Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2100: Big Arms Masterclass

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover what it takes to build impressive arms. The reasons why training arms is so popular. (1:47) The muscles of the arms, pivotal moments training them, and the best exercises you can do to sculpt and shape them.  #1 – Biceps. (5:59) Compound lift: Chin up (Supinated grip). Best exercises: Preacher curls, standing curls, and incline curls. #2 – Triceps. (17:05) Best exercises: Press down, skull crusher, and overhead extension. Compound lift: Dips, close grip press. #3 – Forearms. (26:49) Best exercises: Wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, and farmer walks. Order of operations, sets, and reps. (28:56) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a limited time only, Mind Pump listeners get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump June Promotion: MAPS Cardio or Summer Shredded Bundle or the Bikini Bundle 50% off! **Code JUNE50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1950: Shoulder Building Masterclass Build Your Biceps with Angles – Mind Pump TV Get BIG Biceps By Doing Chin-Ups! (SECRET WEAPON) - YouTube Preacher Curls Are What Your Bicep Workouts Have Been Missing! The ONLY Way You Should Be Doing Dumbbell Bicep Curls! How To Do Hammer Curls for HUGE Biceps (BICEP GROWTH!) Build Your Triceps with Angles – Mind Pump TV Do Cable Tricep Pushdowns Like THIS (RIGHT WAY!) How to Do SKULLCRUSHERS with Dumbbells for BIG Triceps (ADVANCED) Tricep Extension Dumbbell One Arm Workout | MIND PUMP How To Do Chest Dips For A BIG Chest! The ONLY Forearm Workout That Matters (TRY THIS!!) | MIND PUMP 5 Exercises For HUGE Forearms & A STRONGER Grip Add Size to Your Traps with Farmer Walks Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. Ooh, today's episode is all about the arms. This is the arms masterclass. We talk about training, the biceps, the triceps,

and even the forearms, how they work, best exercises, things to focus on, things to ignore. If you wanna develop amazing arms, this is the episode for you. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Element. This is the best electrolyte powder you'll find,

anywhere it's all natural, no calories, no artificial sweeteners, and it has the right amount of sodium for performance and pumps during your workout. Anyway, go to our link and get yourself a free sample pack with any order. Go to drinklmt.com forward slash mind pump. Also, we're running a sale right now

on some workout programs. Maps cardio is 50% off. The shredded somber bundle of programs is 50% off, and the bikini bundle of programs is 50% off, and the bikini bundle of programs is 50% off. If you're interested in any of those, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and then use the code June 50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. All right, let's talk about arms.

This is probably one of the most prized body parts, biceps, triceps, four arms, they're often exposed. This is why people like to develop them. Men and women. So in today's episode, we're gonna talk all about the muscles of the arms and the best exercises you can do to sculpt and shape amazing arms. This is my favorite subject. Yeah, it's my favorite.

This is the killing it. The first body part of your train, I think. Okay, so when you guys were younger, was this the main one? Were you, I mean, you were big in a bench press, you know, I tried to do the arms, yeah. I mean, that was probably my first, like I really liked the training arms.

It was just like it gravitated to me. And then chest, of course. I'm guilty of like, most kids, only arms for like two or three years. How long? Yeah, because I was terrible at bench. So even my buddy that tried and definitely didn't do legs I'm guilty of like most kids only arms for like two or three years Yeah, because I was terrible at bench So even my buddy that tried and definitely didn't do legs as a kid. I mean, that was like crazy Yeah, you know, I don't want to screw up my basketball skills What I'm the excuse was I use back to this kid didn't want to do legs for sure and so it was arms arms was all all I trained

And you know when they try to get me to bench press, my form was so terrible. I've told you guys before too, like three guys. One guy would paint my shoulders down. The other two guys would spot the bar. And it was like, and then I was like 135 pounds, just terrible. So yeah, all arms, all arms, like all the time. And when I got into being a personal trainer,

