Unfortunately, that’s just not the case. Like a lot of things in life, just because something is very popular doesn’t mean it’s the best – it just means it’s the most popular. And, if you want my advice, you’ll do most of your curls with a straight barbell because they are in fact the best, and I’ll tell you why:

When your palms are facing as upward as can be, your biceps are at their most mechanically advantaged. The more you twist your palms towards neutral and then facing downwards, the more mechanically disadvantaged your biceps are.

When your biceps are mechanically disadvantaged and you attempt curls, your brachialis and brachioradialis muscles become more directly involved.

And what do cambered bars do? That’s right – make your grip less supine!

Now, for overall arm development, hitting the brachialis and brachioradialis is important so there’s nothing wrong with performing curls with a cambered bar, which does also hit the biceps – but just be aware that your biceps brachii training is at it’s best when your grip is supine, and only a straight barbell will give you that.

What about dumbbell curls? Most people start with the palms facing inward and twist reaching supine at the top. As you will now have guessed, that too takes the biceps brachii out of the movement somewhat for the portion in which the palm is anything less than supine. But, again, twisting curls, hammer curls and overhand curls can all be used for overall arm development, it’s just they’re not optimal for hitting the biceps brachii.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Which Bar For Barbell Curls: Straight Or Cambered?

Further reading...

1. How To Build Biceps 50 Percent Bigger Just By Using The Right Grip The right grip? Most people waste about 50% of their...
2. Brachialis Muscle: Training The Forgotten Muscle For Bigger Arms For maximum upper arm size you have got to train...
3. French Curls - How To Make The Best Triceps Exercise Even Better IFBB Pro Trainer Charles Glass has a simple way to...

The formula for the fastest way to gain arm muscle:

1: Increase the tension and/or the volume of your exercise

Whichever arm exercises you ultimately choose, it’s important that you always seek to increase the tension (weight) on the muscle fibers, and/or increase the volume (reps and/or sets) of the work you perform with the same weight. Without doing so, you won’t reach new muscle fibers and won’t cause enough muscle protein breakdown and won’t get enough stimulus for growth.

Although overtraining is common, most people who ‘think’ they’re doing enough but not experiencing results will actually find they are undertraining and if they can’t lift heavier, will certainly benefit from lifting greater volume. Try it and see what happens.

The prime repetition-per-set range (before failure) for optimal muscle building tends to be between 6-10, so if you aren’t approaching failure (or failing) within this bracket, you aren’t using sufficient tension, so need to increase the weight somehow. Repetition volume far beyond this per set won’t reach the right motor units and fiber types (fast twitch type 2b and 2a) and you won’t experience much muscle growth.

2: Work the triceps, biceps and brachialis

These are the 3 muscles of the upper arm which create upper arm size, and if you aren’t hitting them all with sufficient tension and volume you won’t experience growth in all of these muscles and can’t seriously hope to build big arms. Don’t fall for the myth that the biceps are the be-all of bigger upper arms, they’re not; if anything the triceps will contribute twice the size the biceps will, but this isn’t something to concern yourself with because I’m sure you’re willing to work all muscles as advised.

I’ll give you some idea of what type of exercises work each muscle to get you started:

· Triceps are built by… bench pressing (particularly close grip) and triceps extensions (skull crushers, other triceps extensions seated, standing and laying).

· Biceps are built by… curls, pull ups and rows.

· Brachialis are built by… concentration curls, hammer curls and reverse curls.

If gaining arm muscle fast is your chief concern and maybe all you’ll be doing at the moment, I recommend you work all of the arm muscles in the same day. In fact, many people report full arm workouts on the same day (particularly on a day when they do nothing else but arms) gives them the best results.

I do recommend that you mix the order up a bit, so maybe triceps first one session and biceps first the next, so you get a shot at each of the main muscles when you’re 100% fresh. As a rule, train the small brachialis after the biceps so biceps involvement is diminished through fatigue and more emphasis is then put on the brachialis. If you train the brachialis first, you can impair the effect of your biceps training.

3: Change exercises every 3-6 weeks

There’s an old saying: “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always gotten.” Well, that saying doesn’t apply in muscle building. Things work – almost everything works – at first, but the law of diminishing returns quickly kicks in and within a few weeks you will notice your gains have stopped almost completely. Although muscle gains do inevitably slow as you progress, the way you maximize the gains it is possible to still get is to regularly change your exercises for each body part so your body cannot so easily block change (the state of homeostasis). You can also shake up your routine by changing the repetitions and set schemes from time to time. It’s a game of experimentation and nobody can guarantee what’ll happen – nobody. You’ve just got to get your hands dirty, experiment and see what happens.

