Why aren't my arms 20 inches?

This week I am going to talk about the arms. I'm going to use them as a simple example but if you are clever you will be able to apply this concept to all different parts of your body.

Why aren't my arms 20 inches?

If you are reading this, you are probably someone who has weak arms or wants to develop bigger, fuller arms. The answer to how to do this always requires context but I will go over what things can be issues and what steps you can take to improve.

The Problems

There are numerous barriers to developing a good set of arms:

- genetics
- inappropriate volume, intensity and frequency
- incorrect form
- poor exercise selection
- misplaced progamming focus
- lack of patience

Genetics

Genetics play a big role in both how much muscle you are capable of gaining on your arms and the shape of that muscle. If you have short bicep muscle bellies and long tendons where they insert at the elbow joint then you are more likely to have a bicep which bunches up into a "baseball" or a "peak". If you have long bicep muscle bellies and a short amount of bicep tendon at the elbow (this is me) then you are more likely to have longer, fuller biceps when contracted but less peak. I like to call the latter a "football bicep" as opposed to a baseball bicep.

Of course that is just the biceps, the triceps also contribute to arm size to a great degree. In fact they contribute to a greater degree than the biceps, they just aren't noticed as readily. All three heads of the triceps play a role in arm size but the extent to which there is potential for long head development will determine how "round" the arm looks in the contracted position (looking from the front).

Arnold had one bicep with a shorter muscle belly/longer tendon "peak" structure and another long, full bicep

Inappropriate volume, intensity and frequency

The interplay of these three variables is largely what makes up your training program (along with a few other things). Any of these things can be too high, too low or not interplaying well with each other, resulting in a lack of progress. Obviously this applies both to individual muscles like the biceps and triceps and broadly to the entire musculoskeletal system.

Incorrect form

Bad technique can limit the amount of gains you make because the muscle intended to move the weight through the range of motion is not doing so. In the case of the biceps often excessive momentum is used to swing the weight up, too much shoulder flexion occurs and too little forearm supination occurs. When we are talking about the triceps there is a greater variety of exercises that can be performed so it depends on the context but usually it is a lack of range of motion (extension) at the elbow joint, excessive weight being used, lack of control of the exercise or otherwise faulty mechanics.

Arnold demonstrates incorrect form aka the girl walking downstairs in The Exorcist

Poor exercise selection

Care needs to be taken to select exercises which are appropriate for the individual performing them and for the goal that the exercise needs to accomplish. If the latter is neglected then the result will not be achieved to the best potential. When it comes to arm development, exercises which target ALL areas of the arm are important. Yes this means the biceps and triceps but it is important not to neglect the forearms and secondary elbow flexors (brachialis and brachioradialis being the main two). All of these muscles contribute to total arm development and a lack of any one of them makes the arms noticeably less impressive.

Misplaced programming focus

Sometimes when a muscle is not responding well to training we start to gravitate towards extremes. That is we might resort to the "whatever it takes" mentality and try anything from eight hour arm workouts on the extreme end and things like German volume training, pre exhaustion with compound exercises (eg chin ups) and intensity techniques on the less extreme side. Some of these things are ridiculous, and others might actually be valid to some degree. The consideration is sustainability and progression. Are you really going to be able to keep doing 10 sets of 10 for biceps for the rest of your lifting career? Will you be able to continue to progress doing that in the long term? Or is it just a short term road to some gains which will eventually plateau and leave you struggling with where to take your training next?

Oh Rich you are the first person in the history of the world to tell it like it is bro

Lack of patience

Everybody these days wants everything NOW. They often don't realise how long it takes to develop a good physique, and weak body parts no less. Weak body parts are always going to take a long time to develop. Sometimes you will discover something which does increase the rate of development but generally you won't stumble across these things unless a fundamental was out of place and you didn't quite realise it initially.

The Solutions

Genetics

There is obviously no solution to having poor arm genetics. All you can do is accept that you do have poor genetics in whatever regard and then make a commitment to developing them to be the best they can be within your own limitations.

