Find me a lifter who says they don’t want bigger arms and I’ll show you a liar.

There’s an untold boost of confidence and large swell of pride that comes with having an impressive pair of arms that stretch the limits of your shirt sleeves.

But, it takes a hefty dose of grit, hard work, and patience to get on that level.

Building an impressive set of arms – or any body part – requires you to step outside of the box and go against what many might tell you.

I mean, chances are you’re reading this because you want to take your physique a few steps beyond average.

And, to do so requires a far from average training approach.

The route I see so many lifters follow on their quest for larger arms, however, is far from optimal, and often causes more frustration and angst than the literal act of having to go out and buy new shirts.

Many lifters tend to gravitate towards training their arms once or twice per week. Said arm work often happens in conjunction with chest, back or shoulders and is relegated to a few token sets, tacked onto the end of their session. Or they’ll spend 90 minutes every Friday night trying to get as large a pump as possible before heading out for the night.

While neither are necessarily ineffective, neither are they what I would consider an optimal approach for rapid arm growth.

When it comes to aggressively targeting a singular muscle or focusing on one or two areas to add some extra size, there is a singular training paradigm that’s overlooked all too often.

The magical, all-powerful training technique that’s all but guaranteed to add more width, depth, and strength to your arms?

The key to blowing up your arms that so many lifters overlook?

The “one weird trick” that I’ve found to work incredibly well for improving arm size and strength?

Jacking up your training frequency.

Otherwise known as how many times per week you expose your arms to a training stimulus.

In most cases, training your arms one to two times per week will build a “decent” set of arms. However, we aren’t here to settle for merely decent, are we? There’s simply not enough growth stimulus from 1-2 sessions per week to build a pair of standout, eye-catching arms.

The train of thought that you can use the same approach to take your arms from puny to average will be as effective in taking them from average to spectacular is plain wrong. It’s the same line of thinking that training your chest & back generates enough stimulation indirectly to cause noticeable arm growth.

Spare me.

Look at it this way: if you’re effectively training your chest and back, the last thing you should be thinking about is how you’re also training your arms at the same time. Pick your goal for the session at hand, and be specific in how you attack that goal.

Try this trick on for arm size.

Take your one or two bouts of arm training per week, and double that number.

It may sound crazy, dangerous and surely must mean you’ll overtrain. But training your arms three to four times per week will lead to rapid arm growth.

Really, how can it not?

The proof is in the pudding.

A few years back, a client of mine wanted nothing more than to blow up his arms as fast as possible. After some careful planning, we decided to take a mildly ludicrous approach to his arm training. Fuelled by a frustration for having arms that disappeared from the front on and biceps grossly overpowered by his triceps in terms of strength, it was time to dig deep and do everything possible to blow up his arms.

Here’s the approach we used:

• Arms were trained 3-4 times per week.
• He always trained them 3 times per week and rotated in the 4th session every other week.
• Day one was obscenely high volume (50-65 sets) and biceps focused.
• Day two was obscenely high volume (50-65 sets) and triceps focused.
• Day three was obscenely high volume (50-65 sets) with equal focus across biceps and triceps (this was the day that rotated in and out from week to week)
• Day four was low volume (in comparison, 20-30 sets) but the intensity was sky high.
• He followed this plan week in, and week out for 3 months – Oh look. It’s that consistency thing again.

Lo and behold, his arms grew rapidly.

Shocking, right? I mean with specialization and intensity of that nature, I’d have been shocked if they didn’t grow.

A word of warning: This is an extreme approach to arm training. But such is the nature of a true specialization phase. If you look at it, it’s why spending time in a specialization phase for a weak and/or small body part is so effective. However, this means that you’ll need a lower daily training volume and a higher dose of weekly volume. Meaning, you can’t just dive into a challenge such as this. You’ll want to spend a bit of time formulating a targeted plan for your upcoming arm attack.

With that all being said, some questions have been raised.

1. What does one of these obscenely high volume arm sessions look like?

2. What was the exercise selection based off of?

3. What rep ranges were used?

4. Was a particular training method deployed?

5. If I’m training arms 3-4 times per week, what about the rest of my physique?

Fear not, my aesthetic friend. Keep reading – I’ve got your back with the arm sessions down below.

1. What does one such obscenely high volume session look like?

Let’s take this a step further with a real-world example.

Below is one session each from the training log of my formerly small-armed client. There’s one sample of each high volume biceps, high volume triceps, as well as one of the high-intensity sessions.

In case you were going through this thinking “it can’t be that bad.” I suspect you’re in for skin-splitting surprise.

Biceps Focused Session.

