am i doing too much?
- Thread starter just_josh
- Start date
what are "powerlifts"
What are you doing for pulling exercises? I see pushups, curls, flyes, crunches, and then worthless exercises like leg press and leg curl. No rows, deadlifts, RDL's. Also, not enough free weight motions. Stay off machines. Replace leg press with squats, leg curls with RDLs or glute ham raise. Want your arms to grow? Quit doing curls and focus on your big lifts: Bench press, chin-ups, low rows, military press. They'll grow, I promise.
Your current routine has absolutely NO balance to it.
What are you doing for pulling exercises? I see pushups, curls, flyes, crunches, and then worthless exercises like leg press and leg curl. No rows, deadlifts, RDL's. Also, not enough free weight motions. Stay off machines. Replace leg press with squats, leg curls with RDLs or glute ham raise. Want your arms to grow? Quit doing curls and focus on your big lifts: Bench press, chin-ups, low rows, military press. They'll grow, I promise.
Your current routine has absolutely NO balance to it.
You know, you read a lot of that in certain magazines and such...dont do direct arm work and you'll get big biceps somehow. Well, as a veteran of every gym in the area with friends who play in the NFL, and friends with 21 inch arms let me tell you what they all have in common- they ALL do direct arm work. No, 15lbs for 50 reps or 5000 reps isn't going to do anything for you at all except take your mind off scratching your ass for a minute. High rep stuff is fun some times, I used to do 100 rep bench presses when I was young and stupid- once upon a time it was the new NEW way to get big. In any case, push ups are good, they pump me up more than any bench press ever did but only when i bench does my chest get really strong. I dont think I could have benched 225 lbs for 20 reps by doing push ups. Oh, yeah, I was 195lbs when i did that.
Curl- barbell, dumbbell, whatever you want, but do it. if you're like the majority of us you can't do more than 5 or so chin ups before you are toast. Until your arms are strong enough you wont be able to do many- you're pulling up your damn body weight with your arms, what do you expect? Rows? yeah rows are good for your lats, especially dumbbells I've noticed..and when you row, think of the name of the exercise - ROW! think of an oar on a boat, you dont just pull it straight into your gut, you pull at like a 45 degree angle the whole time from floor to gut. Straight up and down and you will be using mostly rear delts and arms and see little back development- pulleys are especially good for back. Military press is going to do exactly nothing for your biceps so don't do them in hopes of getting big arms...do them if you want big shoulders. That's like advocating sqatting 3 times a week with no other lifts and claiming you'll get big arms- aint gonna happen.
Want big arms, DO ARMS...cut out the 250 crunches they arent worth a damn. Replace those with 4 sets of 25 straight leg sit ups and then you're doing something.
So in short, you're doing too much and much too little all at once.
Curl- barbell, dumbbell, whatever you want, but do it. if you're like the majority of us you can't do more than 5 or so chin ups before you are toast. Until your arms are strong enough you wont be able to do many- you're pulling up your damn body weight with your arms, what do you expect? Rows? yeah rows are good for your lats, especially dumbbells I've noticed..and when you row, think of the name of the exercise - ROW! think of an oar on a boat, you dont just pull it straight into your gut, you pull at like a 45 degree angle the whole time from floor to gut. Straight up and down and you will be using mostly rear delts and arms and see little back development- pulleys are especially good for back. Military press is going to do exactly nothing for your biceps so don't do them in hopes of getting big arms...do them if you want big shoulders. That's like advocating sqatting 3 times a week with no other lifts and claiming you'll get big arms- aint gonna happen.
Want big arms, DO ARMS...cut out the 250 crunches they arent worth a damn. Replace those with 4 sets of 25 straight leg sit ups and then you're doing something.
So in short, you're doing too much and much too little all at once.
Last edited:
The idea behind the big lifts giving you big arms is the increased testosterone released from doing the big lifts. You also use your arms (either tris or bis) in almost any upper body movement. I'd still directly work the arms if having big arms is a goal of yours, but it should be after compound movements... not instead of them.
you need more push-ups....
Thanks Muck. That is exactly what I'm driving at. I do still work my clients' arms from time to time. Usually after the major lifts are over. Not on everyone though. Not even myself.
If you want your arms to be out of proportionally large then you may do some of those isolated movements. It really depends - I guess - on what kind of body you want to develop. If you favor the ripped, balanced physiques of the typical Men's Health model, follow my recommendations. If you want to look like a Muscle and Fitness model, focus on your extremities and get on some gear, and hope that your genetics were blessed enough to not get serious injuries from the muscular imbalances you are creating in your body.
