ARMS You‘ll need to set aside five consecutive hours to be near weights so you can train. For this reason, our routine is probably best done on a weekend or other day you‘re not working and is ideal if you have a home gym or some basic free weights in your house. You‘re going to complete 60 total sets over the course of the day, broken down into three 20-minute blocks done every hour. During each 20-minute period, you‘ll do 1–3 supersets for the biceps and triceps. Of course, this won‘t take a full 20 minutes to perform, so you‘ll rest and go about your day from whenever you finish until the next 20-minute block begins. At first, these rests will seem long. Obviously, 15 minutes or so (whatever time is left after you‘re done with your supersets) is more than enough time to recover. But by the third hour, you will be begging for longer breaks. Choose your weights appropriately, as you are better off starting lighter and adding weight as you go rather than going too heavy and then having to reduce it. Each 20-minute cycle contains a different set of exercises and a different protocol. You know the basic premise of weight training by now. Lifting weights tears down muscle fibers, which the body then repairs and makes bigger so that, going forward, they can better handle the stress that damaged them. Part of the process is inflammation—swelling in the injured muscle cells— and this accounts for some of the increased size you notice after training sessions. Scientific studies have confirmed that this swelling can last for a week or more following very intense exercise, but this program isn‘t about tricking you into thinking you‘ve added muscle when you‘ve really just pumped water into your arms. Inflammation will account for some of the gain, but so will actual hard, dry muscle. Either way, your arms will be bigger, and isn‘t that all you‘re really after anyway? The goal is to keep this cycle on repeat. Your one-day bi and tri bombardment will result in a lot of inflammation and require rest, but when you train again (on your own program), before your arms are fully repaired, you‘ll provide another stimulus that keeps the arms engorged. This should be within a week of completing this program. If you return to the gym immediately following the dissipation of soreness, the overall cell volume (muscle size) is retained as you begin another breakdown and rebuilding process. Muscle protein synthesis is enhanced immediately following exercise, so as long as you continue to work out, you can continue to build muscle. With that said, after performing this program, don‘t restart your training if you‘re still very sore, see bruising or discoloration in your muscles, or have sharp pains in the muscles and joints. While the goal is to beat your arms up enough that you cause a massive regeneration that leads to new muscle tissue, we don‘t want to damage them beyond what they can recover and grow bigger from. That would defeat the whole purpose. So wait at least four days before you do any direct arm training again, and eat above maintenance calories. You can repeat the program every three months. The 1-Inch-In-A-Day Arm Routine Time* Exercise Sets Reps 0 Standing Barbell Curl 3 10 -Superset with- Seated Two-hand Overhead Dumbbell Extension** 3 10 20 Seated Alternating Dumbbell Curl 2 12 -Superset with- Two-arm Dumbbell Kickback 2 12 40 "Crazy 6's" Barbell Curl*** 1 6 -Superset with- "Crazy 6's" Lying Triceps Extension*** 1 6 Repeat the workout every hour for five hours total. Rest 90 seconds between all supersets. * Time refers to the minutes past the hour the listed exercises are performed. For instance, “0” could be 2 p.m., “20” would then be 2:20 p.m., and “40” would be 2:40 p.m. ** Use a low-back bench or chair if you have one. Otherwise sit at the end of a flat bench. *** Take six seconds to perform the positive phase of each rep and six to do the negative (a total of 72 seconds of tension on the muscles). The Arms Split In designing a split that focuses on arms, it‘s critical not to hit the pulling muscles (back, biceps) and the pushing muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) on consecutive days. This sample split leaves at least 72 hours between sessions for pulling muscles and 48 hours between sessions for pushing muscles. Follow a split like this for no more than six weeks, then go back to your traditional routine. Training Split Day Bodyparts Trained 1 Chest 2 Back, biceps Day Bodyparts Trained 3 Shoulders, triceps 4 Legs 5 Triceps, biceps 6 Rest 7 Cycle repeats Click through for the workouts: Twice the Arms