Last month I took up a challenge presented by AJAC. The challenge is detailed below:
February Challenge Directions
From Now, February 2nd, until February 29th, you’ll train arms daily.
You will 100 bicep curls
You will do 100 tricep pushdowns.
You can experiment with different grips on the exercises (say 50 forearm curls, and 50 hammer curls), but don’t overcomplicate. Bands, cables, barbells, Dumbbells, etc, USE it all and keep interesting.
100 reps for biceps and triceps, DAILY.
For 28 Days. Exactly 4 Weeks
I made a slight modification to the challenge. Instead of tricep pushdowns, I performed tricep extensions.
Although the challenge was meant for 28 days, I stopped after Day 23.
Why did I stop? I wanted to put my focus elsewhere.
How did I perform the exercises?
The exercises were a constant variable; EZ-Bar Curls & Standing Triceps Extensions
METHOD 1:
10 supersets of 10 curls then 10 ext.
Light to Moderate weight.
METHOD 2:
7 to 10 sets of 10 to 15 curls.
7 to 10 sets of 10 to 15 ext.
Light to Moderate weight.
Heavy weight last two sets.
METHOD 3:
5 sets of 20 curls.
5 sets of 20 ext.
Light weight.
The heavier the weight the longer the rest periods. If the weight was light then I kept rest periods around one or two minutes.
Results
Although I didn’t complete the entire 4 weeks, I noticed more veins on my biceps. My triceps also pop more thanks to muscle memory.
Since I was on maintenance I neither gained or lost weight. So not much was gonna happen in terms of results.
Instead my arms built up an endurance since they were pumped with blood on a daily basis.
Obviously there wasn’t much of a change for me – HOWEVER! I can definitely recommend daily arm work to people with small arms.
Why I Recommend Daily Arm Work (Especially to Novices)
I don’t have good triceps insertions. For whatever reason everyone in my family has better looking triceps than I do.
When I was a complete novice my tricep muscles were just a single visible “line” on the back of my arm. Despite being able to bench press 255lbs for 5 reps.
It wasn’t until I did tricep extensions every single day for four months that I developed my triceps.
That’s when I learned that arms need DIRECT WORK with HIGHER REPS.
Strength isn’t going to develop smaller muscles like the biceps and triceps the way higher reps can. Your arm muscles need to be pumped with blood in order to grow.
You need to apply this DIRECT WORK with HIGHER REPS philosophy when building your forearms as well.
I learned this first-hand when I was a young buck and took up a warehouse job where you pick up and put down boxes for 10 hours a day.
Your forearms build up with this type of “endurance” training.
Look at the arms of men who work doing physical labor and you’ll notice they have thick forearms. Specifically the “belly” of the forearms.
Keep in mind that bone density is a huge factor in your overall size as well (arms and forearms included).
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