The article contains valuable advice for athletes whose dream is massive embossed arms. The content of the article:
- Why is muscle mass not growing?
- How to properly pump up your arms
- Proper nutrition is the key to success
Powerful, prominent biceps and triceps, developed deltoids and wide forearms are the hallmark of every bodybuilder. Strong hands inspire delight in women and respect in other men. But what should you do to pump up your arms large and proportional?
To become the owner of large muscular arms will have to work hard - this is not an easy task. Many bodybuilders, having tremendous strength in their hands, do not differ in impressive size, and puzzle over how to achieve the desired results in muscle gain.
Why Muscle Mass Doesn't Grow: Exercise Mistakes
In every gym, you can find such amateur bodybuilders who hammer their biceps to the seventh sweat in the hope that they will grow. In fact, due to ignorance of the process of muscle growth, you can not only waste time, but also get the opposite effect - the muscles will decrease in volume.
- Overtraining is the main mistake of all straight amateurs and the main reason for stunting muscle growth. Of course, training provokes the growth of the arms, but in reality they gain mass during rest. Therefore, a sufficient amount of time should be set aside for proper sleep and rest. If the break between workouts is not enough, the muscles will simply have no time to grow.
- The muscles of the arms are composed of a large number of heterogeneous muscles, the main of which are the biceps, triceps and forearm. They all include smaller muscle fibers. For example, the biceps is viewed as a muscle from a short and long bundle. The athlete can perform 2-3 exercises for the biceps, but they are all for one beam. Naturally, there is no progress in this case. In order to prevent such a turn, before coming to the rocking chair, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the anatomy of the muscles of the hands.
- Very often, athletes in pursuit of large weights make big mistakes in execution technique. Repetitions are performed using jerks with frequent cheating, which will not affect the hypertrophy of the arm muscles in any way, but can lead to unpleasant situations. For exercises, you must choose a weight that will allow you to smoothly and clearly perform the approaches. This is how the maximum tension in the muscles being worked out will feel.
- Variety in training cycles is a big plus. Regular changes in exercise will surprise and shock your muscles, and this will positively affect their growth. It is worth noting that the hands are involved in pumping the back, chest and shoulder girdle. Here they receive, albeit indirect, but also the same type of load. Therefore, changes must be made in exercises for all muscles of the body.
- The muscles in the arms are made up of different types of fibers. Some of them respond to pumping, others to strength work. Periodization of exercise will allow you to achieve maximum hypertrophy. It is necessary to draw up a cyclic training plan, in which muscles will first be worked out for mass, then for strength, then again for mass. Etc.
- The body must develop proportionally. Large muscles need to be pumped first, and it is unrealistic to pump up your arms without the total muscle mass of the body. Hence the conclusion: a junior who trains the torso diligently and “scores” on his legs will never achieve maximum results in pumping his upper body. The arms will only grow after the legs, gluteal muscles, back and chest. The biceps make up a smaller part of the volume of the arms. The bulk falls on the triceps (almost 70%), so training in this part of the body should be in favor.
After effective weight exercises on the arms, a good warm-up must be followed. She will not allow loss of mobility and stagnation in growth. Stretching, in addition to relaxing and calming, accelerates the growth of muscle mass.
How to properly pump up your arms
All exercises for pumping up arms are divided into exercises with weights and with their own weight. Workouts should be started with very light shells, or without them at all, in order to warm up and stretch the muscles.
After the warm-up sets, there is always a hard basic workout, which is achieved with isolation exercises. Otherwise, when working with heavy weights from the start, at least, the rate of onset of fatigue will increase, if there are no troubles at all (convulsions, sprains, dislocations, fractures).
The narrow grip press and dips are the basis for triceps. The secondary exercises are overhead extension, tilt extension, and vertical block extension. The main exercises for the biceps are the reverse grip and standing lifts. These are complemented by isolated Scott Bench lifts, concentrated dumbbell lifts, and lower block curls (bent or rope handle). For the forearm, dumbbell hammer curls, biceps curls, and wrist curls are excellent exercises.
Proper nutrition is the key to success
No matter how hard the athlete does, no matter how strictly he observes all the rules prescribed above, gaining muscle mass is unlikely and almost impossible without a properly composed diet. The body needs to get enough protein, fat and carbohydrates. There is no single template for proper nutrition - it will be different for everyone, depending on the goals set, the characteristics of the body and taste preferences.
Dry, wiry athletes looking to gain weight need to focus on carbohydrate foods to compensate for the loss of energy costs. For athletes who are prone to overweight, on the contrary, it is worth eating more dietary meat, fish and eggs to build muscle cells with protein. But the nutrition scheme should be equally fractional for everyone - at least 6 meals a day in small portions.
Video on how to pump up your arms: