The Big and Strong Series - Arm Training

The High-Set, Low-Rep Training Manifesto

Part 4: How to Grow Massive and Powerful Bis and Tris

     After a brief reprieve in order to write on some different subjects, I have finally returned to the 4th part of our series on gaining mass, strength, and power with high-set, low-rep training.  When it comes to building a lot of mass along with an impressive level of strength, I don’t think any other training can compete with this method of lifting, especially for the natural lifter/bodybuilder.

     If you haven’t done so, then I would encourage reading the first 3 parts.  Here are the links:

Part 1: Legs and Back

Part 2: Chest and Lats

Part 3: Shoulders

     This series has been arranged in this manner because I believe that different lifts should be trained slightly differently; each part represents how those muscle groups should best be trained.  Arms are no exception.

     I think that one “mistake” American lifters make is in their arm-training philosophy.  The general consensus has always been that, since the arms are smaller muscles, they don’t require as much work and also take longer to recover.  I take, in many ways, the opposite approach.  In Russia and in other East European countries they believe that, because the arms are smaller, they can recover faster than larger muscle groups and can also handle a lot more work.  Now, there are obviously caveats and exceptions, but I generally agree with the thinking of our East European counterparts.  It just makes sense to me.  If you have ever done a hard, heavy, intense leg and/or back session, you know that, the next day, you often feel like you have been in a bar fight, or rode a bull, or been hit by a Mack truck, or, heck, all of those things combined together.  But if you do the same kind of workout for your biceps and triceps, no matter how hard, how heavy, or even how long the workout session was, you never feel quite that way the following day.  The arms can recover faster because they are smaller.  They can handle a lot more work because they are smaller.

     Some lifters, admittedly, don’t need as much arm work, not because arms respond to less total training, because of how they are genetically “built.”  Some gym-goers are “limb” lifters.  Their triceps respond just as well to bench presses as do their chests.  Their biceps respond to chins and rows just as much as their backs.  Typically, if you have shorter arms, this is the case.  These lifters get so much out of their other upper body exercises that they simply don’t need to train them as much.  However, if you have longer arms and are more “torso” built, then you most certainly do need more direct arm training.  Sometimes, a lot more.  And, since your arms can handle the extra volume, it makes sense to train them in such a manner.

     The one form of training that I recommend starting with, especially if you’re new to this style of lifting, is the same methodology that I have recommended for all lifts and/or muscle groups in this series.  You simply can’t go wrong with 8 sets of 5 reps.  For the majority of your sessions, use a weight for all of your work sets that is roughly 90% of your 5-rep maximum.  Stop each set a rep shy of muscular failure.  So, at the first workout, you might get 3 or 4 sets of 5 reps and 4 or 5 sets of 3 reps.  Stick with that weight at each workout until you get 8 sets of 5 reps without really struggling.  At that point, add weight and repeat.

     For 8 sets of 5 reps, the exercises that I think work the best are (for the biceps) barbell curls, barbell cheat curls, dumbbell curls, alternate dumbbell curls (be sure you do 5 sets for each arm), and incline dumbbell curls.  Although I’m generally a fan of free weights, you could probably add cable (or band) curls to that list, as well.  For the triceps, lying triceps extensions (skull crushers as I often refer to them—you can do this movement with a barbell, an EZ-curl bar, or dumbbells), lying triceps extensions/pullovers, weighted close-grip dips, close-grip bench presses and close-grip board presses.  As with the cable curls, you could also probably add pushdowns to that list, too.  Obviously, close-grip benches will work your chest to quite a degree, so you want to make sure that you’re not doing them along with a lot of bench press work using the same methods, especially if you train chest on one day and triceps the next day.

     One good idea is to use high-set, low-rep training to specialize on your arms.  On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, train your arms and nothing but your arms.  On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, do a “conventional” full-body workout for your chest, shoulders, lats, and legs.  An effective workout plan might look like this, for instance:

Monday - Wednesday - Friday:

Barbell curls: 8x5

Weighted dips: 8x5

Tuesday - Thursday - Saturday:

Squats: 3x5

Bench presses: 3x5

Power cleans: 3x5

Overhead presses: 3x5

     If you’re after muscle mass over the whole of your body, along with the massive amount of strength and power to go with it, then you don’t want to specialize, however.  You want to be able to use high-set, low-rep training for every muscle group.  (We won’t get around to that here but I will save it for Part 5—putting all of the lifts/muscle groups together into one cohesive program.)