4: Eat and Rest and GROW:

Eat enough calories and protein to support the growth of extra muscle tissue, and rest your arms enough to allow them to recover and in general, limit other physical activities to avoid burning up calories which are now needed to make your arms grow.

How many calories you eat is a gray area. It depends on whatever it takes for you personally, and it can only be discovered through trial and error, which is why set diet plans are a great idea as you can adjust upwards and downwards and fine tune it all easily.

Aim for around 1g of protein per 1lb of bodyweight each day, and take your protein from good sources such as fish, eggs, beef, milk, cheese and maybe even whey protein supplements.

Once you see the tape measure start to move, you know you’ve gotten sufficient nutrients to support growth, and once the tape no longer moves – and the scales don’t move either – you know you’re not eating enough.

Part of rest is structuring your program to prevent overtraining. Generally, muscles will be able to recover within 72 hours but in some instances, it’ll take longer – maybe even significantly longer if you’ve really battered the life out of them. Only train your arms again when you feel like you’ve recovered fully.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

How To Gain Arm Muscle Fast: The 4 Step Formula

Further reading...

1. Brachialis Muscle: Training The Forgotten Muscle For Bigger Arms For maximum upper arm size you have got to train...
2. Incline Dumbbell Curls: Why Are They So Good For Building Biceps? Answer: The extended time the biceps spend under tension because...
3. Which Bar For Barbell Curls: Straight Or Cambered? Developing big biceps is a dream of everyone who begins...

1: Check to see if your other body parts are growing:

Before making you read the rest of this article and jump through hoops to fix your biceps growth problem, this simple issue may fix it right off the bat.

This is so simple but it’s a huge mistake people make. I’ve made this mistake countless times. I’ve gotten so wrapped up with trying to make my biceps grow that I’ve measured them over and over and cursed the fact they weren’t growing, but didn’t even think to measure my other body parts to see if they weren’t growing, either, so didn’t know if the problem was confined to my biceps only or a more systemic issue with my training/diet.

It may be a mistake you are making. After all, if your diet is up to par and you’re training hard, there should at least be some part of your body which is growing – your chest, legs, shoulders, etc. If you find nothing seems to be growing then there’s obviously a systemic issue with your training or diet which needs addressing.

If your other body parts are growing but your biceps are not getting bigger still, the rest of the solutions in this article will help you address it.

2: Analyze your volume:

If your biceps are not getting bigger, are they getting stronger?

If you’re lifting the same weight week in week out, you at least need to be lifting more volume or there’s no reason for your biceps to grow. More volume means more ‘lifts’ per session, and it takes the form of more repetitions or sets, or a combination of both.

Strength gains tend to be more immediately noticeable than size gains because through the central nervous system it’s possible to get stronger without getting bigger. But, to get stronger you must be lifting heavier weights in some way or another. The question is, are you incorporating enough volume to affect significant muscle fiber breakdown of the type 2 (particularly type 2b) muscle fibers?

Muscle growth is about exactly that – so it’s a balance between choosing a weight which is heavy enough to cause the type 2 fast twitch fibers to be used, but not so heavy that your central nervous system is only capable of performing low volume; but capable of allowing you to lift for enough repetitions/sets to cause significant muscle fiber breakdown.

It may be you’re lifting too heavy and consequently doing too few reps per set and too few sets to cause significant fiber breakdown.

Most people find their biceps respond best to repetitions of 6, 8 or 10 per set, using a weight which is heavy enough to be challenging to complete the last rep on each set whilst retaining good form.

But, volume isn’t just intra-session, it’s also inter-session. The overall volume you do for your biceps throughout the course of the week is an important factor. It depends entirely upon you, how you train and what your genetic capabilities are. You can’t work against your genetics so you have to work with them.

Some people get better results from training their biceps more often, some less often; some from training their biceps with more volume, some with less volume. People can share what worked best for them, but there’s absolutely no way anyone can tell you what will work best for you – this is something determined by your muscle make up and genetic potential and is something only you can discover from periods of trial

Just remember: If you’ve been doing the same thing for a long while because it once worked but it no longer works, then you need to change – maybe only slightly, or maybe even radically. People sometimes make the best progress they’ve ever known by doing something completely different to anything they’ve ever done before for a short time. Nothing lasts forever.

3: Understand and manipulate your motor units:

Most people have never heard of motor units and yet they are the biggest reason why most people find their biceps are not growing in size. Therefore, it’s critical you understand the basics of how they work and learn to manipulate them to continue growing your biceps (and other muscles).

