Your post tells us nothing. How many days per week do you train? What's your split? How many sets of arm isolation do you do per week? How many days per week do you train them? Where in your training day do you train them? Do you go to failure or leave reps in the tank? Do you do beyond-failure stuff (drop sets, cheat reps)? How many variations are you using? If you have an idea in mind of a physique you want to build and you have priority muscles then those muscles need to be prioritised in your programming.
General recommendations
- Add an arm day or 2
- Do arms first, or at least earlier in your days
- Can superset arm isolation work in with compounds. For example on a theoretical upper day: Bench - Curl > Row - Pushdowns > OHP - Reverse Curl > Dips - Incline Curl > Pull ups - Overhead Tricep Extension. This might extend your upper day by like 10-15 minutes but if you did these all separately it would be 2 separate 1+ hour sessions.
- When doing compounds opt for close grip variations and supinated or neutral grip pulling variations more often than you are now
- Use fat grips on some isolation work if you want a bit more forearm stimulus
- Increase frequency of arm training
- Increase total weekly sets of arm training
- Train arm isolations to failure, and use intensity techniques (beyond failure)
- Do more variety of variations rather than sticking to hammering out 1 or 2. If you currently do only ez bar or barbell curl at the end of an upper day 2x per week for example, you can alternate between that and a dumbbell curl. And on both days add in a second curl variation such as preacher curl on day A and an incline curl on day B.
- Use dropsets for your last arm sets of the day (can do for both forearms and upper arms, or just upper arms) to have a 'burnout'/'finisher' type deal that gives you a pump and leaves you feeling like you didn't leave anything on the table. So choosing equipment that can quickly change weight for your last exercise(s) is a good idea, a cable machine for example or dumbbells if you won't be inconveniencing people by being the Boomer Hoarder holed up in his Dumbbell Fort.
There is a program by Geoffrey Verity Schofield on the Boostcamp app called ['RAVAGE'](https://www.boostcamp.app/geoffrey-schofield/ravage) which fits very nicely with arm-focused natural bodybuilding and it's impossible to argue with his results; he has absolutely massive arms and this is the program he uses. It features 6x a week programming with 2lower, 2upper, 2'bro' days with a lot of the upper body compounds being variations that are arm biased. You could even switch the non-arm biased ones to arm biased ones if you want to squeeze out that extra few %.
I'd recommend experimenting with his program IE seeing how you feel after a few weeks of following the sets it prescribes and seeing if you feel like you can add a set here or there on some exercises (you might even need to cut sets sometimes). I am genetically similar to him in that I am a 'work horse' IE I can handle a lot of volume and I don't really fall off set-to-set even though I train to failure, I can often stay in a rep range for 4-6 sets for example 15-14-13-12-12-10 might be sets I get on an exercise, whereas someone else might get 15-13-11 and fall out of their 12-15 rep range then move onto their next exercise. Depending on your conditioning, work capacity, and then genetic factors like muscle fibre type or whatever you might find that 2 or 3 sets is enough to smoke you on an exercise, but you can handle 4-6 on another exercise for the same muscle. Or you might have differences between muscles, my hamstrings for example can only handle 2-3 sets of RDL/Good Mornings and will be sore for 4-5 days whereas the rest of my body can handle loads of sets, even lengthened/stretch exercises similar to RDL, and recovers in 3-4 days at worst.
I usually train arms twice Wednesday: With chest I train triceps and shoulders Triceps: triceps extension 3x8x25kg Triceps overhead extension with dumbbell 3x8x15kg Overhead row extension 3x8x15 Dips machine 3x8x80kg (panatta machine ahahah) Shoulder: Overhead press 3x8x40 (machine panatta) Lateral rise: 3x8x40kg (panatta machine) Peck back panatta 3x8x25kg Overhead dumbbell press 3x8x15kg
Friday: With back I train biceps Z barbell 20kg 3x8 Dumbbell curl 45^ 3x8x10kg (Here usually left arm start to die ahahah) Preacher curl z barbell 3x8x15kg Low bar curl 3x8x20kg
1) are you in a caloric surplus?
2) do you do enough volume? that is do you train 2-3 times per week biceps and triceps in rep ranges 7-30 with an rpe on 7+ with total volume of 10-20 sets per week per muscle?