     Back to arms.

     Since the bis and the tris can handle a large amount of work, you can also train with more “intensity” than I’ve recommended throughout the series so far for other lifts.  In this instance, I’m using intensity not in the way that I typically utilize it, but I’m using it in the way that it is by your “standard” American bodybuilder, as how close you come to momentary muscular failure.

     You could do 8 sets of 5 reps on barbell curls and skull crushers with a weight that is 100% of your 5-rep max, or at least very close to it.  Do 2 sets with that weight for 5 reps.  If you get 5 reps on the 2nd set, you can stick with it for a 3rd set, though you will probably just get 4 reps on that set.  After either your 2nd or 3rd set, drop down by 5 pounds and do another couple sets of 5 reps.  After that, drop down another 5 pounds and do 2 more sets of 5 reps.  And, yes, once more drop down in weight and do another set or 2.  8 sets of 5 reps using this technique will not only make you strong but will generate a massive pump in your arm muscles.  As Pavel says, “if you get a pump with heavy weights, you’ll get bigger and stronger.”

     In addition to 8 sets of 5 reps, 10 sets of 3 reps also works well.  If you’ve never done such high sets combined with reps that low on your arms before, then use a weight that’s either 90% of your 3-rep max or, if you’re not sure what that is, select a weight where you could get 6 reps for one all-out set.  Do as many sets of 3 reps as you can.  Once you’re struggling with 3s, start doing doubles instead.  By your last set, you may only be able to get 1 rep.  That’s fine.  Stick with that weight at each workout until you can get 3 reps on all 10 sets.  At that point, add weight at the next workout and repeat.

     With 10x3, you can also use the more “intense” technique described above.  Use a weight that is at, or close, to 100% of your 3-rep max.  Do as many sets of 3 as you can, then drop down in weight by 5 pounds and continue.  You might do 5 weight drops.  Stick with this workout until you can get 10 sets of 3 with your “starting” weight when you began the program.

     For arms, I also like “countdown” sets.  This is a good method once you’ve used 8 sets of 5 reps for a few weeks.  On your first set, do a set of 5 reps, using 90% of your 5-rep max.  Add 5 pounds for your next set and do a set of 4 reps.  On your 3rd set, add weight again and do a set of 3.  Continue adding 5 pounds over 2 more sets, doing a double and then a single.  When you are finished with the single, drop back down in weight to your 5-rep weight and repeat.  If 10 sets is too much, at least at first, then do 8 sets: 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3.

     Once again, since the arms can handle more workload than other muscle groups, you can also do more work at each session, though, if you do so, you may want to limit your frequency to around 2 days per week.  Using some of the above ideas, a good program might look like this:

Monday and Thursday:

Barbell curls: 8 sets of 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3

Weighted close-grip dips: 10 sets of 3 reps

Standing dumbbell curls: 8 sets of 5 reps

Skull crushers: 8 sets of 5 reps

     If you like training only one lift at each session—in addition to high-frequency training, I have long been a fan of one-exercise-per-muscle workouts—you can do as many as 15 to upwards of 25 sets on one lift.  Perhaps the best exercise, at least for the biceps, to achieve this would be some form of cheat curl—barbell, dumbbell, or EZ curl bar.  This will allow you to start strict and then, as the sets get harder as you progress, you can move toward more and more cheating.  The cheat curl, derided as it is by some in the bodybuilding community, has always been one of the best biceps exercises on the planet, in my humble opinion.  Some of the greatest biceps the bodybuilding world has ever seen were built with a lot of cheat reps.  Take Joe Bucci, for instance.  Bucci, a regular of late ‘80s and early ‘90s magazine covers, without a doubt, had a good overall physique, but he would be considered rather “small” by today’s bodybuilding standards.  But it was his biceps that garnered him all those magazine covers.  His biceps weren’t just large, but they were peaked and “shapely.”  He had, in fact, one of the greatest bicep peaks of all time.  And how did he build those bis?  Cheating.  A lot of cheating.  Bucci cheated on every exercise.  He believed it was the key to massive arms, allowing him to do a lot of volume with far heavier weights than he would have been able to utilize in strict fashion.  Now, I’m not saying to cheat on every rep of every set, but it definitely has its place.