If you force your body to constantly work in isolated movements, it will possibly "forget" how to work in harmony with the rest of your body (As Lou Schuler says in his latest book). How often do you see a professional bodybuilder shifting over to a professional level sport like football, baseball, basketball? I don't think I ever have. That's because their body is all show and no go. Don't get me wrong, they are strong in specific lifts, but you won't see any of these guys entering the olympics as gymnasts, sprinters, even shot-puters. Train as an athlete and form will follow right on the heals of function. You will have an agile, flexible, injury-free body that looks like a greek god, not a charicature of something that vaguely resembles a human (thinking Coleman here).
In real (3 dimensional) life, our bodies are designed to do only 6 basic motions: Squat, dead lift, lunge, push, pull, and twist. If you train your body with these 6 basic components every part of your body will grow (including your arms) in PROPORTION to the rest of your body. If you arms seem lagging right now, look at your program and see where you are not following these basic guidelines. If they are the weak link in then chain of muscles needed to complete a complex compound motion, they will receive adequate stress to force them to adapt by growing.
Those pro football players who have massive arms are in great shape often in spite of themselves. In other words, genetics play a huge role. Tell me one single movement that they do that requires them to have big biceps? Just because some of them do nothing but arm isolation and are great athletes does not make them fitness experts. Not even close!
When it comes to the mistakes I have made in my early days of training (having come up through the old bodybuilding gyms in the 80's), I screwed my body up pretty bad from training like a bodybuilder. I wish I had even heard the advice I am giving you now so I might have possibly side-stepped all those shoulder surgeries and back problems I have dealt with over the years. It took me a few years to unlearn those old 80's paradigms, which is the mainstay even today of the "Weider Principle", and surprisingly is still practiced in gyms around the country. While you are still so young, try to be patient and pull back and take a look at your long term goals, then develop a program that will help you get there without hurting yourself. Don't just run out and start lifting heavy things all willy-nilly or you will wind up injured.
If you want your arms to be out of proportionally large then you may do some of those isolated movements. It really depends - I guess - on what kind of body you want to develop. If you favor the ripped, balanced physiques of the typical Men's Health model, follow my recommendations. If you want to look like a Muscle and Fitness model, focus on your extremities and get on some gear, and hope that your genetics were blessed enough to not get serious injuries from the muscular imbalances you are creating in your body.
If you force your body to constantly work in isolated movements, it will possibly "forget" how to work in harmony with the rest of your body (As Lou Schuler says in his latest book). How often do you see a professional bodybuilder shifting over to a professional level sport like football, baseball, basketball? I don't think I ever have. That's because their body is all show and no go. Don't get me wrong, they are strong in specific lifts, but you won't see any of these guys entering the olympics as gymnasts, sprinters, even shot-puters. Train as an athlete and form will follow right on the heals of function. You will have an agile, flexible, injury-free body that looks like a greek god, not a charicature of something that vaguely resembles a human (thinking Coleman here).
In real (3 dimensional) life, our bodies are designed to do only 6 basic motions: Squat, dead lift, lunge, push, pull, and twist. If you train your body with these 6 basic components every part of your body will grow (including your arms) in PROPORTION to the rest of your body. If you arms seem lagging right now, look at your program and see where you are not following these basic guidelines. If they are the weak link in then chain of muscles needed to complete a complex compound motion, they will receive adequate stress to force them to adapt by growing.
Those pro football players who have massive arms are in great shape often in spite of themselves. In other words, genetics play a huge role. Tell me one single movement that they do that requires them to have big biceps? Just because some of them do nothing but arm isolation and are great athletes does not make them fitness experts. Not even close!
When it comes to the mistakes I have made in my early days of training (having come up through the old bodybuilding gyms in the 80's), I screwed my body up pretty bad from training like a bodybuilder. I wish I had even heard the advice I am giving you now so I might have possibly side-stepped all those shoulder surgeries and back problems I have dealt with over the years. It took me a few years to unlearn those old 80's paradigms, which is the mainstay even today of the "Weider Principle", and surprisingly is still practiced in gyms around the country. While you are still so young, try to be patient and pull back and take a look at your long term goals, then develop a program that will help you get there without hurting yourself. Don't just run out and start lifting heavy things all willy-nilly or you will wind up injured.
very simple: train the body, not parts of the body.
mark rippetoe has been putting 30lbs or more on guys for years with only 5 exercises (squat, dead, bench, overhead and cleans). chad waterbury, mike mahler, glenn pendlay, etc all stress the same thing. bill starr referred to working arms as "beach work".
mark rippetoe has been putting 30lbs or more on guys for years with only 5 exercises (squat, dead, bench, overhead and cleans). chad waterbury, mike mahler, glenn pendlay, etc all stress the same thing. bill starr referred to working arms as "beach work".