12 Moves for Killer Arms
/It's summertime and that means plenty of opportunities to express your constitutional right to bear arms. For bigger, stronger biceps and triceps try incorporating these 12 "Sun's Out, Gun's Out" moves into your program.
If you do multiple total body workouts throughout the week add in two or four of these exercises after your bigger upper body lifts (pull ups, pull downs, rows, bench press). Or like me, you can turn these into two workouts of six moves that you knock out in 20-30m 2x/week. I prefer to super set these by doing one bicep move and one tricep move back-to-back and then resting 60-90s between sets.
Start with three sets of 12 reps or four sets of 10 reps and pick a weight where the last one or two reps is a struggle. As you progress you can get fancier with the reps/load and vary it up with a mix of 8, 10, 12 and 15 reps. What I like about this program is it hits all the muscle heads/angles, includes a variety of stimuli (barbells, dumbbells, cables, bodyweight) and some advanced strategies like eccentrics/time-under-tension and blood flow resistance (BFR). When doing BFR I change it up and do strict sets of 15 reps quickly with only 30s rest between sets.
The YouTube video below shows a compilation of all 12 moves. You can click on the individual links below as well (these are separate Google drive files).
- Standing Tricep Cable Pull Down
- Standing Cable Hammer Curls (full range and partials)
- Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls
- Closed Grip (Tricep) Push Ups
- Narrow Grip Eccentric Bench Press (using resistance band on barbell)
- Standing Reverse Grip EZ Bar Curls
- Tricep Dips (wide grip)
- Standing EZ Bar Curls
- Eccentric Dumbell Extensions/Narrow Press
- Across Body Dumbbell Curls
- BFR Deficit Dumbbell Curls
- BFR Over Head Cable Tricep Extensions