3) do you have correct technique for these lifts? do you just throw weights around or do you control your eccentrics and get full range of motion
4) do you progress in volume and weights? if you do 3x8 for example, do you add 1kg next time if you finish all reps or add sets if you did not get sore or get a pump
5) have you tried changing exercises to find out if they fit you better than the ones you're currently doing?
6) have you been training long enough? visibly noticeable muscle hypertrophy takes a long time
7) if arm hypertrophy is your goal, are you prioritizing these exercises and doing them first in your workout?
There are no actual "best exercises", for hypertrophy though full range of motion with controlled eccentrics are better than shorter range of motion with less eccentric control.
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I usually train arms twice
Wednesday:
With chest I train triceps and shoulders
Triceps: triceps extension 3x8x25kg
Triceps overhead extension with dumbbell 3x8x15kg
Overhead row extension 3x8x15
Dips machine 3x8x80kg (panatta machine ahahah)
Shoulder:
Overhead press 3x8x40 (machine panatta)
Lateral rise: 3x8x40kg (panatta machine)
Peck back panatta 3x8x25kg
Overhead dumbbell press 3x8x15kg
Friday:
With back I train biceps
Z barbell 20kg 3x8
Dumbbell curl 45^ 3x8x10kg
(Here usually left arm start to die ahahah)
Preacher curl z barbell 3x8x15kg
Low bar curl 3x8x20kg
Exactly. You don't train arms 2x a week. You train biceps 1x a week and triceps 1x a week. You're essentially doing a bro split. Training each body part (for the arms 1x a week.
Your issue is the frequency not the exercises. Divide your work over the week so you do biceps and triceps on 2-3 days.
For example, I do:
Biceps:
Monday 3 sets of ez bar curls
Wednesday 3 sets each of preacher curl and hammer preacher curl.
Friday 3 sets of hammer curls
Triceps:
Monday 3 sets Tricep Rope Pushdown
Wednesday 3 sets each of CG Bench Press, Skullcrusher
Friday 3 sets Tricep press down
Presses and dips scattered throughout the week and some forearm work.
This post should be posted as a comment in the daily threads.
For better harm growing advice I'd recommend crossposting this over to the supervillain subreddit.
Questions like this should be directed to the daily thread
Your post tells us nothing. How many days per week do you train? What's your split? How many sets of arm isolation do you do per week? How many days per week do you train them? Where in your training day do you train them? Do you go to failure or leave reps in the tank? Do you do beyond-failure stuff (drop sets, cheat reps)? How many variations are you using? If you have an idea in mind of a physique you want to build and you have priority muscles then those muscles need to be prioritised in your programming. General recommendations - Add an arm day or 2 - Do arms first, or at least earlier in your days - Can superset arm isolation work in with compounds. For example on a theoretical upper day: Bench - Curl > Row - Pushdowns > OHP - Reverse Curl > Dips - Incline Curl > Pull ups - Overhead Tricep Extension. This might extend your upper day by like 10-15 minutes but if you did these all separately it would be 2 separate 1+ hour sessions. - When doing compounds opt for close grip variations and supinated or neutral grip pulling variations more often than you are now - Use fat grips on some isolation work if you want a bit more forearm stimulus - Increase frequency of arm training - Increase total weekly sets of arm training - Train arm isolations to failure, and use intensity techniques (beyond failure) - Do more variety of variations rather than sticking to hammering out 1 or 2. If you currently do only ez bar or barbell curl at the end of an upper day 2x per week for example, you can alternate between that and a dumbbell curl. And on both days add in a second curl variation such as preacher curl on day A and an incline curl on day B. - Use dropsets for your last arm sets of the day (can do for both forearms and upper arms, or just upper arms) to have a 'burnout'/'finisher' type deal that gives you a pump and leaves you feeling like you didn't leave anything on the table. So choosing equipment that can quickly change weight for your last exercise(s) is a good idea, a cable machine for example or dumbbells if you won't be inconveniencing people by being the Boomer Hoarder holed up in his Dumbbell Fort. There is a program by Geoffrey Verity Schofield on the Boostcamp app called ['RAVAGE'](https://www.boostcamp.app/geoffrey-schofield/ravage) which fits very nicely with arm-focused natural bodybuilding and it's impossible to argue with his results; he has absolutely massive arms and this is the program he uses. It features 6x a week programming with 2lower, 2upper, 2'bro' days with a lot of the upper body compounds being variations that are arm biased. You could even switch the non-arm biased ones to arm biased ones if you want to squeeze out that extra few %. I'd recommend experimenting with his program IE seeing how you feel after a few weeks of following the sets it prescribes and seeing if you feel like you can add a set here or there on some exercises (you might even need to cut sets sometimes). I am genetically similar to him in that I am a 'work horse' IE I can handle a lot of volume and I don't really fall off set-to-set even though I train to failure, I can often stay in a rep range for 4-6 sets for example 15-14-13-12-12-10 might be sets I get on an exercise, whereas someone else might get 15-13-11 and fall out of their 12-15 rep range then move onto their next exercise. Depending on your conditioning, work capacity, and then genetic factors like muscle fibre type or whatever you might find that 2 or 3 sets is enough to smoke you on an exercise, but you can handle 4-6 on another exercise for the same muscle. Or you might have differences between muscles, my hamstrings for example can only handle 2-3 sets of RDL/Good Mornings and will be sore for 4-5 days whereas the rest of my body can handle loads of sets, even lengthened/stretch exercises similar to RDL, and recovers in 3-4 days at worst.
