I have added 5.5 inches to the upper part of my arm, making my biceps bigger from 10 inches to 15.5 inches. But it was not easy at first. I had been lifting for two years and I gained 40 lbs of muscle at 11 percent body fat. I could bench press 250 pounds and do chin-ups with 50lbs extra weight. But my arms were still small. They were only 12 inches around. That was less than the average man who does not even work out.
That’s when I realized I was doing something wrong. I was not working on my arm muscles as much as the other muscles in my body. I was doing the big exercises, yes. But I did not do enough arm exercises. And when I did, it was random and unplanned. You can do better than that.
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When I started to use these arm-building methods in my routine, my biceps size went from 12 to 15.5 inches, and it matched the rest of my muscles. To my surprise, the extra triceps exercises also added 50 pounds to my bench press, and I could lift 315 pounds for the first time. My weak arm training was holding back the strength of my whole body.
ARM MUSCLE ANATOMY
There are some arm muscles that we care about more than others. There are the main muscles in our upper arms like the shoulders, our biceps brachialis and the triceps. There are also big muscles in our forearms, like our wrist extensors, wrist flexors and elbow flexors.
We will talk more about them later. Here are some examples of exercises that work on the different muscles in our arms:
Shoulderspulling and pushing exercises like chin-ups and rows, upright rows, overhead presses and bench presses. Bicepspulling or curling exercises like chin-ups, Biceps curls. Biceps curls are more suited for the biceps. Tricepspushing and elbow exercises like overhead press, bench press, skull crushers and overhead extensions. Extension exercises are more suited for the triceps. Brachialisneutral-grip pulling and curling exercises. These include dumbbell rows, neutral-grip chin-ups and hammer curls.
Bending your arms at the elbows: exercises that make you lift and pull things with your palms facing down, like chin-ups, lifting a bar with weights on it, or curling your wrists the other way. Moving your wrists up and down: exercises that make you curl your arms with your palms facing up, or curling your wrists up. Lifting your arms to the side: exercises that make you raise your arms sideways, or curling your wrists down. Some exercises work many muscles at once, and they are usually good for us. But not for our arms. Most of these exercises work the muscles in our upper body. For example, they are better for our shoulders and chest than for our back of the arms. To make bigger arms, we need smaller exercises that focus on one muscle at a time. (We will explain why later.)
How big should your arms be?
According to some data from the CDC, the average American is 5’8 tall, weighs 197 pounds, and has an arm size of 13.3 inches. If your arms are smaller than that, they might look small. But remember, most people are overweight, and that makes their arms bigger too. If your arms are healthy and 13-14 inches big, you might not look “big”, but you might still look stronger than the average man.
To find out the best arm size, there are two good sources to look at. First, there is a study by Sell and others that found how the bigger muscles you have, the more attractive you will look–as long as you build muscles naturally. According to this idea, the best way to make your arm more attractive is to make them as big as you can. When you reach a certain size, you will hit your natural limit. That is the best size for your arm. Most natural lifters can get their arms between 15 to 18 inches big. Naturally thin guys might be able to get between 14-17 inches.
Ben going from 13-inch arms to 14.5-inch arms. Between below and above.
To give another perspective, we have the study by Casey Butts, Ph.D. He says that your arms should match your waist size, and your waist size should be healthy. First, measure (or guess) what your waist size is when you have 8 to 15 percent body fat. Your waist will probably be between 28-34 inches. If you are not sure, you can choose 31 inches as a default.
The best arm size:
Best arm size: half of your waist size Best back of the arm size: 80 percent of your arm size These sizes match the sizes you would see on an ancient Greek warrior statue. Remember that these numbers are not exact, but they are close. You can add or subtract 10 percent if you want. With that little bit of flexibility, here are the best sizes for a man with a waist of 31 inches at 12 percent body fat:
Waist size: 31 inches Arm size:14-17 inches Back of the arm size:11-13.5 inches
I had a hard time making my arms bigger for a long time. It took me many years to get them to 15.5 inches. But when I learned the right way to do it, it was not so hard. This is the way I will tell you in this article.
