Why are my arms so small......

[someday]

Alright i've decided that my arms are dispraportional to the rest of my upper body and they need to grow faster....Im currently on a three day split Chest/BI's, Back/Tri's, Legs/Shoulders.

My Bicep workout is
Straight bar curls, Curl bar curls, Incline Curls

Usually four to five sets of each for 10reps....

Tricep is
V-bar, straight bar, and rope pushdowns.

Again four to five sets of each for 10 reps...

I've been doing these exercises a while and think if i change em up i might spark some growth...PLEASE HELP ME....I NEED SCARY CANNONS, NOT PUNY PEASHOOTERS.

Also is there a way to compare to other body parts...i.e. calves to biceps some ratio to know if im near proportion etc...
Thanks in advance.

[RoNNy THe BuLL]

There's a rule of thumb that for every inch you want on your arms, you need to gain atleast 15lbs. So I would suggest eating and eating, and training hard and heavy and intense...then diet down slowly while trying to maintain the newly added mass on your arms for an illusion (smaller waist = bigger everything).

[KeyMastur]

How tall are you ? What do you weigh ?

Obviously if you're 6'2" & 165 lbs. don't expect to have cannons anytime soon.

[someday]

Sorry shoulda thrown that in there im 5'9" 200....No clue on BF but prolly 10ish prolly a little higher. Just measured and haven't lifted since yesterday arms came in at around 16.5.

[palme]

Do you only train your triceps in the cablecross? Start doing dips, SC´s and closegrip presses.
You could start your week with traning arms and then have a rest day before hitting any other bodypart.

[GetPsycho]

What limits the size of our arms?
The first limit to upper arm size is overall mass. The human body needs to stay in proportion or else it will get injured, it's as simple as that. If your bicep is much stronger than your back, your back will not be able to handle the same force as your arms can, this imbalance will likely result in a back injury. Although a small difference can be made by direct arm training, the largest difference will be made by simply eating more and training the large compound movements such as deadlifts, squats, dips, bench press, military press and the like. I've heard it said that every 10lbs of lean body mass will add 1" to your arms, I find that a little exaggerated but it's along the right lines.

The second limitation to arm size is the size of the synergists that work with the arms. In the case of the upper arms this could be said to be particularly the forearms and shoulders. Have you ever seen a guy with tiny shoulders that flow into massive upper arms? It's anatomically impossible. In the same way have you ever seen a guy with tiny stringy forearms that flow into massive 20" upper arms? No, nor have I. So the lesson here is, train your forearms and your shoulders hard if you want larger arms. For shoulders I would recommend military press as a primary exercise, and side laterals secondly. For forearms heavy deadlifts, grippers, wrist curls, reverse curls, farmers walk, anything that involves grip will build bigger upper arms.

Other Upper Arm Muscles
Whilst everyone is concentrating on the bicep and tricep the brachialis often gets forgotten. It is essential that the brachilias is trained in order to get a look of thickness to the arms. The brachialis lies between the tricep and bicep and its primary function is to help flex the elbow with the forearm pronated. It is best worked by hammer curls, hammer curls are an essential movement in every arm routine.

How to build your biceps
The biceps perform two roles, they flex the elbow and they supinate the forearm. A supinated forearm is one in which the palm is facing upwards, pronated the palm is facing downwards. To create the most bicep involvement the palm needs to be facing upwards throughout the curling motion. This is why barbell curls are the best all round bicep exercise, they force your hands to be supinated throughout the movement and also they allow you to handle the most weight. EZ curl bars are not ideal as they force your hands to be slightly pronated. Dumbell curls are another good mass builder as they allow you to concentrate on one arm at a time, they allow you to supinate/pronate the arm to the degree of your choice, and as an added bonus they require more torso/oblique stabilisation. Preacher curls have the bonus isolating the bicep, they don't allow you to swing or cheat the weight up. Any other exercise is just a variation of the above.

What would a good bicep routine look like?
As long as it includes barbell curls and hammer curls it's a good bicep routine. If you wish to include a third exercise it may be best to change it each week and keep barbell curls and hammer curls constant as your core exercises. In terms of volume I would perform between 4-8 sets, the biceps are a small muscle and easily overworked, don't forget that. Also they get worked heavily during all kinds of rows for the back, pulldowns and chins. So overtraining the biceps is a strong possibility.

How to build your triceps
The triceps make up something like 2/3 of upper arm mass, if you want bigger arms the triceps are the muscles to build. The triceps are a powerful muscle, they have a much higher percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres than the biceps. If you want to build them, you need to take advantage of this and use movements where you shift some serious weight. The best movements for direct tricep work is undoubtedly skullcrushers. Lay on a bench and bring the bar down to your face, not over the back of your head; if you bring it down to your face you stop the deltoids taking the strain and make the triceps work harder. Any other direct tricep movements such as pushdowns and kickbacks can and should be used to change things up, but not as a core exercise.

