Arm Training – What’s a Beginner to do ?

Would you laugh if I said that if you are a beginning lifter you shouldn’t be arm training at all? That’s right sometimes a beginner should just forget about training his/her arms all together and focus on the bigger things. I know this is contrary to everything you hear in the gym and read in the bodybuilding magazines but when is the last time you saw a powerlifter with small arms? That’s right if you only concentrate on the main compound lifts like powerlifters and football players, guess what? Your body might just start to resemble them a little bit. Here are some benefits to cutting all your arm workouts from your routine.

You will be able to recover for your next workout faster. Your body can only recover from so much in the few days in between your workouts. By not doing any arm work your body can get you back in the gym sooner to work on the big lifts.

Forearm Exercises – Beginner Advice

   The purpose of your forearm exercises as a beginner should be to build stamina and gripping power in your forearms to help the amount of weight that you can dead lift, row, and use on pull-ups. If you focus on these lifts I can almost guarantee you that your forearms will grow. Think about it this way. How much can you possibly increase in a small exercise like wrist curls in one year? Now, you can increase your dead lift, row, and pull-ups by much more right? You forearms and doing a lot of work during these big lifts too. Bigger gains in these lifts will mean your forearm muscles will be forced to grow. You don’t need to be doing set after set of wrist curls and forearm isolation work, doing so much work that your arms can’t recover. If you think about it you use your forearms in almost every exercise in your routine already. So they are getting plenty of volume already. Try to apply these tips in and outside of the gym to help you grow.
 
1. Higher reps – Remember we are trying to increase the stamina in your forearm muscles.

Tricep Workouts – Beginner Tips

   My first suggestion for a beginner is to make sure you are not doing too much work in your tricep workouts. Your main gains for your triceps from your arm workouts are going to come from the big movements like close grip bench press, dips, close grip incline bench press. These are big compound movements that will help to increase your bench press. If you gradually increase your bench press over a year by 50 pounds that will make a much bigger difference in the size of your triceps than doing tricep kickbacks with little dumbbells. I’m not saying that isolation don’t have their place but they should be used mainly by advanced ...
bodybuilders not by beginners. If you really insist on isolating your triceps you can do a few sets at the end of your workout. But please don’t do endless sets or go to failure on these. There will be plenty of time for this isolation work once you have built a solid foundation of muscle on your frame...