How To Choose The Best Arm Exercises

Step 1

Remember being a kid, looking at a comic book and noticing that all the coolest characters had giant chiseled arms? Ever since then you probably felt like having big arms meant having a nice body. And maybe you aren't too far off; it's the first thing anybody sees when you wear a t-shirt, and there's nothing cooler than walking around with a pumped up pair of guns. So, how do you get those arms? Well you've gotta choose the right exercises- that goes for your biceps and your triceps. Take a look below as I outline a couple of exercises and let you know which ones are probably best for maximum arm-splosiveness.

Step 2

I know most of you are probably looking forward to the bicep exercises- but let's start with triceps. The triceps are actually naturally bigger than the biceps, so if you're trying to get big arms then this is where you gotta start. We'll go over dips, cable pressdowns, and last but not least, skullcrushers.

Step 3

Tricep dips are the original tricep exercise. They force your arms to lift your entire body and they can generate a lot of power and potential muscle into the triceps. You want to grab onto a dip bar and position your body so that it is as upright as possible. Be careful because leaning forward is easy to do on dips, but don't. Doing so will add all the pressure from the exercise to your chest, taking away the work that you're trying to give to the triceps. So, straighten up, and lower yourself down, only bending at the elbows (meaning keeping your forearms as perfectly perpendicular with the bar as possible), then push back up. Dips are an excellent mass-builder for the triceps, and you'll find that they give you a ton of strength, too.

Step 4

Next are cable pressdowns. Hook a rope or a flat bar up to your cable machine and set it to just above your head. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, a slight and natural arch in your back, and head looking forward. Then simply grab the rope/bar and extend your arms all the way downward, holding at the very bottom, and letting them back up to a 90° angle until you repeat for more reps. Cable pressdowns are an excellent exercise for getting as much contraction as possible out of the triceps. You can go heavy, light, slow, fast- no matter how you do them, they will add definition and size to your tris. Throw them inside the middle of a workout and feeeeeeel the burnnnnnn.

Step 5

The last (and my personal favorite) tricep exercise we'll look at is the skullcrusher. Skullcrushers are performed by laying flat on a bench with an EZ bar in your hands. Hold the bar straight up above your chest, then making sure to keep your elbows pointed up and in, bend your forearms and lower the weight down to your forehead, then push it back up to the starting position. Skullcrushers do it all for the triceps. They give you a lot of strength, build a boatload of muscle, and add necessary definition to the three heads of the triceps. They're difficult to do correctly, and adding too much weight is never the right way to go. Focus on perfect form and eventually the skullcrusher will help your triceps bulge out of your shirtsleeves.

Step 6

Next let's look at a few bicep exercises. While the biceps are smaller than the triceps, they're still the #1 most appreciated muscle on any physique. Tough guys flex them, beach guys got 'em- hell, even movie stars and singers try to make sure that they have some decent looking biceps. So, let's help you follow suit by taking a look at a few of the better bicep exercises: seated preacher curls, incline dumbbell curls, and reverse grip cable curls.

Step 7

Seated preacher curls are a staple exercise for the biceps. To perform them, sit at a curl machine, place your elbows shoulder width apart on the machine with an EZ bar in your hands. Lower the weight until your arms are straight, but make sure to keep your elbows on the pad and your butt on the seat. Once your arms are straight, flex your biceps and bring the weight back up to its starting position. This exercise puts an unimaginable amount of necessary-strain on your biceps. It forces both heads to power through a lot of resistance, and the pump you'll get is ridiculous. Don't worry about going too heavy too fast- this exercise will burn no matter what the weight is. Add this to the beginning of every arm workout and the size and strength of your biceps will skyrocket.

Step 8

Incline dumbbell curls are great for getting a massive pump and toning up the peaks of your biceps. You're going to sit on an incline bench and lay your head flat against it- keeping your head flat against the bench throughout the entire movement is important to avoiding injury. You'll hang your arms down straight, and then flex your biceps and bring the dumbbells straight up and as close to your armpits as possible, then lower back down completely. Incline dumbbell curls work at an angle that challenges the smaller head of your biceps, forcing it to contract to peak performance. This exercise will make your arms so pumped that you'll have to shake them out afterwards, but after a few months of doing it, your biceps will look like little (or big) mountains, with a solid and noticeable peak at the top.

Step 9

The last exercise we'll look at for the biceps are reverse grip cable curls. At the cable machine, stand with feet shoulder width apart, grip the bar with your palms facing DOWN, and then standing straight with a natural arch in your back, curl the bar upward as high as you can, then lower it back down. Reverse grip biceps exercises are very helpful for every bicep routine. They force the muscles in your forearms (namely the brachioradialis) to get involved with growing right along side your upper arms. I prefer to use the cable for my reverse exercises because it allows me to purposefully and slowly perform the movement, which lets me force ultimate pressure into my biceps and forearms, creating a serious burn and a lot of serious growth.

Step 10

So, now you've seen all the exercises I think are best for growing those arms. The last little bit of advice I'd like to offer is for you to try out Fat Gripz. Slapping these guys onto the bar/dumbbell you use for any exercise (especially with the arms) will make your gains multiply. You'll rapidly increase the size, strength, and definition in every part of your arms if you consistently use these. So, grab some, try them out, and never look back.