Incredible Arm Muscles in 6 Weeks

Show Your Muscles! Thanks to a program based on the latest research, you can increase your hands to incredible sizes.

Author: Jim Stoppani, PhD

At Gibson's Gym in Manchester, Connecticut, where I used to train, the slogan on the T-shirts was: “It doesn't matter what car you drive. What matters is the size of the hands that look out of the car window.”

Large hands look masculine, and besides, the hands are the most prominent part of the body. Therefore, it is not surprising that every guy, and even many women, want to have big hands.

Whatever your starting shape, this 6 week program will help you add more volume to your arms. Some of you can look forward to an increase in muscle volume by 3 cm or more by the end of the program.

This 6 week program is a progression where one of the variables is training frequency (how many times per week you train your arms). You start with one workout the first week, the second week you do two workouts, the third, fourth and fifth weeks three workouts each. Then, in the final sixth week, you return to one workout.

Trust me, this method works.

In the first week, your biceps and triceps are destroyed. You will remove all mechanisms that hold back growth by repeating a series of exercises that really destroy the muscle tissue of the hands.

After such a load, you need a whole week to recover. The following week, the weight is reduced, and the number of approaches is increased. This week's workouts aren't designed to build big volume yet. You are still recovering from the previous week.

These workouts will help you better recover from the previous week and prepare for the next three busy weeks.

In the third, fourth and fifth weeks, you will train your arms three times. If you think that three times a week is too much and may be overtraining, you are right. But overtraining does not happen immediately, it takes several weeks. Training that can lead to overtraining is called overtraining.

Research shows that if your diet contains enough calories, protein and carbohydrates, as well as the necessary supplements, then you can benefit from overexertion to build stronger muscles faster.

Several University of Connecticut studies have confirmed that if muscles are overexerted for two weeks in a row, they grow much faster, and a person who trains can easily withstand such a load. The main thing is to stop overexertion before it develops into overtraining.

Therefore, according to the program, you will train your arms three times a week - from the third to the fifth week, and then move on to one workout per week. I also suggest after the sixth week that you give your arms some rest and only train once a week before getting back into serious programs.

The three-time high-intensity overload workouts are designed to shock your muscles, thereby causing them to grow rapidly, and in addition, they have the effect of accumulating stress, which is necessary for muscle building.

During training, genes are activated in muscle tissue that are responsible for many processes, such as muscle growth and strength gains.

For example, with constant training, certain genes are activated, as a result of which muscle tissue is built faster, i.e. increases muscle size and strength. These genes are usually activated for several hours, sometimes for several days.

If training is regular and lasts the required amount of time, even greater activation of genes and, accordingly, even greater growth of muscle mass can be achieved. This is the so-called load accumulation effect.

Let's explain: during training, a certain gene responsible for muscle growth is activated by 100%. After training, his activity gradually decreases over several days in such a way that on the first day after training his activity is still about 75%, on the second day to 50%, and on the third day only 25%. As a result, on the fourth day after training, his activity returns to the initial level.

If you train on the fourth day after the previous workout or later, the gene is activated again at 100% of the original activity.

But if you train on the second day after the previous workout, when the gene activity is still 50%, you can increase this activity to 150%. This will lead to more muscle growth and strength gains compared to more infrequent workouts.

This is one of the mechanisms that, when training every 48 hours, provides faster muscle growth compared to training once a week.

Of course, in this program, the frequency of training is not the most important thing. They can help you build extra muscle, but in order to get really big muscles, you need to remove all the restraining mechanisms. Therefore, it is intensive techniques such as drop sets, forced reps, rest-pause, negative reps and supersets that are needed in order to make muscles grow.

Such exercises not only put the muscles in a stressful state, but also increase the level of hormones. A study by Finnish scientists showed that forced repetitions increase growth hormone levels 3 times more than if you simply stop the exercise after muscle failure.

This additional growth hormone will come in handy for muscle recovery and growth, and the girth of your arms will increase quickly. Another study published in the journal Science and Medicine for Sports and Training suggests that negative repetition leads to high levels of growth hormone.

Another important element of the program is the constant change in the weight lifted and the number of repetitions. This is called periodization. Research confirms that overdoing (cycling weight and reps) results in greater gains in muscle mass and strength.

One of the most effective periodization techniques is wavy periodization, which consists of constantly changing the weight and number of repetitions in each workout. Studies by Brazilian scientists from the University of Connecticut have confirmed the effectiveness of such training for increasing muscle volume.

During weeks 3, 4, and 5, you will be training your arms quite a lot, and as such, you may be concerned that your sore muscles are not going away. But don't worry!

A Japanese study showed that if you train your muscles two days after intense training, when they are still sore, this will not interfere with recovery. On the contrary, it will increase the growth of muscle tissue.

Another study suggests that if you train the same muscle group two days in a row, the level of the catabolic hormone cortisol decreases. Because the hormones cortisol and testosterone interfere with each other, by lowering cortisol during and after exercise, anabolism increases and your testosterone will be more effective in promoting muscle growth.

In order to properly load your arms for 6 weeks, you need to change the set of exercises. Each week you will do a new four-day set of exercises.

However, depending on the week and the amount of training, each of the four days you will train a specific muscle group.

Use the following sets of exercises for each week of your 6-Week Tough Arms workout.

Week 1

Monday: Triceps/Biceps Tuesday: Legs Wednesday: Rest Thursday: Back/Abs Friday: Chest/Shoulders Saturday: Rest Sunday: Rest

Week 2

Monday: Triceps/Biceps Tuesday: Back/Legs Wednesday: Rest Thursday: Triceps/Biceps Friday: Chest/Shoulders/Abs Saturday: Rest Sunday: Rest

Weeks 3-5

Monday: Triceps/Biceps Tuesday: Chest/Shoulders/Abs Wednesday: Back/Triceps/Biceps Thursday: Rest Friday: Triceps/Biceps Saturday: Back/Legs Sunday: Rest

Week 6

Monday: Chest/Abs Tuesday: Back/calves Wednesday: Rest Thursday: Shoulders/Legs Friday: Triceps/Biceps Saturday: Rest Sunday: Rest