I had trained them so frequently, so often, for all my early years, at teenage years, that they became really stubborn. Like, I could just, you couldn't hammer my arms and I wouldn't get sore. I mean, I had thrown something. Yeah, throwing something at them. No, I mean, I always train kind of everything

throughout the gates, because I ran out of the gates, I bought books and followed routines, and there's that story when I made the smart way. I did the smart way. Tap a deal. Just scrolling books. But I mean there's a reason why arms are so popular. It's because it's a proxy for a strong physique, meaning you know for the most part if

anything's exposed unless you're at the beach or something like that, right? If anything's exposed, it's usually your arms. And if you have muscular fit looking arms, it typically tells the person that the rest of you is fit. That's what it means by proxy. So it's no wonder why it's such a popular body part to train. There was a time when women didn't wanna train arms, but then they became popular for women as well

because they'd realize like, well, I'm not gonna get big arms, I'm gonna get nice sculpted looking arms. And women's arms are shown as often get nice sculpted looking arms. Yeah. And women's arms are shown as often, if not more often than men's. So, now what's funny is this is so many myths that surround arm training.

That this will be fun, this will be a fun thing to talk about in terms of like, what are the best exercises or the best, even more importantly, what are the best combination of exercise to develop, you know, to get well developed arms. So this will be a good one. But we're gonna talk about like the basic,

because there's more muscles than the ones we're gonna highlight today. There's lots of small muscles that are in there and stuff like that. Right, we're gonna cover the shoulders. We're just sticking with the shoulder. Buys and try. Yeah, we're gonna hold shoulder masterclass already,

don't we? Yes, yeah, we did a whole shoulder. And I definitely think that, you know, refer to that episode because I do think that when in pursuit of like aesthetic looking arms, like you want my shoulders. Yeah, that makes as much of a difference if not more. In fact, I think I have smaller arms today than I did in my early 20s, but I have better looking arms because my shoulders are more proportionate to my shoulder, so that makes a big difference. Now arms feel awesome to train, that's true.

That's for sure. So it's a really nice feeling. It typically not hard to connect to the muscles of the arms, which is kind of cool, mainly because we still use our hands and arms. We haven't reached the point yet, where we're completely machine or whatever, a computer. So I can almost always get someone to feel their biceps,

feel their triceps, and feel their forms if I want them to. So this isn't really an area where typically it's like, ooh, we gotta figure out a way to get you to do that. There's not really a loss of connection. Right, right. So there is sometimes with tricep though. Tricep sometimes can be more difficult for some clients to feel.

And I don't want to mess up the flow of your episode right here, but I am curious, like, do you guys remember, like, of all the things that we learned, and what we're probably gonna talk about in this episode as far as exercise selection and lifts, and sets and reps, and all these different things? Do you remember, like, what were, like, some of the most pivotal things that, like,

or aha moments when training arms were? I know, there's a big one for me that was, like, made a huge difference. I think it was probably the same thing for me. It was the elbow position. Yes. Yeah, that was a big one. That was just I didn't I didn't understand that. Like I didn't understand how you were manipulating the strength curve and you know with the stretch position versus you know. I didn't learn that until I learned like biomechanical later on. Let's talk about that first right. Let's let's talk about the biceps, right? They attach, you know, here underneath the elbow, and then right at the shoulder or a bit higher, there's two heads

of the bicep. So because the attachments way up here near the shoulder, I can make my bicep shorter simply by lifting my elbow, and I can make your bicep longer by putting my elbow behind my body, because it'll automatically lengthen or shorten by the position of my elbow. So that's what we might, by elbow position. I could do exercises where my biceps shortened. I could do elbow position, exercises where my bicep is lengthened. And then I can change the resistance so that it's hardest when I'm squeezing or it's hardest when it's stretched or extended.

And those are the factors to consider when you're training biceps along with, this is different for biceps, but for biceps, hand position also matters. It's, if you, if you were to look at your bicep right now, if you were kind of partially flex your arm, take your palm facing up and then have your palm facing down, and then facing up, you'll notice your bicep, shortens and lengthens.