The triceps are involved heavily in nearly all chest movements, and it is these movements that will really add meat to your triceps. The two primary movements being narrow grip bench press, and parallel dips. Narrow grip bench press speaks for itself, the narrower you go the more the triceps do the work, but don't go so narrow that it severely affects the amount of weight you can push. Just narrower than shoulder width is fine. The second primary movement is dips on parallel bars. If you want to hit your triceps more than chest you need to be using the narrowest section of the bars, (assuming they do narrow) keeping your body upright, and have your elbows tucked close to your body.
If your routine has dips, narrow grip bench and skullcrushers in it you cannot fail to build good triceps. I find that three sets of each is plenty but volume is an individual thing.

Remember if you want bigger arms.. eat more.

[someday]

Thanks for all the help....cant wait to hit it tonight.

[hoss827]

I would say eat like no other, and yeah I've heard the rule you need to gain 15 pounds for each inch. My suggestion would be to do lower reps, but higher weight. Do the same routine and do around 4-6 reps of a higher weight instead of your usual 10-12 reps. You'll put on alotta bulk. Do that throughout fall and winter, and during spring and summer work on cutting up.

[madmanz]

i have been doing bis and tri on seperate days once a week, but they do get worked some one chest and back day as well, i have been doing 12 sets of bi and 14 tris do u think this is too much overtraining?

[saboudian]

i have been doing bis and tri on seperate days once a week, but they do get worked some one chest and back day as well, i have been doing 12 sets of bi and 14 tris do u think this is too much overtraining?

If every set is to failure, yes it will be overtraining.

[TheMudMan]

i have been doing bis and tri on seperate days once a week, but they do get worked some one chest and back day as well, i have been doing 12 sets of bi and 14 tris do u think this is too much overtraining?

IMO if you're going to failure or not you're doing too many sets for both body parts. I do 6 to 8 sets for bi's and 10 for tris.

[saboudian]

IMO if you're going to failure or not you're doing too many sets for both body parts. I do 6 to 8 sets for bi's and 10 for tris.

Are you saying its irrelevant whether or not one goes to failure in regards to overtraining and the volume he is using?

[hoss827]

Yeah man, if its to failure thats TOO many sets. I do 10 sets for biceps(6-8 reps, or 4-6 reps) and 12 sets for triceps, but I train them on different days. I train chest and triceps monday and biceps and back on tuesday.

[decadbal]

overtrainin is a myth, if your feel like yoru overtraining, your just not wantin it bad enough. do go below 6 reps, hit 6-9, barbell curls are bent bar curls are basically the same thing. and u should do bis with back and tris with chest, bc you pre-exhaust them already with your major bodypart. your not workin the double in the week. eat eat and more eating. good luck, and 16 isnt that small, most ppl dont have them like that. mine are 20 and thats just 4 inches bigger so dammit dont say yours are small, bc that impies mine arnt big..lol

[Bean666]

overtrainin is a myth, if your feel like yoru overtraining, your just not wantin it bad enough.

you sound like a nice guy man but this is a very incorrect statement...

i'm an ectomorph and its quite easy to overtrain depending on your genetics, it has nothing to do with wanting it bad enough... i've had to fight and claw my way up to 183lbs at 6'2 and only 14.5" arms... yeah i know; a lot of my weight in is in my legs... and my shoulders... big shoulders compared to the rest of me

i REALLY need some help on my arms... but overtraining is very real... i'm going to try out the barbell curls instead of jsut the EZ bar...
i havent done dips in a while; but i may throw them in with my skullcrushers

[Pure Power]

Someday, I would really suggest doing your arms on thier own day for a while.. or maybe doing arms and shoulders together. had alot of luck with that. If you can't make it to the gym i try a bunch of dips and under hand pull ups. Those really seamed to give me a bit of mass on my uperarm...now I'm waitign for my forearms to catch up!

[Pump_30]

Alright i've decided that my arms are dispraportional to the rest of my upper body and they need to grow faster....Im currently on a three day split Chest/BI's, Back/Tri's, Legs/Shoulders.

My Bicep workout is
Straight bar curls, Curl bar curls, Incline Curls

Usually four to five sets of each for 10reps....

Tricep is
V-bar, straight bar, and rope pushdowns.

Again four to five sets of each for 10 reps...

I've been doing these exercises a while and think if i change em up i might spark some growth...PLEASE HELP ME....I NEED SCARY CANNONS, NOT PUNY PEASHOOTERS.

Also is there a way to compare to other body parts...i.e. calves to biceps some ratio to know if im near proportion etc...
Thanks in advance.

Go heavy or go home.........You won't get big arms doing dumbbell curls with 25lbs.......eat like a monster and lift heavy.

[someday]

well i've switched up my stuff with 5 sets of 5. Was doing curls with 85pds. Upped it to 105's and am forcing myself to puch out the reps. Also added in hammer curls and usually do one other movement. I feel like thier starting to grow but haven't measured since i posted this....ill give it a couple more weeks and post an update.

[hoss827]

Overtraining isnt a myth man...If you work your biceps too hard, and wait your regular amount of time before you train them again, you wont be getting any better. You actually could be doing worse.

[LightWeightBaby]

Try switching your workouts for you arms every 4 weeks so your arms never get in the routine of just a couple exercises I found this to be the best way to get extra size on my arms