazy was calves and ABS was driving me
crazy for prone because I want ABS.
Then you’re like, well, I want enough calves too.
And then you get the point of
like, well, I want everything to grow.
So it’s like, how do I set this up to where
it makes sense and then train ABS with her leg?
You’re going through all this stuff in your head.
And it’s funny because that’s what kind
of bogged me down at looking at.
It not the priority muscle groups or the
muscle groups I want to deprioritize or anything.
It was like the little nuanced stuff.
But no, you’re absolutely right.
It’s easy to get pre bogged
down looking and programming out.
I think that wraps it up, man. Yeah.
Let us know if you have questions on arm training
and you can leave them down in the description below.
Happy to always answer those for you.
If you are listening on not YouTube, you can’t come
in or Spotify or Google Play wherever you’re at one.
Thanks for listening, but you can also check
out our applied hypertrophy module and that takes
you through exactly what we’re talking about here.
So how to set up in the gym, look for your alignment.
What does the muscle do then?
Find the pattern that fits within that.
And we go through every exercise that Luke and
I think would be more optimal choices, but also
give you other options within those choices too.
For your access to equipment and probably
within your ability and also within needing
like a regression or progression pattern.
Maybe this is just too simple of an exercise.
I need something more challenging.
So we go through all that so check it
out with twelve lectures and we go through every
single body part and that is on jtiversity.com but
anyway guys until next time we’ll appreciate you listening
and we will talk to you then.