One of the actions of the bicep is also to rotate the hand. Pro-nate and suit it. So that also is something you want to consider when you contribute to it. You know, bicep exercise. Yeah, one of the things I was thinking of when I was just young and just starting out and like, especially doing curls was, I was doing like a preacher curl and then was like, my range of motion was tiny. Yeah.

I would just come down and then bring it back up and like get a squeeze and I thought I was doing something and then like, I remember, yeah, a bodybuilder somebody came over and was like, yeah, you wanna go all the way and I was like, I had to drop like a ton of weight. Like it was very humbling, but then I was like, oh wow, okay, I have to go all the way down and so I applied that again to the elbow position on all the other exercises, but that was like a huge thing.

If I was just doing short reps all the time, three things for me, three things that were very huge moments in my arm training for that range of motion, elbow positioning, and compound lifts for that. Because it was popular when I first started learning, I called to do all these isolation exercises. Well, almost every bicep exercises, isolation. Yeah. And the ones exercises. Well, almost every bicep exercises isolation. Yeah. So there's, and the ones that are compound are not called bicep exercises.

Right. So it's like a sneaky way for your biceps to build and nobody would label it as that. And so I totally ignored that in my bicep and tricep training. I ignored the compound lifts that didn't fall under that category because they were either a bench press or a pull-up or these movements that were for your back or your chest.

And so you're like, oh, this isn't for my triceps. And also, I was still in that trap when I was a kid of thinking that just because I felt it, the most in an exercise that it must be building that muscle and that's a fallacy. Like there's exercises sometimes, and we know this when we talk about things like legs, like a leg extension, you're going to feel your quads more than your fire.

Yeah, they're going to be on fire compared to a squat, but they're going to come close to building your legs like a squat wheel. And it's like, we knew that, that's obvious, but for some reason, that same principle people, it's not obvious to them when it comes to their biceps and their triceps, but it's still true. The craziest mass builder you'll ever do, a just overall development of your bicep is gonna be a supernated grip chin up or pull up.

Chin up. Yes. This is a compound lift for the bicep, okay? Just like we do compound lifts for the chest, the back, the legs, and we know that those are the best. For the bicep suit. Now, I do wanna say this,, the techniques a little different. Okay. If I do a supinated grip pull up, I'm leading with my chest and I'm squeezing back. I'm trying to get my back activated. If I'm doing it for my biceps, I'm rolling forward and I'm pulling with my arms. Same thing with a pull down. I'm doing what would look like. Try to bring your knuckles towards your chest. Yes. I would look like what I'm doing is bad form.

So if someone saw me do a bicep pull down like this, you might be like, oh, he does it. That's a crappy looking pull down. No, no, I am emphasizing the bicep on the way down versus the back with my chest out. But try those, first off, a chin up this way. Most people aren't strong enough to do it this way. So you'd have to do a pull down, but grab the bar

and curl it down with this kind of rolled forward position and squeeze the biceps of the bottom You have now done a compound lift for your biceps and they did feel the difference when you do they build Oh, yeah, and I've done chin-ups like this where I'm only doing three or four reps and the biceps just I did that Super sat with it. Oh, man. I destroyed my so you've talked before about how like certain Muscle or how low reps only lend themselves to certain muscle groups. This is the exception for like, and we've talked about like, you know,

three rep range doesn't do much, isn't a typical way you would lift biceps. The only way I would is if I was doing a pull up. I wanna do three reps for curls. Yeah, no. It's just too nice. So isolation exercise three times. And your form's gonna be off and yeah. Yeah, 100%. Kicking the shoulders and everything three times. And your form is going to be off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kicking the shoulders and everything else to get it up. So we talked about elbow position. So the three basic elbow positions you want your bicep exercises to fall under would be elbows in front of your body, elbows next to your body, and then elbows behind your body. So here's three exercises that fit that category, which is great. Now, why why all those? Because elbows and front shortens the biceps to the sides, it's kind of neutral, you know, kind of in the middle. Behind the body, there's a stretch when you do a full extension. So the best exercises or some of the best exercises like this are preacher curls, elbows in front of my body, standing curls, barbell or dumbbell, by my body, and then incline curls where I'm sitting

back on an incline, my elbows are behind my body, and then incline curls, where I'm sitting back on and incline my elbows or behind my body. This is the same. Those three exercises right there hits all three elbow positions. And then there's a muscle that we should probably talk about that if you want well-developed biceps, you also need to work on, which is the brachialis.