The good thing is that these numbers are possible for skinny guys who are not naturally muscular. No matter how your arms look now, you can make them fill the shirt sleeves. And I don’t mean just those tight shirts or t-shirts. Yes, even those loose ones that hang on your waist like a tent.
How long does it take to get bigger arms?
A common rule is that you need to gain 10 pounds to add one inch to your arms. So if you want to add 2 inches to your arms and you can gain one pound per week, you can expect to do it in about 20 weeks - 5 months.
Johnny adding 2 inches to his arms in 5 months: 13 inches to 15 inches.
If you are like me, and you want to go from 10-inch arms to 15-inch arms, that’s a long way. It may take several weight gains to reach that goal. And your gains will slow down as you get closer to your genetic limit. But for every inch that you add, your arms will look much better.
There is more good news too. If you are skinny, even small increases in muscle size will show. You may see a difference in a few days after your first hard workout. Your arm muscles will look bigger because they are swollen from the exercise. It’s not real muscle growth, but it still looks nice.
Why do SKINNY GUYS’ ARMS LAG BEHIND?
There are different ways to build muscle. If you go to the usual bodybuilding websites, they use a lot of exercises for every muscle. They use both isolation and compound exercises. This way is good for making muscles grow. But it’s also very hard, long, tiring, and not very efficient. Is doing barbell curls, preacher curls and spider curls one after another on “arm day” the best way to make your arms stronger? Maybe not.
Some people use a simpler way, focusing on the basic muscle-building exercises like the bench press, squat, overhead press, deadlift and the chin-up. These are the kind of exercises you will find in the normal beginner’s strength training program like Starting Strength or StrongLifts 5x5. These exercises are very effective, because they work many muscles at the same time. But some muscles will always be weaker than others. The muscles that are weaker are usually in our arms.
To show you what I mean, let’s look at 2 of the biggest muscles in your arms: your triceps and biceps.
Why do BICEPS LAG BEHIND
This is how to make a good workout plan for bigger muscles:
Choose good exercises: you should do exercises that work many muscles at the same time. These are called compound exercises. If you want to have bigger arms, you should also do exercises that focus on your arms, like curls and extensions for your upper and lower arms. Use a wide range of motion: our muscles grow faster when we stretch them a lot (research says so). The best arm exercises are the ones that make your arms move a lot, like incline curls for your upper arms, overhead extensions for your lower arms and sitting curls for your wrists. You should avoid exercises that make your muscles tight, like spider curls or rubber bands. Do enough sets every week: most studies say that doing 9-18 sets for each muscle every week is the best way to grow muscles. For example, you could do five to nine sets of compound exercises and four to nine sets of arm exercises every week. Do enough reps for each set: you can grow muscles with any number of reps, but it is faster to do 6-20 reps per set. This is especially true for arm exercises, where it is safer and easier to do 8-15 reps per set. Train often enough: to grow muscles as much as possible, you should work out your muscles 2-4 times every week. For example, you could do curls and extensions for your upper and lower arms on Mondays and Fridays. Train hard enough: to make sure your muscles are challenged, you should do your sets until you are almost too tired to continue. You can stop when you have 0-3 reps left. Arm exercises are usually safe and don’t make you very tired, so you can do them until you have no reps left. Get stronger: you don’t have to break records every time, but you should always try to lift more weight or do more reps. In summary, if you want to have bigger arms as fast as possible, you should do exercises that are made for muscle growth. To do that, add 3-4 exercises of curls and extensions for your upper and lower arms to your compound exercises. When you do those arm exercises, do 6-20 reps per set and stop when you have 0-1 reps left. You should do this at least two times every week.
Why getting stronger is important
The biggest mistake I made when I tried to grow my arms was not caring about getting stronger. I did get stronger in general. I slowly lifted more weight in bench press, squat, overhead press, deadlift and chin-up. But I didn’t try to get stronger in the arm exercises.