Your muscle fibers are ‘pulled’ in bunches, which are controlled by motor units. Certain ranges of motion and lifting positions cause different motor units – and my extension, different bunches of fibers – to be emphasized over others. If you constantly work the same biceps exercises you work same motor unit recruitment pattern each time, which will engage certain motor units more than others. The result is only parts of the muscles grow because the rest of the motor units aren’t getting worked to the point that significant protein breakdown occurs in the fibers they control.

There are a number of ways in which you can alter recruitment patterns and shift emphasis between different motor units to make your biceps grow. You can try:

· Changing your grip width/position

· Changing your upper body position (i.e. standing, different incline positions – even laying down flat on the floor.)

· Performing partial reps in specific ranges

Different threshold motor units are also in control of different twitch speeds of muscle fibers. Growth occurs mostly from hitting the fast twitch type 2b and type 2a, so you need to lift heavy enough, as already has been discussed, or you won’t engage the ‘growth prone’ muscle fibers.

4: Work both heads:

You probably already know that your biceps have 2 heads, hence the name ‘bi’. It’s completely impossible to isolate 100% a single biceps head, but it’s certainly possible to shift emphasis by changing grip width or, if using dumbbells, using a grip which supinates as you lift. To hit the outer head of the biceps more use a narrow grip, and to hit the inside head of the biceps more use a wider grip.

5: Work your brachialis:

Your brachialis is situated underneath the biceps, and a well-developed brachialis pushes out the lower area of your biceps when relaxed. Targeting the brachialis for hypertrophy work will have the effect of creating a larger overall biceps appearance when flexed and relaxed. You can work the brachialis by performing concentration curls, preacher curls or dumbbell curling with a hammer grip or using a barbell or dumbbell with a reverse grip.

Conclusion:

Most of these tips can be used on their own but the name of the game in building bigger biceps (and any muscle for that matter) is variety, so don’t be afraid of mixing and matching any technique or variable to achieve your goals – just figure out what you’re trying to achieve and learn enough to know whether your intended method will aid in your goal or not.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Biceps Not Getting Bigger? 5 Things You Need To Do Right Now

Further reading...

1. How To Build Biceps 50 Percent Bigger Just By Using The Right Grip The right grip? Most people waste about 50% of their...
2. How To Gain Arm Muscle Fast: The 4 Step Formula Everybody wants to know how to gain arm muscle fast,...
3. Brachialis Muscle: Training The Forgotten Muscle For Bigger Arms For maximum upper arm size you have got to train...

Back to my world; the real world. Like I say, biceps and triceps still. I’ve gained much more strength than I ever had before in both biceps and triceps, and recently began bench pressing, too. My bench press which was once mightily pathetic by my own lofty standards of myself, has now climbed – and continues to climb – higher and higher as I employ more and more Westside Barbell practices such as speed benching and I’m currently looking into more advanced methods such as bands and chains.

All in all, I’m more concerned about having strength than size, and I know the two only go hand in hand to an extent. I don’t want to be fat but I know now beyond any doubt that for me personally, it’s something I’ve got to stick out temporarily and get even fatter in order to add even more muscle. Arm size wise I’m nowhere near the point I want to be where I can say to myself enough is enough, and start losing the fat and trying to preserve the muscle.

Maybe part of my mistake last time was to start cutting too soon. Granted I put on a lot of fat – probably a fair bit more than now – and my arms were ¼ of an inch bigger than now, but, maybe that just wasn’t enough, which is why when I did cut I wasn’t really left with results that satisfied me (though I’ve copped to it already that I didn’t exactly follow the eat-and-train-properly-while-cutting blueprint, which I can’t escape).

Either way, I’m still around ¾ to a stone lighter than before, and I certainly didn’t have 14lb more muscle last time than now, not even close, so it can only be a lot of fat weight I’ve still not put on, which is encouraging.

No way am I turning back until I’ve reached my targets this time and gone a good way beyond what I reached last time arm size wise or it’s all for nothing. I’d like to reach 16-16.5” arms before I consider cutting. It’ll probably take most of next year as I’m still eating far less than before in order to stave off unnecessary fat gains, but I think since I have a lifetime of benefit to gain from reaching my goals, a year of being on the increasingly-rotund side (even to the point of slight self-disgustJ) will be a year well spent. Stopping anything short of a good way beyond what I was before is mugging myself off completely, and I never do that – at least, not intentionally!

Hasta la vista

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Arms Race Progress

Further reading...