Yes, for hammers. Yeah, and this is a flat muscle underneath the bicep. And when it develops, it really gives you this nice full look to your arm. This muscle flexes the elbow and it's most activated with a what's called a neutral grip. A hammer curl. A hammer curl will develop the brachialis pretty damn well.

I mean, that kind of covers it. Well, so okay, now talk about programming that and how I do this. So if I back when I was doing like body parts splits and arms would be like an arm day, I'm actually gonna do an exercise that hits each one of those in the workout. If I'm falling more of a MAP Santa Ballacroutine

where I'm doing one, where I'm doing, yeah, one exercise, I do one on Monday, a different one on Wednesday, a different one on Friday for the week, so that in the week I get all three elbow positions. So that's how I would program that. Is I wanna in a week's time, I wanna make sure I get all three elbow positions. So that's how I would program that. Is I want to in a week's time I want to make sure I hit all three elbow positions whether I'm doing all that arm workout in one or two workouts or I'm spreading it over three or four workouts.

I want to make sure within the week I'm hitting all three major elbow positions and then I'm going to stay with those exercises for an extended period of time in order to get good at them. Right. So I want to stick with those like three movements that you're saying for at least, you know, four, six, eight weeks. And then I'm going to change the exercises up too. So then I'm going to switch up, right? But still follow the elbow position. Now I'm going to be like, well, what's the difference?

Elbows in front of you, preacher curl versus another elbows in front of you exercise. Well, here's now where it gets interesting. A preacher curl, especially a free weight preacher curl, most of the resistance is at the bottom because that's where gravity's fighting the most. Here at the top, there's not much resistance because now my forearm is perpendicular

to the weight into gravity. Well, if I do a concentration curl where I'm leaning over, my elbow's still in front of my body, but now the hardest part of the rep is the squeeze. I'm doing elbow in front of my position exercise, but the squeeze is the hardest, not the extension. So I would switch out preacher curls for something like a concentration curl

because it's the squeeze now, that's the emphasis. Well, yeah, you're talking about triceps and you're talking about skull crusher being the top position right here, right? And then you're talking like say you're doing like a tricep extension for neutral. I mean, obviously that's probably not the best one, but then and then dips. Yeah, we're gonna get there. Absolutely. Yeah, but with that with back to your point with the biceps like so another thing to manipulate your point. So you could also do a preacher curl with dumbbells for that for four weeks. And then I go over to a preacher curl with dumbbells for that for four weeks.

And then I go over to a preacher curl in a machine. And now the scene is different because the tension is still all the way at all the way it's hot. So people have to understand that like you can do dumbbell curls on the, which I love to do on a, or a camber curl bar on a preacher bench. And and it's still, it's now a different exercise when I say preacher bench, but now I'm on a machine, right? Or so now it's got the cable, right? same preacher bench, but now I'm on a machine. Right?

Or now it's got the cable, right? So that's attached to it or whatever, because of the way the tension is on it. So that is a way of taking a movement that is the same, but then changing it because you are changing the tension on it throughout the straight curve. By the way, if you use a bicep machine,

you can figure this out by looking at the pulley and the shape of the pulley and you'll notice that it won't be perfectly circular, it'll be maybe oval shaped, it'll be kind of odd shaped, and you can tell when the resistance is going to get harder. So some machines on a preacher curl, even though it says 50 pounds on the stack, it's actually 30 at the bottom, 50 at the top. Now, you might not be able to know this by looking at it if you're not experienced. Go try it. Go try the exercise, notice the most difficult part of the rep, and then the top. Now, you might not be able to know this by looking at it if you're not experienced. Go try it.

