# Is Arm Training a Waste of Your Time?!!



## Mingster (Mar 25, 2011)

I have rarely trained arms directly.

Maybe a couple of sets of Curls or CGBP a week at most, and have fairly large arms.

Recently I decided to focus on arms directly in an attempt to get that extra half an inch size increase that I've always wanted. For 10 weeks I introduced a training day devoted entirely to arms. I trained them heavy, and I trained them light, super-setted and pumped. At the end of the 10 week period my arms had actually shrunk by a quarter of an inch.

I'm 3 weeks back into no arms training at all and I have regained that quarter of an inch.

Why, then, do so many people train arms so much? I know people will say that they get good results from their arm training. But how do they know they wouldn't get better results from not training them directly at all?

How many people have actually given the no direct arm training approach a decent - 10 to 12 weeks - try?


----------



## cudsyaj (Jul 5, 2011)

I'd love to grow my arms, be interested in peoples feedback.... I'm 3 weeks into chest & Bi's on a Monday and Back and Tri's on Thursday so essentially training them twice a week. Once as primary and once as secondary muscles.


----------



## Guest (Jun 21, 2012)

Id love to know this m8, my arms are my weak spot imo. They are getting bigger but very very slowly compared to the rest of me.


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Arm traing doesnt make a diference to my arm size they grow in perportion to the rest of me from training everything else, but arms training improves my arm strength.


----------



## Fatstuff (Mar 2, 2010)

I do it if I'm tired as it's enjoyable lol. I don't care if I haven't trained them for months though! But I got skinny arms anyway lol


----------



## vtec_yo (Nov 30, 2011)

I do the back / tris jobby and noticed some improvements but not a massive difference. I think it's very easy to overtain as the bicep / tricep is a relatively small muscle for the amount of body that it moves. If that makes any sense at all.

I imagine it'd be different on cycle though.


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

I v prob trained my arems a few sets tri and bi about 7days this year just if i feel up to it, mostly i leave rhem out but plan on training them low reps for strengt of next week


----------



## Fat (Jan 2, 2010)

I'll let you know when I bulk 

I would of thought progressive compound movements would stimulate muscle growth there too.


----------



## jamster85 (Aug 1, 2011)

my biceps dont seem to grow! and are weak! i hate it when some really thin guy next to me in the gym is curling 20kg and im havin forarm agony just from 15s! :cursing:


----------



## Mingster (Mar 25, 2011)

Wouldn't an increase in bench and shoulder press increase tricep strength more than a isolation exercise? And the same for biceps with rows and chins?

I can understand doing hammer curls to hit a section of the arm not directly stressed by compounds, just like I do rear delt work as pressing provides little or no stress on this area.


----------



## vtec_yo (Nov 30, 2011)

jamster85 said:


> my biceps dont seem to grow! and are weak! i hate it when some really thin guy next to me in the gym is curling 20kg and im havin forarm agony just from 15s! :cursing:


A blatant juiced up ecto was curling 22s the other day with atrocious form. Spine looked like it was gonna break. To be fair the top half of him looked great. But his calves were the same size as my forearms. No jk. Quads were thinner than his fat DC's he had on too.

Back on topic of overtraining, there's a lot that's said about how a lot of back exercises with correct form shouldn't fully engage the biceps so splitting them may be ok?? Not sure about triceps though.

As said, I do backl / tris - chest / bis and much prefer it. Despite the fact that my chest still won't get any ****ing stronger at a shameful weight. No idea how / why.


----------



## jamster85 (Aug 1, 2011)

im gonnaq start putting more effort into my arms from now on! i look at my arms n think jeeeeeeez any1 would think i dont go to the gym lol


----------



## Fatboy80 (Feb 27, 2008)

I've virtually cut direct arm training out, maybe only train them once a month. I can see an improvement in them. Agree with Mingster, if you're doing all the big compounds, no real need to train them direct.


----------



## powerhousepeter (Dec 4, 2010)

ive always over trained arms, but recently ive focused on close grip bench and underhand weighted chins and my arms have grown, also the extra strength increase has helped me bench more which in turn stimulates tris as well, win win for me


----------



## guvnor82 (Oct 23, 2011)

Cut back a lot on arm training now sins putting chest / tri's and back / bi's together...

probably no more then 5 or 6 sets tops 4 either tri,s or bi's


----------



## LeviathanBodyBuilding (Jan 9, 2012)

I could give or take training my bis seperate, I feel like they get hit hard enough during my back workout, but I recon I'd still do dips or a cgbp to hit my tris as wen I train my chest I try not to involve them as much, mainly not locking my arms out at the top of the press where I feel that the tris take over, same with shoulder presses


----------



## Big_Idiot (Feb 14, 2012)

I do wonder this.

