What Are The Best Arm Exercises?
When you’ve been a personal trainer in Austin for more than 20 years, and a gym owner for nearly a decade, you get a lot of questions. I always welcome them as I enjoy helping people get healthier and stronger. That’s why I chose this profession and enjoy it so much. One commonly asked question I have fielded many, many times, is what are the best arm exercises?
The best arm exercises, like anything in fitness, are going to depend on several things that are all individual. Your goals, your structure, your age, your imbalances, the length of your muscles, and so on. For the sake of this blog, as well as simplicity, let’s assume we’re talking to a 30 year old man who’s in relatively good shape, eats decently well, and is free of any major imbalances, such as overly tight levator scapulae, supraspinatus impingement, etc. Let’s also assume in our example that the trainee is looking to get bigger, stronger arms, as opposed to what a lot of women would ask for, which are slender, more toned arms.
The first thing any guy willing to flex for you will do when you ask him to flex his muscles, is to flex his bicep muscles. For whatever reason, across the globe, big, powerful looking arms are a sign of strength and manliness. Much more so than well developed sartorius muscles. With that said, the first thing I tell anybody wanting a bigger and more muscular arm, is to not forgot the triceps. The triceps actually comprise 2/3 of your arms natural mass and hold 3 muscles, hence the name tricep, as opposed to 2, hence the name bicep.
A perfectly developed tricep muscle when flexed, will resemble a horseshoe as there are 3 heads to it. It’s important, as with any muscle group, to make sure you hit all of the muscles within whichever group you’re targeting. The best arm exercises in this case will include some press downs, perhaps some overhead rope extensions, some dips, so long as the shoulders are in good order, as well as some kickbacks. This is by no means the extent of the possible exercises one could perform, but they demonstrate a few movements that will hit the 3 muscles of the triceps effectively.
The best arm exercises for the biceps are almost always similar to one another. There’s not much more than curling when it comes to activating the bicep muscles, so with that in mind, start with a warm up set of barbell curls. The biceps, as the name implies, is a 2 headed muscle so it’s important, as mentioned, to be sure to target both of them. You can accomplish that by altering your grip. If you are using a barbell, as opposed to dumbbells, you would use a more narrow grip if you wanted to accentuate the outer heads, and vice versa. If you want to work on the inner heads of the biceps, you would adopt a wider grip on the barbell. When doing curls, be it with barbells, dumbbells, or whatever you’re using, it’s important, as it is with triceps, to not swing and use momentum and not not shrug your shoulders. Either one of these deviations from the proper technique will simply minimize how many muscle fibers from the target muscles you’re able to use, and thus you get less out of the exercise. These deviations also serve to create or exacerbate imbalances, so it’s best to stay as strict as possible with your form. As for the actual best arm exercises, in this case, after the aforementioned warmup, I would suggest alternating between barbells and dumbbells, as well as alternating between a close and wide grip with the barbells. You can start with a few sets of barbell curls and then move on to a few sets of dumbbell curls. One way to spice it up is to change the grip in order to accentuate the different heads, as well as to help develop the forearms. This can be done by doing simultaneous dumbbell curls with your palms facing in front of you. Do this for 8 reps, for example. When you’ve completed the 8 reps, before resting, turn your palms towards your sides, and do 8 more hammer curls. Choose a weight that is manageable, as you’ll want to flex the muscle at the peak of the weighted contraction. That delivers a lot more bang for your buck, and is also a lot more challenging. Reverse grip barbell curls are a good some of the best arm exercises, since they incorporate the forearms, as do hammer curls, all the while hitting the biceps.
Whatever are the best arm exercises for you, will only be beneficial if you eat properly in order to fuel your workouts, and promote growth of the muscles. Whichever ones are the best arm exercises will be individual, and require a sustained effort. The best thing to do, is to experiment with different ones. See how they feel and see how your body reacts. Just remember to use your muscles and not momentum if you want to develop bigger, stronger muscles as opposed to a false ego.
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Andy
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