Go try the exercise. Notice the most difficult part of the rep. And then the next time you do a similar exercise, find one where the hardest part of the rep is in a different position. By the way, bands are a great way to do this. I used to do this at home when I was a kid. This is before I knew anything about bands.

All I knew was, wow, this preacher curls easy up here. So I attached a band around the bar and I attached around a pole and I knew that the band would make it harder at the top and he's the blow my friends away when I never tried that out. I was always surprised why those machines didn't get, I don't know, more talk like as far as,

they've got more. They've got to change their positions. Yeah, that's the other reason. It's complicated. You think so? That's why, because people don't know to change that pin that's the other reason. It's complicated. You think so? That's why, because people don't know to change that pin, that changes the pulley position. So at the, you're American Barbell,

which was gold when you worked there, they still have some of those. I love those, and you can change. And so there's these machines, if you've ever seen them, so that you can educate the audience that doesn't know what this is. Some gems will have like the preacher-curl machine, and then on the right, normally right on the side,

where the wheel is or whatever, there'll be a handle that you pull out and it normally has numbers one, two, or three. And what you're doing is you're changing the heaviest part of the weight to be either in the stretch position at the middle position. You're right on the top of the end, yeah. At the top, which is a cool way to manipulate and exercise that is in the same plane is virtually the same thing. But now because you manipulate that, it's like it's novel to the muscle because it's not used to the load hitting you like that. That's right.

But if you just pick an exercise from elbows in front, elbows aside, elbows in back, you're 90-something percent of the way there throwing some chin-ups where your bicep emphasize, you know, squeeze. Now you're doing a calm down lift. Now, how often do you do reverse curls? Because I know, for me, if I go back to them, it's always like, I always do too much weight because it's a very different reverse curls.

You can better hammers. That's, I'm, I'm, I normally bounce between them. So hammer curl more breaky Alice, reverse curl, the weakling tends to be the breaky or radialis, which is the top of the forearm, which we're good to. Because we're gonna get to the forearms and just a sec. Okay, man, I'm jumping ahead of the place. So next, next, let's talk about triceps.

Now triceps are different from the biceps because the hand position matters zero. Yeah. If I'm doing a press down and my hands are facing in, facing down, facing up, that doesn't do anything at all. Which you will see this. Okay, next for the listeners, the next time you go to your commercial gym.

Okay, next thing you go to commercial gym, you'll always see this. It's one of the young teenage boy, I'm guilty, I'm sure of doing this at one point in my lifting career. And he'll go over the kale machine and he'll do the middle, the metal triangle, then he'll do the rope, push down,

and then you'll do the reverse grip. All the same thing. All the same thing. And you think it's different because you're doing the rope, the triangle, and they may even argue like, it feels different. Well, we know why it feels different. When you sup supinate your hand and drive your elbows into your side. So it's really about that.

But as far as what it's targeting as far as your tricep, it is the same thing. And that that kid would be far better off, you know, doing the rope push-downs, and then moving the cable all the way down the bottom, and then flipping around and doing overhead extensions. Like that is going to target that completely different. Yes, elbow position, I mean wrist position no longer matters when we're talking about triceps. Now elbow position matters a lot with triceps because of the way the attachments are for the tricep.

If my arms are behind my body, my tricep is shortened. As I move my elbow to being above my body or by my head, now the tricep is shortened is I move my elbow to being above my body or by my head. Now the tricep is being stretched, at least the long head, what's called the long head of the tricep. There's three heads, the long head attaches, I believe near the scapula. If I bring my elbow up, now I'm stretching the tricep. Shortened versus moderate versus lengthened, you want to look for different elbow positions when you do tr try some exercises.