Before you can accept that you have poor arm genetics though you need to be able to recognise that you have poor arm genetics. I'm going to discuss how to recognise this in regards to the structure of the biceps in particular. I suggest standing in front of a mirror and abducting your arms to shoulder level with elbows extended. Examine what the biceps look like. Most people will have similar looking biceps in this position as when they are stretched out the amount of muscle won't be terribly apparent. Next contract your biceps and bend your elbows 90 degrees. Again look at your biceps and take note of the amount of muscle vs tendon. Finally contract your biceps completely, moving your forearms as close to your biceps as they will go (a front double bicep pose). Examine the way your biceps look once again taking note of the amount of muscle vs tendon. Having looked at these three positions should give you a fairly good idea of the structure of your biceps. Having a short baseball bicep, a short peaked bicep or a long, full football bicep can all be good things in different ways. Maybe you have none of these. You might have a lot of tendon and very little muscle which lacks appreciable shape. Generally football biceps have the most potential for overall size as there is simply more muscle tissue to fill out. However baseballs and peaks can be quite impressive in their own rights. If you have hardly any muscle tissue, you probably got screwed genetically (unless you have been training for a short period of time).

That covers structure, but what about potential for growth and rate of growth? These things will only become apparent with experience. If you've been training for 10 years, doing everything correctly and you still have small biceps, chances are you just don't have good potential for muscle growth in that muscle group.

Like we noted above if you do discover that your genetics for arm development are poor there isn't anything you can do about it. So don't waste time worrying about it and invest your energy into a reasonable plan of action as well as developing self acceptance and patience/trust in the process.

Sergio Oliva was famous for his long, full biceps

Inappropriate volume, intensity and frequency

I can't tell you the exact answer to how you should program your training variables. However a good starting point for most people is between 40 and 70 reps per muscle group trained 2 - 3 times per week. 1 - 15 reps is a good range for hypertrophy but when it comes to the exercises which are appropriate for training the biceps and triceps many of them are isolation exercises meaning that you will probably be working in more of the 6 - 15 rep range (exceptions might be compound exercises like close grip bench press).

Incorrect form

The main things to address here are:

- Keep the weight under control ie don't swing and use momentum
- The primary function of the biceps is to flex the elbow joint. Some translation of the elbow is ok when performing bicep curls but excessive shoulder flexion is undesirable. The same thing goes for tricep cable push downs
- Make sure you supinate completely when performing dumbbell curls. Half the people I see doing this exercise seem to do it in a fashion that looks half way between a supinated bicep curl and a hammer curl. Supination is one of the functions of the biceps. Not completing the movement means you won't be getting a complete contraction and you are short changing yourself.
- Use a full range of motion

Poor exercise selection

For the biceps you want to include curl variations which involve flexion and supination. For triceps I think it's good to include exercises in different ranges of shoulder flexion. All of the three heads will contract during all exercises involving elbow extension but certain exercises will emphasise different heads. I suggest at least one push down movement and one overhead extension movement. Lastly don't neglect the secondary elbow flexors. An exercise like hammer curls will place an emphasis on the brachialis and brachioradialis. This is one area that is consistently neglected by gym goers. Perhaps they think they are unnecessary or perhaps they just don't think to train them, but one thing is for sure I rarely see people specifically train this area and I rarely see people with well developed forearms. Speaking of forearms you can also perform wrist curls into flexion or extension to develop the forearm flexors/extensors but the return on investment is somewhat limited.

 Hammer curls - I've done these consistently for my whole time lifting, can you tell?

Misplaced programming focus

When it comes to programming I suggest having an overall philosophy or goal of progressive overload. Within that you want to have a specific progression scheme. With some of the isolation exercises for biceps and triceps you may have to sometimes focus on adding reps more than increasing weight simply because the smallest increment available to increase by can be a relatively large percentage of the weight you are lifting (depending on how much you are lifting and the exercise). 

Lack of patience

Here is a novel idea. Consider that it takes a long time to build a good amount of muscle. If we are talking about some of the weakest muscles in your body genetically, they could take many years until they look even decent. Strap yourself in for the long haul.

Personal Anecdote

I do want to offer my perspective on this in case any of you are feeling hopeless at this point. Just stick with it. I had fairly poor legs at some point. My legs didn't respond quickly to training but if you were to look at my legs now you'd probably say they are one of my strongest body parts. It wasn't until I started training my legs more than once per week that they really responded well and over several years they have grown a good amount just by focusing on the basics. Now I'm not saying this can be achieved by everyone for all weak muscle groups but I am certain that you can always improve. Stick with the things discussed above that make logical sense and actually offer a gradual return on investment.

Thankyou for reading, I'll catch you guys next week.

Muscle Academy contact details:

Email - info@muscleacademy.com.au
Website - http://www.muscleacademy.com.au
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/MuscleAcademy
Instagram and Twitter - @evansoooon

- Evan