(1a) THE BEST BICEP EXERCISES

 

You can click on each exercise to take you to a tutorial for that movement 🙂

For the  biceps, the most effective exercises are:

 

BEST BICEP COMPOUND MOVEMENTS

 

• Chin-ups (underhand grip)
• Close-grip palms-up pulldowns (underhand grip)

 

BEST BICEP ISOLATION MOVEMENTS

 

• Cable Preacher Curls (or machine preacher curls)
  

  Me getting a set of EZ bar curls in

• Lying Cable Curls
• Standing Barbell Curls
• Standing Dumbbell Curls (alternating)
• Concentration Curls
• EZ Bar Curls
• Seated Incline Dumbbell Curls
• Cable Rope Curls (some might call this a hammer rope curl)

 

(1b) THE BEST TRICEP EXERCISES

 

For the  triceps, the most effective exercises are:

 

BEST TRICEP COMPOUND MOVEMENTS

 

• Tricep Dips (weighted)
• Close-grip Bench Press

 

BEST TRICEP ISOLATION MOVEMENTS

 

• Decline Tricep Extension (barbell or EZ bar)
• Decline Cable Tricep Extension (low cable)
• Cable Bent-Over Triceps Extensions
• Cable Tricep Pushdowns
• Low Cable Kickbacks (or dumbbell kickbacks)
• Behind-the-head Dumbbell Tricep Extensions (one-arm)
• One-Arm Reverse Pushdowns

 

(1c) BEST BRACHIALIS EXERCISE

 

 

• Pinwheel Curls

 

NOTE: Before you read on, if you like great new workouts, did you know about Arnold’s GOLDEN 6 workout from back in the Golden Era of bodybuilding? I have it and will give it to you, if you want it. Just type in your email below to get it.

 

 

(2) FEEL THE MUSCLE, NOT THE WEIGHT

 

I have always been careful to make the muscle I’m working is doing the work. I put my mental focus on the intended muscle while I’m working it. Arnold said that he used to close his eyes and put his focus on the intended muscle during his sets. This is great advice.

Don’t get caught up in the numbers game – the numbers game kills gains. Stop trying to lift the heaviest weights possible or competing with others to see “who can bench the most”. If you’re serious about building muscle, you had better involve as many fibers as possible and PUNISH them. Stop throwing around mega weight to impress others – this is not about your ego.

Some people can bench tons and have no pecs. Others who train properly have moderate lifts but big, sculpted, symmetrical pecs.

 

For the past year or so, in an effort to hammer this point home, I tell people not to think of this game so much as “weight lifting”, but rather “muscle stimulating”. Your purpose in going into the gym is to stimulate muscle tissue to grow – that’s it. Have this phrase burned into your mind before every set and it will help tremendously.

Get a great contraction at the top, keep constant tension on the muscle involved, and perform your negatives under full muscular control. I have always completed the negative/lowering part of a rep more slowly than the positive/lifting. This point is a lot more important than most people realize.

 

When you perform your negatives under full muscular control – using the intended muscle to lower the weight slowly and not letting gravity do the work – you recruit more muscle fibers in the intended muscle.

Here is an example of me performing my negatives under full muscular control from my Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙈𝙘𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙪𝙨 (MuscleHack) (@mark_mc_manus) on May 7, 2018 at 6:26am PDT

 

(3) THE RIGHT NUMBER OF SETS

 

So now you know what exercises to do and how to do them properly. You now need to know how many sets and reps to do.

This topic is a book in itself. And I recommend that you download my THT routine to fully explain what to do and why you are doing it that way.

But in short, the number of sets you should do depends on whether you are doing a full-body routine or split routine.

For a split routine, about 8 or 9 sets each for the biceps and triceps works best. Only 2 or 3 different exercises are needed for each muscle. So this might look like so:

 

5-DAY SPLIT WORKOUT

 

TRICEPS

• Tricep Cable Pushdowns x 3 sets
• Cable Bent-Over Tricep Extensions x 3 sets
• Decline Tricep Extensions x 2 sets

• Cable Preacher Curls x 3 sets
• Seated Incline Dumbbell Curls x 3 sets
• Concentration Curls x 2 sets

BRACHIALIS

• Pinwheel Curls x 2 sets

 

If you are working the whole body in a single workout, each muscle gets less sets than a split routine, but you’ll hit all muscles (biceps and triceps included) 3 times per week instead of just once.

 

FULL BODY WORKOUT

 

So each of these 3 workouts would look like so on THT training:

 

Your Monday & Friday Workout

• Squats x 2 sets (legs)
• Decline Dumbbell Bench Presses x 2 sets (chest)
• Calf Raises x 2 sets (calves)
• Weighted Reverse Crunches x 2 sets (abs)
• Overhead Barbell Press x 2 sets (shoulders)
• Seated Incline Dumbbell Curls x 2 sets (BICEPS)
• Seated Cable Rows x 2 sets (lats)
• Tricep Cable Pushdowns x 2 sets (TRICEPS)
• Shrugs x 2 sets (traps)
• Dumbbell Wrist Curls x 1 set (forearms)

 

So on Monday and Friday we hit our biceps with 2 sets of Seated Incline Dumbbell curls, and work our triceps with 2 sets of Tricep Cable Pushdowns. Let’s have a look at Wednesday…

Your Wednesday Workout

• Deadlifts x 3 sets (back)
• Deep Dips x 2 sets (chest)
• One-Arm Dumbbell Rows x 2 sets (lats)
• Overhead Dumbbell Presses x 2 sets (shoulders)
• Concentration Curls x 2 sets (BICEPS)
• Cable Bent-Over Tricep Extensions x 2 sets (TRICEPS)
• Leg Presses x 2 sets (legs)
• Leg Extensions x 1 set (legs – quads)
• Leg Curls x 1 set (legs – hamstrings)

 

On Wednesday it’s Concentration Curls and Bent-Over Tricep Extensions. 2 sets of each exercise to failure. For those who ask me, “Can I add a 3rd set?” Yes, try it – read this.

 

(4) THE RIGHT REP RANGE

 

You’ll take 2-3 minutes rest between sets and work in the hypertrophic/growth rep range of 8-12 rep range. What this means is that for each and every set the weight needs to be heavy enough to not allow you to get more than 12 reps, but it needs to be light enough so you can get at least 8.  This will involve a little ‘trial and error’ on your first 1 or 2 THT workouts, but it’s well worth the gains you are going to get.

If you got 8 or 9 reps on the first set of a particular exercise, you will need to knock off about 10% of the weight for the 2nd set to allow you to and rep to positive failure again between 8 and 12 reps.

 

 

(5) (OPTIONAL) DO AN “ARMS BLAST”

 

 

I like to throw in my arms blast workout every so often to use “hyper-intensity” to stimulate additional gains. These extreme techniques are so intense that you can’t do them very often.

I now have “blast” workouts for the shoulders, legs, chest, and arms. The results that people achieve in just over a week from these protocols are downright shocking.

I personally like to do a blast once every 10 weeks. But you can do any of my blast programs once every 5 weeks.

Since we train in 10-week cycles on THT before taking a week off, you can do a blast workout on week 1, 5, and 10 in addition to your regular THT training (how to incorporate a blast session into your THT training is covered in the books themselves).

 

So that’s it, guys ‘n’ gals – that’s how I built an impressive set of muscular arms with my less-than-average genetics for making gains! Stop reading and start doing!

Honestly, the best thing you can do right now is download the full and free THT workout & app and apply these training techniques to all your body parts. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can gain when you start training correctly.

Train With Intensity!

Mark McManus 🙂