I see people who always train arms hard and they never seem to grow. I've done both and i still don't even know what is best!


----------



## Ben_Dover (Apr 12, 2012)

I do 3 sets of dips and pushdowns at the end of a chest day, and 3 sets of EZ/preacher curls on back day... Mine seem to be growing nicely!


----------



## Kezz (Sep 3, 2007)

I have found the same with legs the less I do the better they grow, quality less not lazy less though, same with arms, I just do about 5 sets for bicep and they respond ok... I think all this destroying of a body part sessions is a load of crap


----------



## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

There's definitely a huge inter-individual difference in respect of what degree each person needs to train arms to keep them growing or at a decent size... I went about 4 months on a 'compound exercise only' routine a few years back that involved no direct arm exercise and actually lost size on my forearms and upper arms despite gaining for legs and chest measurements... when going abck to trainnig more conventionally the size came back again.

Alternatively though I know other people who legitimately have developed very decent gunnage from no real organised arm training at all and do very well exclusively from exactly the same exercises (benching, OH pressing, rows, pullups etc) that for me, on their own, don't work for arms anything like as well as direct training. Plenty of people to fit into both camps.

I've not thought too hard about why this might be the case, but genetic distribution of muscle fibre types and subtypes of micro-RNA's might well explain the difference, as well as things like differences in leverage and technique on certain exercises. In some cases simply it's effort on the big compound exercises that is missing and people just aren't getting the best out of them.


----------



## a.notherguy (Nov 17, 2008)

will let you know in about 8 weeks time


----------



## Mingster (Mar 25, 2011)

There seems to be a quite a few people who are unhappy with their arm development but very few who have tried the no direct arm training approach. I find this strange. If it isn't working change it.

Having said that, a compromise is probably the answer for most. 2/3 sets, not exercises, of curls and CGBP on back and chest days, done to the correct levels of effort and intensity, should provide all the extra stimulation your arms need to grow.


----------



## tiny76 (Apr 27, 2010)

I hardly ever train arms just seem to find it tedious. Plus after training back or chest the last thing I wanna do is think about training another body part.


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

I think as with all muscle its size in purportion to the rest of your body will be determined by its actual muscle-to-tendon lenght, i have long tendone, my bicep tendon must be 2" in, my arms are 16" is i had short tendon i bet i naturall would have bigger arms possible even 17"+.

If you have long tendons in your arms then you never going to have big arms in purportion to your over all size, more tendon=less muscle=less muscle size


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Also the fact that your body wont grow out of perportion so you cant be 10st with 18" guns, this keeping inperportion and tendon length is 2 big factors when it comes to muscle size/growth.


----------



## Jux (Jul 23, 2008)

Thinking of stopping the bi training myself in a few weeks and focus on the compounds like clean and press.

My triceps however are a different story ... they only respond properly to direct training.


----------



## Gary29 (Aug 21, 2011)

jamster85 said:


> my biceps dont seem to grow! and are weak! i hate it when some really thin guy next to me in the gym is curling 20kg and im havin forarm agony just from 15s! :cursing:


I'm the same mate, my bi's just don't seem to wanna grow like the rest of me. Since I've been training seriously, my triceps have exploded, but my bi's hardly seem any different.

I have been giving the bi's alot of isolation work, but it doesn't seem to make a difference, so I don't know if I'm over training them, I'm gonna leave the isolation movements out for a few months now and see what happens.


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Biceps will always be the smaller muscle, tri's are 2/3 yr arm size


----------



## Ragingagain (Sep 4, 2010)

im exactly same as the op. used to love arm training, now i just find it tedius, will normally do a couple excercises with chest/back. training them for ages is counter productive i believe


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

I agree being counter productive as they get slamed every upper body workout anyway


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Id rather do a strengtg wo on my armsbto aim my other exersises than hammer them in a feutile attempt to grow what wont grow lol


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

To aid* this damn touch screen!