So you could pick three to four because you could actually pick an exercise where your elbows are next to your body and front of your body overhead or even behind your body. So there's actually four choices, although one of my favorite compound lifts for triceps is elbows kind of behind the body. So I tend to leave that out when I'm looking at isolation exercises. So the best examples of, or some great examples, I should say, of different elbow positions are press downs, press downs, elbows next to my body. Now, elbows in front of my body, skull crusher, great exercise for that, and then elbows here pointing up next to my head or above

my body overhead tricep extension, rope, cable, dumbbell, barbell, all elbow up by my head or above my body overhead tricep extension rope cable dumbbell barbell all elbow up by my head all three should be present in your routine all three elbow positions now I did say next like behind the body as well this is where compound lifts now it's not so controversial or weird to hear people say compound list for great for triceps just because I think it's been more communicated Close-grid bench press is amazing dips is my favorite. I don't think you can beat dips For developing the triceps in terms of compound lifts and that would kind of qualify as behind the body as you go down To the bottom. So I don't know. What do you guys like better dips are close? I saw I'm partial to the close grips your dips

Yeah, I just and you know what I'm trying, what is it about that that I like better? Maybe I feel like I can load the bench press more. It's part of a load dip. And focus more on tricep because it's just, there's more of a, like dips are a better, how about this? Dips are a better overall exercise. I'll concede that all day long,

because it's more functional. You have to stabilize your body, shoulder stabilization in there, core stabilization in there, control of your own body weight. It would win as far as a better exercise. But I've had, I personally think I've had more success putting mass on my triceps from close grip inches

because it's easier, because it's easier to control. I can load it more and I can concentrate just all tricep and take it out of my chest and shoulders and put more of my tricep. And for that reason, I lean that way a little bit more. Although both belong in the routine. And I know there's probably a lot of people out there too. I've come across that that avoid dips

because their shoulder has issues. And so I get that, like too. So the close grip wrench press is a great option for that to look. I would say you use band assisted dips. If that's the case, get good at them because it's such a great exercise. It is.

By the way, dips for triceps and dips for chest look a little different. If you're doing dips for chest, you got one to lean forward and you want the elbows to flare out a little bit. If you want dips for triceps, you're going to stay more upright. Elbows are going to be much tighter to your body. That's going to emphasize the triceps.

Close grip presses. People always screw up by going too close. You go too close. You are asking for trouble in the ribs. This is how I tell people to line up. So you pinch your elbows by your side and you want your arms. It's about shoulder width. It's overwitted. That's slide into your ribs.

Yes, it comes straight back. That's where you want your arms lined up to where it's comfortable. You don't want to be like this to where you're. No, and then another thing is if you want to emphasize the triceps with this close grip press, you want the bar to come towards the chest or nipples. You want that tricep extension. You don't want the bar to come down at the belly, because then what you're doing is a front delt lift.

This very front delt heavy. So the bar should come back as you go down, almost like a compound skull crusher. Not quite, because there is a lift like that, that we're not, that we're not. But do not neglect these two exercises. Like that, and in fact, when I'm building a routine for my arms

These compound just like our legs. It's so funny like legs ever We've we've we've convinced everybody obviously squatting and deadlifting should be the core of your your leg routine Well, you're your dips and your close grip bench press and your pull up in my opinion should be the core of your arm routine And then you build the other the other use the elbow positioning stuff that we're talking about for all your isolation exercise. But in a week, those have got to be in there. You can't have a week go by and there's not a dip, there's not a close grip bench press and there's not a pull up involved in there.

If you are, you're missing out. That's no different than a week going by in my opinion and you're not dead lifting or squatting. By the way, you want to know what's funny about the chin up that we're just talking about. A beginner who tries to do a chin up tends to do a bicep chin up. It's the advanced person that doesn't,

because they learn how to do it from back. Yeah, they do it from back. And they tell them it's for bicep, like, oh, what do you mean? Do it like you don't know how to do a chin up properly or you kind of hunch forward and you're pulling with your arms, that'll hit those biceps.