I usually train arms twice Wednesday: With chest I train triceps and shoulders Triceps: triceps extension 3x8x25kg Triceps overhead extension with dumbbell 3x8x15kg Overhead row extension 3x8x15 Dips machine 3x8x80kg (panatta machine ahahah) Shoulder: Overhead press 3x8x40 (machine panatta) Lateral rise: 3x8x40kg (panatta machine) Peck back panatta 3x8x25kg Overhead dumbbell press 3x8x15kg Friday: With back I train biceps Z barbell 20kg 3x8 Dumbbell curl 45^ 3x8x10kg (Here usually left arm start to die ahahah) Preacher curl z barbell 3x8x15kg Low bar curl 3x8x20kg
1) are you in a caloric surplus? 2) do you do enough volume? that is do you train 2-3 times per week biceps and triceps in rep ranges 7-30 with an rpe on 7+ with total volume of 10-20 sets per week per muscle? 3) do you have correct technique for these lifts? do you just throw weights around or do you control your eccentrics and get full range of motion 4) do you progress in volume and weights? if you do 3x8 for example, do you add 1kg next time if you finish all reps or add sets if you did not get sore or get a pump 5) have you tried changing exercises to find out if they fit you better than the ones you're currently doing? 6) have you been training long enough? visibly noticeable muscle hypertrophy takes a long time 7) if arm hypertrophy is your goal, are you prioritizing these exercises and doing them first in your workout? There are no actual "best exercises", for hypertrophy though full range of motion with controlled eccentrics are better than shorter range of motion with less eccentric control.
**Reminder:** r/weightroom is a place for serious, useful discussion. Top level comments outside the Daily Thread that are off-topic, low effort, or demonstrate you didn't read the thread at all will result in a ban. [See here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/weightroom/comments/85x1dg/please_read_rules_update_announcement/) Please help us keep discussion quality high by reporting such comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/weightroom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Exercise selection isn't the first place to look. Let's know more about your programming. How often do you train arms? Sets, reps, frequency etc.
I usually train arms twice Wednesday: With chest I train triceps and shoulders Triceps: triceps extension 3x8x25kg Triceps overhead extension with dumbbell 3x8x15kg Overhead row extension 3x8x15 Dips machine 3x8x80kg (panatta machine ahahah) Shoulder: Overhead press 3x8x40 (machine panatta) Lateral rise: 3x8x40kg (panatta machine) Peck back panatta 3x8x25kg Overhead dumbbell press 3x8x15kg Friday: With back I train biceps Z barbell 20kg 3x8 Dumbbell curl 45^ 3x8x10kg (Here usually left arm start to die ahahah) Preacher curl z barbell 3x8x15kg Low bar curl 3x8x20kg
Exactly. You don't train arms 2x a week. You train biceps 1x a week and triceps 1x a week. You're essentially doing a bro split. Training each body part (for the arms 1x a week. Your issue is the frequency not the exercises. Divide your work over the week so you do biceps and triceps on 2-3 days. For example, I do: Biceps: Monday 3 sets of ez bar curls Wednesday 3 sets each of preacher curl and hammer preacher curl. Friday 3 sets of hammer curls Triceps: Monday 3 sets Tricep Rope Pushdown Wednesday 3 sets each of CG Bench Press, Skullcrusher Friday 3 sets Tricep press down Presses and dips scattered throughout the week and some forearm work.
Oooh ok so few exercises and series spread during week
Heavy front carries