----------



## Dux (Nov 29, 2011)

For the last few weeks before my injury I was only doing heavy benches, flyes, chins, pull downs and rows for chest and back, and that combined with starting a new cycle plus being pushed by massive training partners have made my arms grow just as much as they ever did when I was having an isolated arm day.

This'll be the way I continue to train from now on


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Wats the routine look like dux


----------



## Dux (Nov 29, 2011)

Chest:

Flat bench

Db incline

Hammer strength bench

DB incline flyes

(2 of the bottom 3)

Back:

Chins

Close grip pull downs

Reverse grip pull Hammer Strength pull downs.

Bent over rows

(2 of bottom 3)

I was basically always training way too much, now I do 3 exercises, 3 or 4 sets then we're done. The guys I train with are 19 stone and 22 stone so push me far far more than I could go when training on my own.

I'm hoping to be back training from next week, I fcuked my back a few weeks ago, chiropractor told me to rest or I'd be out for months.


----------



## Mingster (Mar 25, 2011)

Dux said:


> Chest:
> 
> Flat bench
> 
> ...


This is the sort of routine that I like.

I don't see how most people can do more than 3 exercises per bodypart and hit them as hard as they need hitting to stimulate growth. More than this it becomes endurance training imo.

Specialised arm days do little other than eat into the recuperation time of most trainers, again imo and experience.


----------



## stone14 (Mar 24, 2005)

Dux said:


> Chest:
> 
> Flat bench
> 
> ...


Is this 1wo? And do you pyramid your sets or 5x5??


----------



## Dux (Nov 29, 2011)

Different days, although there's been a couple of times where we've put them together (and been wrecked by the end).

Weight gets increased each set.


----------



## Al n (Mar 31, 2011)

I do back/tri's - chest/bi's.

I thought about just concentrating on the back and bi's and leaving arms out altogether but I love the pump you get from targetting them directly. I measured them last week after back and tri's and they'd gone from just over 15in to very nearly 17in which to be honest, had me buzzing my @rse off. Obviously this is just pump and not a reflection on gains but I don't think I'd be any happier skipping them.


----------



## Brook877 (May 16, 2012)

Interesting thread...

Over the last few year I've managed to get my arms up to around 17" but they refuse to grow any more, I'm crying out for another inch or two.

For the last month/6 weeks I've been following a routine I stole from m&f that involves two arm days a week.. (5 day split) And has it delivered that elusive extra inch? Has it fcuk...

I'm quite sure I'm over training them to buggery,

I think I need to write a new split this weekend..


----------



## eezy1 (Dec 14, 2010)

i do and always have done a fair amount of bi n tri training. my arms stopped growing a while back but still looking to develop them with isolations

i reckon most of the thickness came from benching. they only stopped growing when that plateaued


----------



## johnny_lee (Jun 15, 2011)

cant understand people you see training arms just leave them alone lol theyll grow


----------



## Natty.Solider (May 4, 2012)

I train biceps after doing back, just two sets though of preacher and hammers to put the finnishing touches on an already pumped muscle. Triceps I isolate on a day all of their own with the day I do compound movements on. Have good results this was especially with tricpes... Now very strong (pull down flat bar 60kg x 8). Size, yeah, I took progress pictures from 3 months ago and they have grown alot and I didnt even realise. I never used to hit them on their own and they were lagging, now starting to catch back up.


----------



## martin brown (Dec 31, 2008)

vtec_yo said:


> I do the back / tris jobby and noticed some improvements but not a massive difference. *I think it's very easy to overtain as the bicep / tricep is a relatively small muscle for the amount of body that it moves*. If that makes any sense at all.
> 
> I imagine it'd be different on cycle though.


The tricep is actually a muscle very capable of fdoing alot more work and more weight than the pecs and delts. It is there to protect life and can handle huge amounts of volume and get massively strong unlike the pecs...

I dont think not doing any direct arm work is a great strategy - but at the same time spending a work out doing 'arms' is pretty bad use of time IMO.

We do alot of tricep work - most in compounds (close grip bench etc) but usually add an isolation in there too. I didn't used to do any real direct bicep work becasue I'm lazy and it's boring but my biceps casue me problems being weak so I have added three sets of curls into my workouts.

I have bigger arms now than when I used to be into trying to get big and doing crazy arm workouts years ago


----------