But yeah, so for triceps, every week, you want to do an exercise that hits the different elbow positions. And the hand position is totally a waste of time. Is there any exercises that you guys would categorize for triceps or biceps for that matter? And I don't want to say a waste of time because there's no such thing as an exercise to waste of time. But that you tend to not mess too much with because you think it brings the least amount of value. Yeah, I think we've argued this before. I'm not a real big fan of Trisep Kickbacks. Me too. That's on that list. I know you argue itself, but yeah. I mean, with

my teeth, I think I do that. Yeah, yeah, I tease them a lot. No, I like it. I like it because it's a really good shortened position for the triceps. And if you're especially for advanced lifters who often cut their tricep exercises short, the reps. So when every see someone cut a bicep, a rep short, it typically means they don't go all the way down. Tri-sip exercises, people don't extend all the way. They do this. But when you do a kickback,

you have to really extend the hell out of your tricep. That's when you'll see the squeeze. But I still, I don't rank it. It's not a top 10. Yeah, I think an overhead extension gets that just fine. Yeah, but people even here they do this. Oh, yeah, well, I mean, I still would I would tell me full full. I would still defer to our original top three things that I said, you know, range of motion, compound lifts, and then what was the other one I said, the elbow position. I mean, those three are the good. So no matter what exercise you're doing, if you're not doing a full range

of motion, you're missing out. I'll give you a try to exercise that're doing if you're not doing a full-range emotion You're missing out. I'll give you a tricep exercise that I think is I mean again They all have value but this one's less value is when people don't even use a handle They grab for some reason grabbing the wire. I don't know why people do and they do a little tricep exercise I like by grabbing the wire like that It's so easy Hey, so here's the I like that better than a kickback because because at least there's tension on the tricep through the entire exercise. But why grab the cable when I grab a handle or a rope because you saw a bodybuilder do it, be honest. I am the bodybuilder.

I am the bodybuilder. I am the bodybuilder. I don't think I did it. I you know what I think the way the ball actually fits in your hand is actually sometimes more comfortable. Grab a rope than the handbuilder. The rope would be, so sometimes if there's a rope there I hand is actually sometimes more comfortable. Grab a rope than the hand. The rope would be so sometimes if there's a rope there, I would be actually do the rope. I for for biceps, I know there's value because elbow position right here, but this is so dumb. Oh, curling that way. Yeah, that's a great pump. No, you mean refer.

You mean triceps that way. No, he means. No, I mean curls. It's like I get it. Like you want to put your arms up and get the elbow position. Oh, well I'm gonna argue The reason why because there's very few other than the chin up There's not another bicep exercise you're ever gonna do with an elbow position there

Are you ever in that fully-lengthed position? Curls behind the head. Yes, I used to do a lap pull down a lap a lap pull down pull down, a lap pull down. I go, and I touch my neck, and I curl to my neck. So it's such a shortened position for my stuff. And it's so novel. It's so novel that you, there's nothing else that you do like that. But it's not going to like, it's not going to supplant. They make a great, they make a great machine that not all gyms have.

Where you sit down in it. Elbows are way up there. And you have to, you lock your elbow in here and you curl here. And it's an amazing, it's an amazing exercise. That's about it. And it's an amazing exercise. That's not bad. And it's the closest thing to a chin up. There's nothing else. There's no other bicep exercise you'll ever do

with the elbow position like that. So I thought you met the reverse skull crusher, which I would tell you absolutely more. That's why they're named it the skull crusher. That is a stupid way to do that. Because there is with the pronating subitain in the hands makes no difference. No, except now your grip is way worse

and you're probably more dangerous than you should absolutely. All right, let's talk about forearms. So forearms, obviously, strong forearms connect you to the world. Very important that you have well developed strong forearms. And a lot of people don't realize, especially guys, this is one of the top body parts that women use

to judge whether or not they find them attractive. Also, many times, the limiting factor while you can't get stronger on some of your curls. That's right, because a lot of guys This is one of the top body parts that women use to judge whether or not find a man attractive. Also, many times, the limiting factor while you can't get stronger on some of your curls. That's right, because a lot of guys use our hands so little. Yeah, their forms get so pumped. And I've been here before, I'm like curling, and it's actually the pump in my forearms, and then my grip gives out before my biceps give out. Now, these are forearms easier to train.

