Skip ?? about arms

[RIZ]

Skip,

In your training section you said about arms not being your priority now. you also said people who tried to increase their arms did it every other week. Now I am thick torso with more of a lanky arm, and I want to focus on bringing up arms to my chest/back etc.. What would you do if you were to prioritize arms? I was thinking every other week or maybe more volume for them etc.., your opinion. BTW great info in all the chapters.

Thanks,

[Ken Skip Hill]

The first thing you need to be sure about is whether your arms are lacking from over or under training them (aside from genetics, etc..).

How sure are you that you are undertraining them?

Skip

[betito]

Skip, I hate you...













because your arm genetics, stop giving advice you freak!

[RIZ]

Skip,

I see what you are saying. I guess the only logical way to see this would be to start training them every other week for 6 weeks and see what happens and go from there. I will gauge the strength and size from week 1 and go every other for 6 weeks and see if there is a difference. I currently train them once a week. If I have any questions after that, I will ask then. For now I guess I will train 2 exercises for bi's and tri's going up in sets each time I train them like you do. I am going to start training 3x days per week like you. It always worked for me and with me getting older and also with numerous injuries over the past 21 yrs it should help.

THANKS AGAIN

[Ken Skip Hill]

Skip,

I see what you are saying. I guess the only logical way to see this would be to start training them every other week for 6 weeks and see what happens and go from there. I will gauge the strength and size from week 1 and go every other for 6 weeks and see if there is a difference. I currently train them once a week. If I have any questions after that, I will ask then. For now I guess I will train 2 exercises for bi's and tri's going up in sets each time I train them like you do. I am going to start training 3x days per week like you. It always worked for me and with me getting older and also with numerous injuries over the past 21 yrs it should help.

THANKS AGAIN

I would agree with this. Look at it this way: Most people that blow off what I say about taking your arm training to every other week, will likely go for 6 or more weeks overtraining them and getting nowhere but won't consider cutting the volume back if for no other reason, than to rule out that you tried something different and it did or didn't work. I mean, the mentality is so weird that it is almost as if they are scared that not training them as frequently will cause them to lose .... all of that hard-earned muscle .... that they are not gaining, anyway. lol

Skip

[Doberman]

Skip,

What do you think about exercise selection? When you have people switch to every other week what kind of exerices do you have them do?

I totally agree with your way of doing things when in comes to arms. It just makes sense that if you concentrate on your bigger lifts the arms will grow. The question I've asked people is "Who is going to have a bigger arm? The guy that can do cable tricep extensions with 80 lbs or the guy that can bench 315?"

[Ken Skip Hill]

Arm training isn't terribly complicated, I don't think. You aren't dealing with a multi-angle joint so ... a curl is basically a curl. At least with triceps I prefer to put more focus on the long head due to all of the pressing that most of us do but ... I still fancy arm training as pretty simple. Just pick a couple curl exercises and a couple different tri movements and go at it.

Skip

[Kiki22]

Skip, do you think that even in a cutting diet is possible to gain some muscle, traning 3x week, a push/legs/pull routine (something like 3 working sets, with rest pause form big muscles and 1 or 2 for smaller ones) for a natural bodybuilder? I'm currently using a lot of DC techniques like RP and Stretches.

I never tried a 3x week routine, because I have always been more of a "volume" guy. Do you think it can work for me?

[Ken Skip Hill]

For someone that is natural and cutting body fat, it is unlikely that you will gain much, if any, muscle. If you just started training or your diet was terrible before or you are losing a LOT of body fat, slowly, THEN you might get away with it. I don't know your particular situation and all of the variables but I can say that it is not likely.

Skip

[NZ RABBIT]

Skip,
Are you still a fan of your leaning overhead BB extension exercise?

[7_Deadly_Sins]

Skip,
Boxers or briefs?

[Hartley]

If my arms appear to be growing now that I finally stopped listening to people telling me not to have an arms day... and my triceps are coming along fine so leaving those alone..I am finding my main curling movement is stalling fast (and always has in the past)....
Would you first recommend changing up my main bar curling movement every other week (alternating 2 variations) or rotate variations every few weeks predicting the stalls...? Or try training Bi's directly only every other week like you are saying works good? Or something else?
If you need more info let me know thanks.

[Ken Skip Hill]

Skip,
Are you still a fan of your leaning overhead BB extension exercise?

Yes, big fan. Love em.

Skip

[Ken Skip Hill]

Skip,
Boxers or briefs?

Compression shorts when I train.

Skip

[Ken Skip Hill]

If my arms appear to be growing now that I finally stopped listening to people telling me not to have an arms day... and my triceps are coming along fine so leaving those alone..I am finding my main curling movement is stalling fast (and always has in the past)....
Would you first recommend changing up my main bar curling movement every other week (alternating 2 variations) or rotate variations every few weeks predicting the stalls...? Or try training Bi's directly only every other week like you are saying works good? Or something else?
If you need more info let me know thanks.

I would train them less frequently. It is a good idea to change out exercises if you feel you have stalled on them but, in my opinion, it is a recovery issue when you stall most of the time. Even if you used the same exercise for the same body part every single week and overloaded the muscle, it should grow as long as you are recovering from your workouts. Stagnation is due more to poor recovery than whether an exercise needs to be changed out.

Skip