After I gained 40 pounds, my arms went from 10 inches to 11.5-12 inches. By then I was four times stronger. I could bench press 225 pounds and do chin-ups with 50 pounds around my waist. I also did curls and extensions for my arms, but they were not important. I used the push and pull exercises to grow my arms. My arms looked better. I had some progress. But I was not happy with how much they grew compared to my back and chest.
The biceps are the muscles that help us bend our arms. They do this by connecting two joints, the shoulder joint and the elbow joint. But this also creates a problem.
When you tighten the biceps, they pull both your arms and shoulders closer together. The full range of motion for your biceps looks like this:
If your arms are wide open with your palms facing up, your biceps are stretched. If you bring your arms behind you, your biceps are squeezed. Why does this matter?
When you do a biceps curl, you are working the biceps in a way that matches how they function. You bend your arms to lift the weight up and your elbows can move forward slightly. The biceps start in a stretched position and then shorten to a tight position. Nice.
Milo of Croton is a good example of the principle of progressive overload
The key is that if you want to make your arms bigger, you have to train your arms with the same intensity as your other big exercises. You have to focus on adding weight or doing more reps over time. You have to be determined to improve your curls and extensions, not just your presses or pulls. It’s about having a plan for every workout and writing down what you lift, and trying to lift more the next time. If you did barbell curls with 85 pounds for 8 reps last time, try adding another pound or doing another rep.
Give your arms more priority
In a typical workout routine, it is common to do big exercises first and arm exercises last. That makes sense. You don’t want to tire out your arms when you need them for big lifts, right? But if your arms are what you want to improve the most, you can move them up in the order. For example, let’s say you are doing squats and Romanian deadlifts, followed by close-grip bench presses and triceps extensions. By the time you get to those triceps extensions, you will probably be tired. It might be hard to give your best effort.
There is a good reason to bench before doing your triceps extensions. If you do your triceps extensions first, they will affect your bench presses. Plus, benching can warm up your elbows and fatigue your triceps. This will help you use less weight on your triceps extensions and reduce the stress on your joints. Your workout could look like this:
Close-grip bench press Triceps extensions Front Squats Romanian deadlifts This is not a better workout, but it is one that will help you put a little more energy into making bigger arms. When you are in a phase where you are focusing on your arms, it is a good way to change things up. You can experiment with it.
For more information, check out our whole article on exercise order.
YOU NEED TO EAT BIG TO GET BIG
To build stronger muscles, you need to eat enough protein and calories to allow muscle growth. Without that, all the curls in the world will not help you make bigger arms. This was my main problem. I would not eat enough to gain weight and as a result, I did not build muscle.
If you want to grow your upper arms, aim to gain 0.5-1 pounds per week, and eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. This will give you the necessary materials to build muscle.
For more information, check out our whole article on how to eat a balanced mass diet.
THE BEST EXERCISES FOR ARMS
We have created a full article on how to choose the best exercises for growing muscle. To make a long story short, here are some tips to help you pick effective exercises for muscle growth:
Make sure you are using the muscles you have in a way that matches their function. For example, pulling movements are great for your back, but not so much for your Biceps. Bending exercises fit the function of your biceps better. They cause about twice the growth of your biceps. Choose exercises that let you bring your muscles close to failure. Bending exercises are good to bring your biceps close to failure, but not to bring your back close to failure. So, they are good for your biceps but not for your lower back. Find exercises that suit the bone shapes of your body. You want to work your muscles and not joints and tendon. If you feel that barbell bends hurt your wrists or elbows, or make tendon pain in your forearms, it is better to pick a different biceps exercise. Bends with dumbbells allow for more movement for elbows and wrists, often helping to fix the problem. Make sure you do exercises that challenge your muscles to stretch them to longer lengths. Many studies show that you can grow muscles by working your muscles with longer lengths, especially if you can stretch them in the lower part of the exercise ( Pedrosa, Maeo, Oranchuk). Also, with biceps exercises slopes are a powerful exercise because they can stretch your biceps. Spider bends are, however, not a good exercise. In the end, they will shorten your biceps. There are no hard rules, they are just guidelines. Many people build big arms just by doing the same pulling and pushing movements. These exercises may not be ideal, but they are usually good enough. Take all this and eat a bowl of rice. You don’t need perfection to improve. If you work out at home, and don’t have weights, you may have to use chin-ups and push-ups to build your arms. That’s okay.