Most bodybuilders follow a training split in which they work each bodypart once in every cycle to build the most symmetrical physique. But by tinkering with intermediate- and advanced-level splits that are at least five days long, you can actually train a smaller muscle group that recovers more quickly—like biceps and triceps—twice. "Arrangement of the split is critical so that you‘re not overusing a particular muscle group, which could cause overtraining on the pushing or pulling muscles if you do them on consecutive days," says David Sandler, CSCS, professor of exercise science at Florida International University (Miami). “ [If you follow this type of split], you definitely want to ensure there‘s enough recovery built in. Arm Workouts That Work While you perform a pair of biceps and triceps workouts during your training split, they won‘t be the same. In fact, when you train your triceps after shoulders and biceps after back (see ―The Arms Split‖ below), they‘re typically already somewhat exhausted from assisting in the training of the larger muscle group, meaning your efforts to get a good pump can be somewhat elusive. Still, because the arm flexors and extensors are already warmed up, this is a smart way to finish off that muscle group. The second time you train these muscle groups each week, you don‘t precede your session with routine for a larger muscle group, meaning your arms aren‘t prefatigued. Hence, you can really give your guns your all on these days, and you‘ll find that your arm strength and stamina are much improved on the days you train arms after chest, shoulders or back. >> Higher Volume As part of the focus on arms, the amount of work you dedicate to arm training will increase over the next six weeks. ―I feel high-volume training brings out denser-looking, separated muscle,‖ says Lou Joseph, 27, an amateur bodybuilding champion [add title here he just won last weekend] from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. ―Right now, my sets range from 9– 15 [for arms]. The number of sets you do is relative to you and your training experience. When you first up your volume, you might feel you‘re not recovering fast enough, but give [a program] a month and your body will adapt.‖ Gunter Schlierkamp, three-time top-five finisher at the Mr. Olympia, agrees that biceps respond well to high-volume training. ―I like to do 9-12 sets with a total of three exercises to build mass.‖ >> Heavy First Exercise You can go really heavy with the first exercise in your arm routine; therefore, the standing barbell curl is probably a better choice than the concentration curl. After your warm-up sets, lift using high resistance with low reps. ―Do relatively heavier sets in the lower rep ranges at the beginning of your workout when you‘re fresh,‖ Sandler advises. ―Training in this range enhances the hypertrophy effect before going to a higher rep range later in your workout.‖ Joseph agrees: ―Lower-rep sets should be executed in the beginning of the workout when energy is at its highest.‖ Sandler warns against going so heavy that you need to perform cheat reps, in which you throw momentum into the move to get it going. Though cheating may allow you to complete a few additional reps, if you go too heavy you remove stress from your target muscle. ―That‘s one reason I‘m a big believer in using pure isolation movements for the arms, such as a preacher curl for biceps or skull-crusher for triceps,‖ says Sandler. ―Other good choices for biceps movements include the one-arm cable curl and the concentration curl, in which your triceps is pressed against your inner thigh. Getting the form right is key.‖ >> Focus on Isolation After going heavy with your first exercise to focus on strength, the Peak Arm routines also include movements that better isolate your muscles and minimize cheating. ―For overall biceps development, you want to hit both the outer and inner biceps,‖ says Joseph. ―To make sure you hit the outer biceps, I recommend you use a fairly close grip with your standing EZ-bar curls and a neutral grip with your dumbbells curls. I find hammer curls to be extremely effective at hitting the outer biceps as well,‖ he continues. ―And be sure you‘re constantly flexing your biceps while twisting your wrists out. You‘ll actually see your biceps taking more shape over time. [This technique] also helps you achieve a higher mind-muscle connection, which helps you fire off the greatest number of fibers possible to that muscle.‖ Gunter favors the alternating dumbbell curl and the concentration curl for recruiting the biceps peak.