1. Brachialis Muscle: Training The Forgotten Muscle For Bigger Arms For maximum upper arm size you have got to train...

First of all, thanks to those people who’ve shown interest and taken the time to e-mail me. I didn’t really know I had any regular readers. What can I say? Thanks!

Right. Let’s see where I am. For a good while now I’ve not trained my full body, and with summer I’ve trained sporadically – mostly not – since I’ve mostly just been busy with other things in life.

At the moment I’m simply training triceps and biceps, and that’s it – and I’ve been doing so since August, with steady results, despite having just a regular diet and no supplements. And, I’ll continue to train this way for the foreseeable (though I may use protein supplements starting in October.)

Why just the arms?

Well, it’s a no-brainer for me…

A: Least important, but important enough: I can’t afford to buy enough food to grow everywhere, nor do I have the time to eat that amount of food and I don’t have the time and dedication to train like that at the moment.

B: Most importantly: It makes absolutely no sense to me to put the effort and time into training other body parts when the only body part everyday people really notice (and the only part I really give a damn about) – the arms – don’t stand out at all, and never have… and the average person who half-arsed picks up a pair of dumbbells seems to have bigger and better arms than me within a few months. (So I think.)

For me, training other body parts when my arms are nothing is a piss take on myself of the highest order, and I’m not having it any more. I’ll likely begin training other body parts once more when I feel I’ve got arms that stand out. ‘Til then, sod it all.

I’m a regular person living a regular life among other regular people living regular lives. I aim not to impress the purist with the unhealthy obsession about the male physique with perfect proportion and symmetry, but myself – who couldn’t give a damn – and the average person, who doesn’t know a damn. And that simply means arms, above all else.

No arms, no nothing. Wimme?

So, gimme the arms first, and I’ll worry (yeah, right) about the ‘unimportant’ stuff later.

(And no, I’m not worried my arms will become so big that the rest of my body will look ridiculous. Think about it. If that were even possible for me, I’d not even be in this situation, would I?)

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

I Hear Ya

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I’ve been changing things round every 3 weeks, exercises, repetition schemes, bar paths, tempo, rest times, etc. I definitely made a massive mistake last time around in sticking to the same old stuff for months on end believing all I had to do was force myself to lift heavier because other people seemed to be making gains on the same program months on end and I felt I should be able to, too. I definitely won’t be making that mistake ever again.

I’ve been eating good but not sticking to a rigid diet. Just making sure I get plenty of good nutrients each day, especially protein. Unlike last time, I haven’t been aiming to gain weight as an indicator of progress – though I’ve gained several pounds in weight and when I last weighed myself I was just over 12.5 stone – still almost half a stone lighter than when I started training in 2008, so I’m keeping the fat off and still making reasonable progress.

I’ve taken this week off. Maybe I’ll take next week off, too. I’ve got a few aches and pains I don’t want to aggravate – not related to training, as such – and as much as I like training at times and making gains in strength, it can sometimes become a burden when you like doing/have to do other things in life. I’ll see how I feel come next Monday.

I’ve also noticed I’ve started every sentence in this blog with “I’ve” – which is a pretty good indicator that while my training progresses, my blogging skills have deteriorated somewhat. Ah well, I don’t care!

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

May Update

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I did have a very good session on Saturday (should have been Friday, but had to be rescheduled due to unforeseen circumstances; shelves collapsing in the garage spewing paint all over the floor which had to be left to dry… typical). I definitely felt stronger, and lifted substantially more than the last week, right across the board. (But, maybe last week I just underperformed – like I say, real progress across just a few workouts can’t really be gauged.)

I know that I lifted more in my dead lift than I have ever done before by 2kg (if I remember correctly) – and I’m talking more than I did when I was at my heaviest of 14.5 stone, or round about… and I’m currently around 12 ¼ - 12 ½ so I’m pleased with that – plus I did an extra rep since I’m now doing 6. Though, I did twinge my right thigh slightly sometime during the set which I’ll have to be careful of. No pain today so hopefully it will of healed properly before my next session. I’ll just have to be very careful and not make such large leaps up in weight next time – I should have gone for 2.5-5kg increase but went for 10kg from last week because I thought I had it in me. I did; just. At least now I have a better idea of my limits, so I’ll be more conservative in my increases next time.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Checking In

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God, did I learn some harsh lessons – and truth/reality – last time around.

I’ve made sure that this time around I’m much more strict in what I’m doing. Far better awareness of what I’m doing, diet, exercise selection, tempo of repetitions, strict rest periods in between sets, proper warm ups, etc.

