Packing muscle on a skinny frame is seriously tricky
But it’s certainly not impossible. Reddit user Adolfo Tex recently shared the arm workout tips and tricks he put in place to add five inches to his guns.
Tex is a fitness coach living in Warsaw, Poland. Like many gym goers, Tex struggled with being the stereotypical ‘skinny kid’, which made building muscle mass difficult.
However, he made it happen by incorporating the following tricks into his arm workout routine. He eventually added around five inches in total.
Train to failure
In a training sense, failure is when you can no longer lift a certain weight with proper technique. In other words, if you’re performing a bicep curl and you can’t lift it on the 11th rep, you’ve hit failure there.
Tex says this is vital for building bigger arms.
“Arm training is very forgiving because you don’t get pinned like you do on the squat if you go to failure – you literally just have to drop the weight.”
How many reps should you go for? Tex says you shouldn’t focus on a single number of reps.
He says: “Focus on rep ranges instead like 10-15. If you manage to make more than 15 reps, increase the weight. If you can’t make 10, decrease the weight a bit.”
Progressive overload is also key. This is where you gradually aim to increase the number of reps you perform, or the amount of weight you lift.
Hit all angles
It’s important to train all muscle groups through a variety of angles, with a range of exercises. This is particularly important when it comes to your arm workout.
In terms of triceps, there are a few things to bear in mind says Tex.
“It (tricep) is the biggest muscle of the arm (it takes up two thirds of your arm)!”
When picking tricep exercises there are also some key rules.
“Pick one compound lift (such as close grip bench press) for 5-7 reps. Then one exercise that places the long head of the tricep in its most stretched position (such as overhead cable extension) for 8-12 reps. Finally, select one exercise that puts the long head of the tricep in its most contracted position (such as reverse grip triceps extension) for 12-15 reps.”
For biceps, the rules are quite similar.
“Pick a compound lift (such as barbell curl) for 5-7 reps,” Tex says.
“Then, one exercise that puts most tension on the stretched position (such as incline machine curl) for 8-12 reps. Finally, pick one exercise that puts most tension on the bicep at the contracted position (such as spider curl) for 12-15 reps.”
