Building Biceps and Triceps are one of the most sought after muscle group for guys.

Note: Forearms

While training these muscles, your forearms will be getting a good workout at the same time. So, if you are just starting to develop the arms, you do not need to work your forearms right away. However, later on when your biceps and triceps are more developed, that will be the time to start working your forearms with specific exercises.

Two Important Tips

To Maximize Muscle Mass…

• You need to Eat the Right Foods and
• Mix Up your Training with Different Exercises

Eat The Right Foods

Protein and carbohydrates are the key ingredients for muscle growth. For more information on this topic, read my articles Foods For Muscle Growth and Whey Protein For Bodybuilding

Mix Up Your Training

Some people have a hard time seeing results in their arms. When you do one exercise over and over again, the muscle becomes adaptive to the routine and will not continue to grow. One trick to use is to confuse the muscle by switching exercises. This will make the muscle work differently and cause the muscle to grow. For more information about muscle confusion and other techniques, read both my articles Bodybuilding Weight Training To Gain Muscle Mass and Weight Training Techniques.

Here are some exercises you can do to develop huge arms…

BICEPS

STANDING BARBELL CURL

This exercise stresses the bicep muscle and the forearms. When doing this exercise, make sure you do not rock your body back and forth trying to force the barbell up with your back muscle. You can seriously hurt yourself.

Changing the width of your hands on the barbell will give you extra variations you can try and targets different areas of the bicep. Most people do these curls with their hands shoulder width apart.

STANDING DUMBBELL CURL

This exercise works out the bicep and the forearm muscles. To perform this exercise, have both dumbbells at your side with your palms facing inward. With one arm at a time, lift the dumbbell upwards and at the same time twist your palm until it is facing toward the ceiling. Lower that arm and lift upwards with the other arm at the same time. This twisting motions will give your muscle a better chance to grow because of the greater range of motion.

PREACHER CURL

The preacher curl helps isolate the bicep and really focuses all the energy into that movement. You can use a barbell, one or two dumbbells, or a pulley on the preacher curl.

TRICEPS

PULLEY PUSHDOWNS

This exercise develops the triceps. Using a pulley system, you can really focus on isolating the triceps into a good pump. You can use a rope, an angled bar, or a straight bar to grab on to.

TRICEPS DIPS

Using your body weight to build up your triceps is great. As you get stronger, you can place weight on your lap.

Basically, find two objects that are equal in height with a flat surface such as two chairs, two tables, two benches, you get the idea.

Now place the two objects parallel to each other with enough space between the two so you can place your back to one object while putting both your hands on the surface to lift your feet off the floor. Then put both your feet on the surface of the other object.

Push your body up with your arms until they are extended. Then lower your body down until your elbows are at a angle as shown in the above drawing. This is one rep.

BARBELL TRICEPS EXTENSIONS

To do this exercise you need to lay on your back on a bench and have a narrow grip on the barbell. Have your arms fully extended in the air like if you were doing a bench press. Lower the barbell behind your head and raise the barbell in the air using your elbows as the pivot. This is a great triceps exercise.

DUMBBELL KICKBACKS

Grab a dumbbell and lean forward with your elbow bent, extend your arm backwards and slowly lower it back to the starting position.

A Few More Tips

• To work your triceps more during your bench press exercise, use a narrow grip on the bar.

• To get the most out of these exercises, make sure your have plenty of rest in between your workout days. Give it one or two days rest between workouts.

• Make sure you eat plenty of protein to help your muscles grow.
  

The Biceps, Triceps and the Abs sometimes get overlooked at the gym. They are over shadowed by the larger muscles groups like the Chest or Back.

Biceps

The biceps are muscles that most people think if you do a simple curl, then you are done. This is not the case at all. You must really push the muscle until you feel that pump sensation in the bicep. To get to that point, you will have to fatigue the muscle with a series of different exercises that is designed to push the muscle past the point of failure. Only then will you gain muscle mass in the bicep. Some exercises for this muscle include…

• Standing Dumbbell Curl
• Standing Barbell Curl
• Preacher Curl
• Incline Dumbbell Curl
• Dumbbell Concentration Curl
• Barbell concentration Curl

All these exercises are great for pushing the bicep muscle to the max. But in order to push the muscle past the point of failure, you need to have the right technique to do so.

The best technique for the biceps is called Descending Sets. This is where you start out with a fairly heavy weight, one you can do about 4 to 6 full reps until you can not do any more full reps without cheating. Then, strip 10 pounds off the bar and without any rest continue. Keep doing this pattern until you have about 5 to 10 pounds left on the bar. At this point, those last 5 to 10 pounds will feel just as heavy as your maximum weight you started with. At the end of your last set, do quarter pumps (burns) when you can not do any more full reps. This will push the muscle even more past the point of failure and you will really feel the blood rush to the muscle. A quarter pump is doing only a quarter of the rep. Do these quarter pumps until you can not hang on the bar any longer. Biceps are great to do right after you have just finish any workout that involves your back muscles.

Triceps

The triceps are actually a larger muscle then the biceps. So, if you are looking for that large arm appearance, don’t only focus on the biceps, hit the triceps as well.

One of the best triceps exercises are the pulley pull downs. It stresses the entire tricep area and you can change the weight really quick when you do your Descending Set technique. Both the biceps and the triceps respond really well to the Descending Set routine.

Another great tricep exercise that really works the entire triceps are the Dumbbell Kickbacks. If you do not have any pulley systems, the kickbacks are a great alternative.

1. Simply grab a dumbbell and lean your body forward until your torso is parallel to the ground.
2. From this position, have your arm straight with your body, from the elbow to the shoulder. Having the elbow as the mobile pivot, start out by having your arm hang down naturally from your elbow to your hand.
3. Then using only your tricep muscle, straighten your arm backwards until the entire arm is parallel to the ground.
4. Then slowly lower the weight until it is back at the starting position.

The triceps exercises are great right after you have completed any chest exercise.

Abs

Lastly, the Abdominals are the most neglected muscle group when people workout. Having a strong set of abs will help you in stabilizing your body in other exercises. The abs are one of those muscles that you can do everyday. I like to work the abs after every exercise at the end of the day to finish up my routine. As you may already know, you should limit your time at the gym to under an hour. If you workout more then an hour, you will not get the best results from the growth of your muscles. Therefore, I like to spend the last 15 minutes with a simple ab routine. It acts as a cool down in my routine, and since you can work them out everyday, I never do the same ab exercises I did the day before. It help to confuse the muscles when you do different exercises everyday.

There are Three main Ab Exercises that everyone should do. The first one is call a Crunch. This will engage your upper abs. If you incorporate a twisting motion with the crunch, you will also engage the upper Intercostal Muscles.

The second exercise is called Bicycles. This will engage the middle of your core. If you do a crunch twist with the bicycles, you will workout the Middle and Intercostal Muscles.

The last exercise is called the Leg Raise. This will build the lower part of your abs. If you do a twist crunch with the leg raise, you will work the Lower Abs and External Obliques.

Keep in mind that when building your abs ~ you will not reduce your waistline anymore than any other type of exercise. Your body will burn the fat all over and not just where you are exercising. The best way to lose fat around your waist is the combination of interval training (all parts of your body) and calorie restriction of your diet.