I purchased this magazine when it hit the newsstands because I wanted arms just like Bucci!

     Another bodybuilder who favored the cheat curl—actually, he favored cheating on several movements—was the old-school, Silver-era bodybuilder Jack Delinger.  Here is what Delinger said about doing cheat curls: “What is your best single curl performed in strict style?  Well . . . take that weight to use as your EXERCISE poundage in cheat curls. Standing, use your normal curl grip, bend forward at the waist, then return swiftly to an upright position, starting your curl at the same time and bending back a little to complete the curl. The motion of the body should assist the curl to the shoulders. Lower the weight back to starting position as steadily as you can and repeat the exercise. This movement, especially the lowering, forces the biceps into growth.”  I don’t know about using your all-out max for multiple reps of cheat curls, but one idea is this:  Select a weight that is 100% of your 5-rep strict max and use that weight for 8 sets of 5 reps on barbell cheat curls.

     Here’s a good high-volume program for your biceps that you could do twice per week as an example:

Barbell curls (strict): 10 sets of 3 reps.  Use a weight where you can get 6 reps for one all-out set.

Barbell cheat curls: 10 sets of 3 reps.  Once you’re finished with the strict curls, stick with that same weight and now do 10x3 on cheat curls.

     If you’re looking for overall arm growth, keep in mind that the triceps make up about ⅔ of your total upper arm.  You won’t grow 17 or 18” arms unless you do more triceps work than you do biceps training.  Here’s another 2 days per week regimen that would be great for total arm hypertrophy:

Weighted close-grip dips: 10x3

Barbell curls: 10x3

Skull crushers: 8x5

Seated alternate dumbbell curls: 8x5 (each arm)

Close-grip board presses: 8x5.  For these, use either a 2-board or 3-board press.  This will take the pressure off of your chest and assure that your triceps are taking the brunt of the work.

     In Part 1, I laid out the “standard rules” for high-set, low-rep training.  Rule #2 is “You must limit your reps to no more than 5 (usually).”  As with chest and lats, arms fit into the “usually” category.  Doing some sets of (between) 6-10 reps works well for the arms, as a lot of lifters do respond better to slightly higher reps.  Knowing this, one method you could use is to do 1 exercise for multiple sets of low reps and then finish off with between 2 and 4 more exercises but for only 1 to 2 sets each using slightly higher reps.  A couple of workouts might look like this:

High/Low Biceps Workout:

Barbell curls: 8x5

Cable curls: 2x8

Incline dumbbell curls: 1x8

Concentration curls: 1x8 (each arm)

High/Low Triceps Blaster:

Weighted close-grip dips: 8x5

Skull crushers/pullovers: 2x8.  At the bottom of the skull crusher, keep your arms bent and do a pullover, getting a deep stretch on your triceps.

Rope pushdowns: 1x10

Standing dumbbell extensions: 1x10

     Rule #5 in this series is “You must stay tight.  Tension is power.”  For all of the workouts presented here, you need to adhere to this rule.  It’s the key to gaining lean but dense muscle with high-volume but low-rep training.  To understand just what I’m talking about, here are a few quotes from Pavel Tsatsouline in his book Beyond Bodybuilding:

     “Make a fist. A white-knuckle fist! Do you feel how tension spreads from your forearm into your biceps? According to the neurological Law of Irradiation, a contracting muscle spills its excitation over into its neighbors. Just the opposite of the silly and impossible notion of isolation, irradiation is a ‘muscle software’ that fortifies any effort. Due to an abnormally high number of nerves in your paws, anything that happens with your gripping muscles deeply affects your whole body—especially the nearby bis and tris. You can take advantage of this powerful neural program by putting a hard squeeze on your barbells or dumbbells. The tension in the biceps will be off the charts. The result: unbelievable gains.”

     “Always contract your abs and glutes when working your bis. This bizarre maneuver also takes advantage of irradiation. In case you think that getting more juice into your arms by clenching your cheeks is preposterous try this party trick. Give your friend the hardest handshake you can muster. Shake off the tension, rest for a minute, then repeat the test. This time, in addition to trying to demolish your fellow muscle head’s claw, flex your glutes as if you are trying to pinch a coin, and brace your abs for an imaginary punch. Expect an ‘Ouch!’”