I’m more interested in maximizing my strength for my size (relative strength) than I am about getting stronger through getting far bigger. But, I still desire to gain a reasonable amount of muscle mass along with it. Having done a lot of reading – particularly Charles Poliquin’s work – it would seem to be that I needed slightly more reps and sets to achieve my goals this time. My old set and rep scheme was 5 reps, 3 sets. This time around I’m performing 6 reps, 4 sets. This should give me slightly more size gains through greater volume of work, but still keep me strong pound-for-pound for the size gains I do get.

I will be changing things far more regularly this time around, as well as having a much greater knowledge of assistance exercises to work weak points, helping me achieve better results with compound lifts. That was a major failing the last time. I simply didn’t know enough before starting, and I didn’t do enough things right to achieve the kind of results I could have.

As for helping compound lifts with assistance exercises, something Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell said now resonates strong in my ears: ‘The bench press itself does not stall. When it fails to go up you have a weak point you need to bring up.’ I guess that holds true for most compound lifts, too. So this time around I’m making sure I work my weakest areas that let my big lifts down with assistance exercises, rather than just trying to power through with more effort – even at the cost of good form.

Still, mistakes, misfortunes, regrets, could haves, would haves… that’s in the past.

I live to train another day.

I’ll keep you posted.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Round 2

Further reading...

1. Build Muscle Strength With Specialist Weight Training Why you need to avoid bodybuilding routines for strength: Depending...

You know, push ups, incline push ups, crunches, etc. I’ve also done various isometrics and I’ve been paying particular attention to rotator cuff training and performing various stretching exercises to increase flexibility. Areas of my training long neglected, to my discredit.

I’ve had what you could call mild shoulder discomfort for a long time – in one shoulder before I even started training, due to an unfortunate incident several years back. It hasn’t been right since, with a mild pain from time to time in certain positions, and clicking/grinding.

I’ve definitely neglected my rotator cuffs since I began training, I’ll cop to that. And, although I’ve not really had any injuries, I’ve definitely developed further minor ‘disagreements’ in both shoulders.

Time to start looking after the small muscles, and the big muscles will take care of themselves, I think. Whatever I do in the future, I’ll be sure to include rotator cuff training, too. It’s win-win.

What else… ah yes, the stretching exercises. For my rotator cuffs I’ve been doing some strange front-to-back rotations with a length of unused PVC drainage piping. I believe some refer to this as ‘shoulder dislocations’. Whatever. It feels good, and I also feel it stretching my chest. Anything which improves general flexibility and range in my shoulders is good.

As for other stretching exercises, I’ve been doing lower back, hamstrings, calves, groin and quads.

Really, I’ve never been the most flexible person. Even as a youngster when I played football (proper football that is, not that rugby knock-off you Americans playJ) I was never the most flexible person, and I definitely suffered plenty of injuries due to overextending my muscles.

I hope that in relatively short time, I’ll be much more supple.

As far as my fat loss is going, with my primitive scales, I weighed myself as 11.5 stone a few days ago. I hope to get as close to 11 stone as possible by the end of March, when I’m finally going to begin building muscle again for a short burst. Hallelujah.

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And… Stretch!

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My last blog post I told of how I was skipping training because I was getting ill. I didn’t know the half of it. I wound up with gastric flu and had massive headaches and, I have to say, I’ve never felt so ill in my entire adult life.

Then the following week I seemed to develop tonsilitis, which I still have.

I didn’t train during the past 2 weeks. Today I was thinking of training but, rather than do weights I opted to do some push ups and static contraction training in my bedroom for a change. Not correlating with what I was supposed to be doing today, but who cares. I did something and it felt quite good to get the blood pumping for the first time in 2 weeks. (Come to think of it, I haven’t even been out on my bike during that time, either…)

I’ll likely just do some more basic body weight stuff this week just for a change. Maybe even during next week, too.

I’m getting anxious to start training properly for muscle and strength again but at this rate I just don’t know when it’s gonna be. This fat loss stuff is starting to feel like a life sentence now, and it’s dawned on me that I’ve now spent more time losing fat than I ever did building muscle, which to me is ridiculous and a major pisser. And, I still think I’ll need to lose another half stone at least… and preferably closer to a stone.

Then there’s the money aspect. Even if I was blessed with a miracle (fat chance) and I lost a stone of fat tomorrow, I still couldn’t bulk, because money wise, quite frankly, I don’t have a pot to piss in… so I’m going all out to try and turn that, and my life around.

I can’t go off half cocked. I’m doing it properly this time or not at all. Proper food, proper protein, etc.

Whoever says money isn’t important clearly hasn’t been broke.

This post belongs to the Real Muscle Building Blog

Back From The (Almost) Dead

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