The best exercises for your shoulder
The muscles in your shoulder help you move around the shoulder joint. They are the only muscles that cross that one joint, so complex lifts are great to build the shoulders. If your daily routine has pushing and pulling shoulders, your shoulders don’t need too much care.
The best exercises for the shoulder:
A close grip bench press (or push-up): great for increasing the size of the front of your delts. The advantage of these presses sideways is that they challenge your front delts in the pressure of a long stretch. This makes them perfect to grow muscle. Overhead presses:great for bulking up your side and front delts. They don’t challenge your shoulders to long muscle lengths, but they are good for working both your front and side deltoid muscles at the same time. Chin-up, barbell row and deadlift:great for bulking up your rear delts. A side lift:great for bulking up your side delts. You don’t need to do side lifts for your shoulders, but they are easy and simple, and they have the benefit of working the wrist muscles.
The article is about how to make your arms stronger and bigger. It talks about different exercises for different parts of your arms.
The first part is about the shoulders. The shoulders have three parts: the back, the front, and the side. The article says that you can work the back of your shoulders by pulling things, and the front of your shoulders by pushing things. Both of these will also work the side of your shoulders a little bit. But you can also do some extra exercises for the side of your shoulders, like raising your arms to the sides.
The article has more information about the best exercises for the shoulders in another article.
The second part is about the triceps. The triceps are the muscles on the back of your upper arm. The article says that you can work your triceps by doing some exercises that involve pressing things with your hands, like using a bar or the floor. You can make these exercises harder by bringing your hands closer together. Some examples are the narrow bench press, the overhead press, and the push-up.
But the article also says that these exercises are not enough to make your triceps grow a lot, because they also use other muscles in your arm and shoulder. So you need to do some other exercises that only use your triceps, like extending your arm behind your head or in front of you. Some examples are the pushdown, the skull crusher, and the overhead extension.
The article says that to make your triceps bigger and stronger, you should do one exercise that presses things and one exercise that extends things.
The article also says that your triceps are very important for making your arms bigger and stronger in general.
The article has more information about the best exercises for the triceps in another article.
The third part is about the biceps. The biceps are the muscles on the front of your upper arm. The article says that you can work your biceps by doing some exercises that involve pulling things with your hands, like using a bar or a rope. You can make these exercises harder by turning your palms up or facing each other, like in the chin-up. These exercises will also work other muscles in your back and shoulder.
But the article also says that these exercises are not enough to make your biceps grow a lot, because they also use other muscles in your arm and shoulder. So you need to do some other exercises that only use your biceps, like curling your arm up or down. Some examples are the biceps curl, the incline curl, and the preacher curl.
The article says that to make your biceps bigger and stronger, you should do one exercise that pulls things and one exercise that curls things.
The article has more information about the best exercises for the biceps in another article.
If you want bigger arms, you need to do two kinds of exercises. One is a big lift that works many muscles at once (like pulling yourself up on a bar). The other is a small lift that focuses on your arm muscles, like lifting weights with your hands.
Also, there is another muscle under your arm muscles that can make them look bigger. It is called the brachialis muscle. You can make it grow by doing hammer curls. This is when you hold the weights like hammers and lift them up and down. This muscle also helps you with big lifts like pulling yourself up or pulling something towards you.
If you want to learn more about the best exercises for your arms, read our full article on Arm exercises.
THE BEST EXERCISE FOR YOUR LOWER ARMS
Your lower arms will get stronger even if you don’t try to work them out. This is because they help you with other exercises. But if you want to make them bigger faster, you can do some exercises just for them.
There are many different muscles in your lower arms. They help you move your fingers and wrists. It can be confusing to learn about all of them. But to make them bigger, you can just think of them in 3 groups:
Muscles that help you bend your elbows, like when you do arm curls or hammer curls. Muscles that help you bend your wrists, like when you do wrist curls. Muscles that help you straighten your wrists, like when you do side raises or wrist extensions.