A1. Cross Body Hammer Curls 4×8-10
A2. Prone Pressdown 4×15
A3. Supine Pressdown 4×15

B1. Standing, Reverse Grip EZ Bar Curl 4×8-10
B2. Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl 4×6-8
B3. Kneeling Rope Pressdown 4×10

C1. Supinated Dumbbell Curl 5×6-8
C2. Standing Cable Curl 5×8-12
C3. Incline Dumbbell Curl 5×8-10

D1. Rope Pressdowns 5×10-12
D2. Triceps Dips 6,6,8,8,10
D3. Decline EZ Bar Skullkrushers 12,10,8,6,4

E1. Spider Curls 15,10
E2. Triceps Push-ups 2x Max Reps

Triceps Focused Session.

A1. Cross Body Hammer Curl 10,10,8,8
A2. Prone Pressdown 15,15,8,8
A3. Supine Straight Bar Pressdown 15,15,8,8

B1. Standing Reverse Grip EZ Bar Curl 4×8-10
B2. Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl 4×6-8
B3. Rope Pressdown 4×10

C1. Seated Supinated Dumbbell Curls 5×6-8
C2. Standing EZ Bar Curls 5×8-12
C3. Seated Cable Curls 5×8-10
C4. Incline Dumbbell Curls 5×8-10

D1. Rope Pressdown 5×10-12
D2. Dips 6,6,8,8,10
D3. Tate Presses 8,8,8,6,6
D4. Incline EZ Bar Extensions 12,10,8,6,4

E1. Machine Curls 2×15
E2. Dual Rope Pressdowns 2×15

High-Intensity Session.

Before diving in, do a few sets each of hammer curls and pressdowns to warm up your joints, and bring blood into your arms.

A1. Incline Alternating Dumbbell Curl 4×12-15, 45-60s rest

And then...

1×15, 1×12, 1×12 8 standing hammer curls, 1×12 10 second isometric at the midpoint of the rep.

Between each set I did a hard double biceps flex, pushing my hands behind my head. Hold for 10 seconds.

B1. Machine Spider Curl or EZ Bar Spider Curl 5×20, 50-70s rest

Make these pumping reps, but flex hard in each contraction. The last set has a 10-second isometric hold in the peak concentric after the last rep.

After each set immediately go into a biceps stretch (arms behind you, holding onto a barbell for 30 seconds. Then rest 30 seconds before your next set.

C1. Flat Bar Pressdown 20, 30, 30, 30, 30 10 second isometric, 30 15 second isometric hold, 40-60s rest

D1. Cable EZ Bar Lying Triceps Extension Perform these on a slight incline. 3×8, 1x Max Reps, 60 seconds rest

2. What was your exercise selection based off of?

As the sessions above speak to, we kept exercise choice simple and traditional.

The reasoning for doing so is thus: With so much volume, we anticipated that there would be a lot joint stress as the week went on. Wanting to minimize unnecessary joint wear and tear, I limited the exercise selection to ones which I knew would be executed with perfect form, no matter how tired and sore he got as the sessions went by.

3. What rep ranges did you train in?

This training phase was all about hypertrophy. Meaning that we didn’t stray far from the traditional hypertrophy rep ranges. Like the sessions above show, the reps began in the high end of relative strength work (6 reps), moved into traditional hypertrophy work (8-15 reps), and occasionally dug into obscenely high rep work.

The only exception is the high-intensity session. On that day the rep ranges don’t dip below 12 and stretch from 15-30 reps.

4. Did you use a particular training method?

If I had to label labels and name names, the two methods that I based this phase off  would be specialization and intensification techniques.

In wanting to see just how much size we could add to his arms, a specialization phase was the only feasible approach.

The high-intensity arm day was included for a few reasons.

1. We knew that by the end of the week there wouldn’t be a chance in hell that going through another 60 sets of arm work would be a good idea or make for a productive session.

2. The intensification methods used here will drive liters more of blood into your arms. Not only will you get wicked arm pump, but if you’re sipping on an intra-workout shake while you train, you'll take advantage of being able to deliver fresh blood and nutrients to your already annihilated arms. Not only does this support growth and energy levels while training, but it will also aid your ability to recover.

3. For as effective as using a higher training volume is at triggering hypertrophy, adding in some high rep, high-intensity work is the icing on this arm specialization cake for unlocking massive, sleeve-tearing gains.

5. If I’m training arms 3-4 times per week, what about the rest of my physique?

Let us not beat around the bush here; the goal of this program and training split is solely about building a set of thick, impressive arms.

Remember: Being that this phase is all about arm hypertrophy, the rest of your body must go into maintenance mode.

Check out the split:

Monday: High Volume Arms – Biceps Focus
Tuesday: Chest, Back & Delts
Wednesday: High Volume Arms – Triceps Focus
Thursday: Legs
Friday: High Volume Arms or Chest, Back & Delts. Alternate which session you use from week to week.
Saturday: OFF
Sunday: Low Volume, High Intensity Arms

This article was originally published here on alexandermullan.com

About The Author

Alex is a national-level bodybuilder, glorious wordsmith, and anti-meathead.

When he's not training legs, Alex can be found practicing how to write more better, perfect his risotto recipe, or exploring his love for coffee.

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