Any Good Diet Or Exercise Tips For Building Arm Strength?
August 13th, 2009 | 
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I am a 26 year old male and have embarrassingly thin arms! My leg and stomach muscles are fine but despite doing jobs in the past that require a lot of heavy lifting I never seem to put any muscles or even fat on in my arms. Any exercise or diet tips would be appreciated.
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Tags: 10 Responses to “Any Good Diet Or Exercise Tips For Building Arm Strength?”
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G’day
If you want to gain some muscles in your arms aim to train both the bicep and tricep. Try and do 3 sets of 8 reps and no more than 3 exercises for each body part.
You need to eat a lot of protein based foods to help repair the muscle after a workout such as redmeat, eggs, tuna etc and drink milk and plenty of water.
I change my training routine a fair bit but i would recommend some of the classic lifts to build up your arms.
Bicep:
Barbell Curl 3 sets of 8
Dumbell Curl 3 sets of 8′
Preacher Curl 3 sets of 8
Triceps:
Tricep pushdowns 3 sets of 8
Skullcrushers 3 sets of 8
Tricep extension 3 sets of 8
Good luck!
You need to develop a healthy lifestyle through a mixture of eating healthy and excercising.
For a healthy diet, you need to be eating small to medium meals regularly. 4 or even 5 times a day. Each meal (apart from breakfast which should preferably be fibre rich), should contain a balanced ammount of carbohydrates for energy, (from potatoes, rice and pasta, etc) protien (from fish, chicken, occassional red meat is fine, soya is good too) and plenty of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants (simple fresh fruit and veg). Eat like this and make sure you are well hydrated (fruit juice is as good as water, any fluid counts, but some fluids have negative effects too, such as alcohol or caffiene rich drinks.)
You can have a wide range of healthy meals with this, from Thai, Chinese, Italian, British, Indian, etc. Just make sure each meal contains balanced ammounts of these three. On the bright side too, fresh veg and rice and pasta is a lot cheaper than crappy junk food!
This doesn’t mean you cant have chocolate or pizza/takeaway/etc, just save them as very occassional treats.
Whilst putting muscle on is your primary goal – and that is fine – you need to make sure your cardio improves too.
Cardio exercise includes any form of excercise such as running/jogging/swimming/cycling etc that gets your heart rate pumping and you sweating and out of breath. It will not only burn calories and reduce your body fat levels, therefore making you ‘slimmer’ by having less fat on you, but will also improve your resting heart rate and lung function, making you healthier.
I can’t stress the importance of cardio excercise enough, a good benchmark to aim for is to run a mile and a half in 12 minutes or less (thats the basic military standard – I’m ex infantry).
Strength training will help you strengthen and tone your muscles. This is done with the use of weights or by free training.
There are essentially (without getting overly complicated) two types of strength excercises based on different types of muscle fibres depending on wether you want to build size, bulk and power, or just ‘tone’ up the lean muscles an get more muscle endurance.
Heavy weights with short reps/sets will build your fast twitch muscle fibres and build size, power and strength. Imagine big guys at the gym lifting heavy weights.
But if you use light to medium weights with lots of reps/sets you will excercise your slow twitch muscle fibres, you wont build size, but you will tone up your body and train muscle endurance. This will obviously make you ‘look’ healthier and more toned, but will also increase your metabolism (as your muscles demand more energy) so you will burn calories faster. These muscles are also excercised a lot with cardio workouts (i.e your leg muscles when running).
If you are in a gym then it is a good idea to use a mixture of both free weights/excercises (such as dumbell curls or sit ups/push ups) and using the machines. You don’t need a particular order/regime, just excercise your whole body. Don’t concentrate on one or two areas, use everything to a greater or lesser degree! ;D
For arms however, bicep curls, push ups, tricep dips etc will all work your upper arms, but remember to excercise your shoulders and other supporting muscles too.
As far as excercise goes, you should aim to strike a balance between cardio training and strength training, this way you will build good strong and toned muscle, but also keep your body fat levels down and increase your heart and lung performance, making you much fitter and healthier.
You asked specifically about arms, so I’ll tell you just about arms. Just get in the gym and start SOMETHING. The advice for first-time weight-lifters is different. Just start doing something. After about 6-9 months of REGULAR exercise, adjust a little and seek advice as there’ll be changes in intensity (higher) and frequency (less).
As far as diet – SIMPLE is good. Eat a lot of protein. That means milks, meats, etc etc. You’re goal is to get big, so just put calories in yourself.
This advice will work for any muscle group.
BTW, since you asked about arms, dont’ forget about tricpes either. They are bigger than your bicep, and in fact play as big a role in arm strength.
The problem with asking for diet sometimes is:
1) Most advice is geared towards losing weight or losing 20+ pounds which is not what everybody is looking for. People that do speed work or lift weights would go hungry using ‘lose-weight’ diet tips.
2) The advice is often way more complicated than the person needs. Like for you, based on YOUR needs, just eat more. Hit the gym. Period. That’s pretty much all you need to know. For now, or unless you adjust your goals.
As you asked about arms, I’ve provided a link to arm exercises. Ignore the forearm section. Remember KEEP IT SIMPLE and KEEP IT CONSISTENT.
Doing exercises such as chinups and close grip bench press will make your arms MUCH bigger than doing isolation movements such as curls and tricep pushdowns. Just get strong at basic compound multi joint lifts like Bench, Chinups, Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Presses, and rows. Eat 5-6 meals a day with protein at every meal. Eat MUCHJ more then you normally do, but eat as clean as possible. I know it sounds simple, but the basics always work. I guarantee if you just follow those simple tips you will get much bigger than you are now. If your serious about gaining muscle mass and strength, buy starting strength by mark rippetoe. It is very easy to read and understand, and is the best strength training book for beginners by far. Hope that helps!
Preacher Curls Are My Favorite Curl For Biceps But Any Kind Of Curl Would Work. A Well Balanced Diet Is The Best For Any Time So Eat Healthy. For Triceps Which Are What The Ladies Like I Would Reccommend If You Don’t Have Weights Then Do Close-Handed Push-Ups.
French Curls are great for triceps. Using any object over 20 lbs should work for this. Pushups help as well for biceps and shoulders.
arm circles work great! so do push ups, pull ups amd muscle building doesnt always require weights, reistence training is awesoe. use your bodys resistence to build
Punch a panda then bench-press a hoodie.
Great fun all around.
I heard eating egg whites makes you bigger.
99 change hand’s ?