Risk curls, so really anything with resistance where you're curling the wrist, you can do this over a bench or even just standing. Reverse risk curls where you're just pulling up and then reverse bicep curls or reverse grip curls, which you are talking about. This right here, this right here develops this muscle here at the top of the forearm called the breaky or radiallis here at the top of the elbow called the brachio radialis here at the top of the elbow. And nothing will hit that muscle like a reverse grip, reverse curl. And if you've never done these before, go light because they get real strong.

Because it gets tight and sore. That's one that you'll feel for a couple days. And then one of my favorite exercises, just for overall grip strength, overall stability throughout the entire body. And of course developing the forearms, heavy, farmer walks. You hold onto heavy paired dumbbells for time while you're walking. And it's an isometric lift, it's true.

It's not a full range of motion exercise, but you typically use your forearms in isometric ways. So it's not a bad way to train other forearms. And it's a very functional way to train the forearms because again, you typically need to be able to hold on to stuff. Yeah, well now how do you feel in terms of like, because we talked a little bit about different handles and grips and things for like bicep.

They have tries of different with forms, right? Yes, they're benefit there. Different thicknesses of the bar. Yeah, so because it's an isometric, most of the strength that I'm going to build is going to be in the size, you know, that's going to be determined by the size of the bar that I'm holding. But you could wrap a towel around it, and you can have a thicker handle, and now it's a different position. Or you could wrap a towel around it, and you can have a thicker handle,

and now it's a different position, or you could wrap a towel around it, hold the hand, the towel. The pin script, or you could pinch grip, you know, things in this fashion, or even in this fashion, and now you're working different positions. Now order here, okay, forums last,

not beginning of work out. Don't work your forums before you buy such a thing. Yeah, because you don't want your forums to fatigue and limit your ability to do the other. Unless this is like a specialized area for you, it's an area you're gonna focus on, then I'd say it's training first, but rarely ever, I've never had a client

I trained for him before biceps and triceps. No, that's always over. I finish with a forearm exercise. Always at the end of the arm workout. And then all the other same rules apply that we always talk about with sets and reps, right? I mean, all the research is somewhere between 12 to 20 sets total in a month.

Per week, yeah. Per week is what you're, they say month per week, is what's optimal. Although I will say this, you could probably get away with, and I'm going to explain why, you typically people get away with less sets for arms because you're doing it in the other compound. Because every time you're working your chest and your back and your shoulders you're probably involving the triceps and biceps. That's how my training has completely flipped from when I was a kid and all I did was bicep and triceps stuff all the time.

I rarely actually do them now because I do so much compound lifting which I neglected when I was younger. It doesn't take much and obviously I attribute some of that to, which I neglected when I was younger, it doesn't take much. And obviously, I attribute some of that to how much I train them for so long that when I do heavy bench, heavy pull ups, I do row dead lifting, dead lifting stimulates your bicep. You do some of these heavy compound lives. It just doesn't take that much of arm work to continue to stimulate and grow the arm. No, I do, you know, on average, I'll do anywhere between 12 to 15 sets per body part per week,

but arms are always about nine, maybe 10 or 11, because they're getting hit with all the other stuff. It's like, it would be overtraining almost, or a waste of time for me to do that, as many sets for my biceps. Yeah, they're involved with all this everything. That's right, that's right. And forms, I do wave and weigh less, because every back and arm extra, every time you grab something, you need to hold onto it this for them. You know that the str- I've had phases where I've been on like forearm kicks training like that.

I never got bigger, stronger forearms and just actually all focused on my deadlift. No forearm training. No forearm training. Just lift the forearm. When I was, yeah, and that was in there actually when I was doing that because we were doing that all training together back in those days. When I was chasing your deadlift number, that was the strongest one for them.

And I never, I didn't do a single forum exercise. It was just from getting really, really strong. Yeah, you can hold on to 500 pounds, no debt with no straps, like you're gonna have some serious forum strength. Excellent. Look, if you like Mind Pump, if you wanna follow some of our workouts,

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