get bigger arms with no weights (poor mans arm blast)

A year ago, I tried an 8 hour arm workout I got from a video I saw on youtube. The whole video looked like a supplement ad, but I was sick of having 16 inch arms and wanted to get out of the plateau. I looked up reviews online and everyone said that it was rubbish and would not work. I now realize that these keyboard twerps had never tried it before because I gave it a go and added half an inch on my arms!! in one day! obviously I measured them after a couple of days of healing, crying and therapy sessions. One reason why you have to try something before you make a decision on whether it works or not. Our knowledge on hypertrophy and strength is a lot more limited than people think, we know nothing really.

This is all good if you have ~50kg of plates to be using, but what if you do not have a gym set up at home? or don't want to spend 8 hours in the gym? I am going to give you a few ideas on how to have this effect at home with little or no equipment.

Resistance bands

This is an obvious choice, resistance bands are cheap, cheaper than plates and can be used inside if needs be, or you can bring them out to a field somewhere and be one with nature while you blast your arms. I bought the bodylastics strongman set, which set me back £75. But that's only because I have issues saving up money. Before I bought them, I owned a cheaper set I got from eBay, and they worked fine. I would buy a couple of sets, so the total tension of all the bands is about 200 lbs, just so you can set up the triceps and biceps exercise and do not have to fiddle around with bands. You will have to adjust the exercises to make it work. I would recommend a standing band curl and tricep pushdown for both work out 1 and 2.

Body-weight variations
There are 2 body-weight arm exercises that I would recommend using for this workout. They are both illustrated below, to make the variation harder, for both exercises, just raise the feet up on something. It may take some experimentation to work out what heights are your 10 and 12 rep max before hand.

Tricep blaster:

From this position, push up a bit like a pushup, but keep the upper arm around the same angle as the starting position, it should feel like a reverse skull crusher.

Body-weight curl

 It should look a little bit like this, but you should be directly under the rings, so that the webbing is vertical, if you do not have a pair of rings or a TRX (don't get one, their a waste of money) just use a hanging rope or karate belt and do a hammer curl.

This work out is brutal, give it a go, and you will be rewarded.

Enjoy the gains,
Alex

 

Tips on how to increase arm size

This post will give you some ideas on how to increase arm size. If you want big arms, but it is still your dirty little secret and your scared people are going to disapprove of you, check this article out. It will give you some arguments that you can use to understanding your noble quest 

Arms under 15 inches?
This depends on height and over all skeletal size, but the general rule is, if your arms are under 15 inches, you will not benefit as much from isolation exercises as you will from the heavy compound lifts. I built 15 inch arms a couple of years a go using heavy chins and dips, I never did curls. So if your arms are under 15 inches, spend most of your time doing heavy rows, chins, dips, bench press and all those compound movements that you can put a lot of weight on. Just get crazy strong, and your arms will grow

Jed Johnson's August of arms
Click here to see Jed's video on his 'august of arms' experiment. Basically the idea is, you train arms specifically every day, for one month, towards the end you will feel terrible and tired, but if you push through it. After the month, Jed went from 18s to 19s, which is incredible! It doesn't have to be august, if you have the heart, and train hard, you will be rewarded for this crazy program.

Low intensity, high frequency
This is what I am currently doing to train arms. On top of my regular training, I am doing one set of biceps and one set of triceps when I wake up and before I go to bed. That equates to 14 sets a week, and it has no effect on my regular work outs. Remember to pick a weight that will still give you some stress on the muscle, but will allow you to recover easily from it.

8 hour arm workout
It works! Before I gave this a go I did a looked at reviews and everyone said it doesn't work. But after I realized that these where just keyboard bodybuilders that are afraid of trying something difficult. I tried it and added half an inch on my arm in a day!! Which is a lot when you have been training for a while. My opinion is that it will work best if you train heavy, the change in stimulus will help build hypertrophy and the fact that you are stronger means that you will be able to curl and french press more. Click here to see the work out I used. It may look like a supplement ad, but I didn't use them, just make sure your eating and drinking enough calories, have plenty of milk and lucozade. 

Adjusting your compound lifts
Another idea is to simply adjust your compound lifts, to add more stress on the arms, your lifts may go down a little, but if you work on it, you will soon be back to your normal weights. For example, change your bench press and military press to close grip, switch to underhand pull ups and pull downs. You will still be working your back and chest, I get annoyed by twerps on the internet that tell you under hand chin ups do not work your back, EXTENSION OF THE SHOULDER WORKS YOUR BACK no matter what your hand position is.

Thanks, hope this helps.
Enjoy the gains,
Alex