     “Cramp your biceps on the top of the curl and actively lower the weight with the power of your triceps. You should feel that you are stretching a rubber band inside your bis. Stay tight, do not relax even when you have reached the bottom—and by the bottom I mean the full elbow extension! Reverse the movement of the tightly wound muscle spring by squeezing your barbell or dumbbell. This unusual technique dramatically improves your control of the iron, especially on the bottom of the curl ROM. Finally you shall be able to blast your muscles instead of the tendons.”

     “Both fatigue and tension need to be present to turn on the cells’ growth machinery. Fatigue is caused by high volume, or a lot of reps performed in a workout. Tension is a function of the weight. They appear to be mutually exclusive. If you say nuts to the tonnage and crank out a zillion reps with Malibu Ken and Barbie weights, you will not generate sufficient tension. If you push towards the other extreme and follow a powerlifting peaking workout of singles and doubles, near-maximal weights, and plenty of rest in between, the muscular fatigue will be minimal and the pump non-existent. And if you go to failure on all your sets, the amount of weight you can use, and therefore the tension values, will be severely compromised after the very first set. The exact arm workout practiced by ‘show’ units of the Soviet paratroops, the ten sets of five minus muscle failure formula is your way out of this Catch-22. Relatively low repetitions enable you to handle heavier than usual poundages. And because all sets are terminated a rep or two before you bite the dust you will be able to do plenty of sets and get a great pump. Rest for one to two minutes between the sets to maximize the effect.”

     Rule #4 is “You must cycle your loads.”  One of the major mistakes that modern bodybuilders make is to train all-out all of the time.  There are several issues with this approach (such as what Pavel mentions in the paragraph above), but another one is that you can’t train frequently enough to elicit natural gains.  If you’re on anabolic steroids, that’s another story entirely.  I have often argued that infrequent training is ideal for those on performance enhancement drugs.  The drug user can take off a week, sometimes more, between training bodyparts and they don’t need to worry about losing any muscle mass because they are in a constant “anabolic” state.  The natural bodybuilder, however, needs to train more frequently than that.  But you can’t combine HFT with all-out workouts.  Not all of the time, at least.  You must cycle your training loads.

     One of the easiest ways to go about this is to alternate between a hard, all-out workout with a “lighter” session that uses less workload and less “intensity.”  Here’s an example of what a couple weeks of training might look like:

Week One:

Monday

Barbell cheat curls: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Use the “all-out” method, where you start with at, or near, your 5-rep max, as discussed earlier in the article.

Close-grip 3-board presses: 8 sets of 5 reps

Wednesday

Standing dumbbell curls: 10 sets of 3 reps.  Use approximately 90% of your 5-rep max.  None of these sets should be too hard.  You should get a pump but still feel refreshed when the session is over.

Skull crushers: 10 sets of 3 reps

Friday

Barbell curls (strict): 8 sets of 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3.  Start the sets with a weight at or near your 5-rep max.  Add weight on each set as you lower reps.

Weighted close-grip dips: 8 sets of 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3

Week Two:

Monday

Seated alternate dumbbell curls: 8 sets of 5 reps (each arm).  This should be a “light” workout.  Use a weight that is approximately your 10-rep max.  If this workout doesn’t feel easy, you chose a weight that is too heavy.

Triceps pushdowns: 8 sets of 5 reps, using the same methodology.

Wednesday

Barbell cheat curls: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Use the “all-out” method, same as the Monday workout from the previous week.

Close-grip 3-board presses: 8 sets of 5 reps

Friday

Barbell curls (strict): 8 sets of 5 reps, same methodology as Monday of this week.

Close-grip dips: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Just use your bodyweight here.  If you’re too heavy for these to be “light” then replace with a different movement, such as bench dips.

     Notice that in the first week, you do two “heavy” sessions and one “light” workout.  In the 2nd week, you reverse this order with 2 “light” workouts and one “heavy” one.  In week 3, return to the workouts from week 1, but try to add weight to all of your movements.

     In Part 5, we will discuss how to put all of the things we’ve covered so far into one integral program based on whatever goals you may have.  Until then, if it’s bigger arms that you’re looking for, put to use the various methods discussed here.  Natural lifters can build arms that are both massive and super strong.  All you have to do is head to the gym and do these workouts.  Bigger arms await!