Blah, Blah, Blah, Science, Science, Science, BIGGER!

#21

If it's hard for you, it's hard for everyone. And most people avoid hard things, which is why you can beat most people just by trying. -Alex Hormozi

 Tips for Bigger Arms

1. Pick the right exercises. To work a muscle group for the greatest hypertrophy, you have to achieve good tension in a fully stretched muscle. Standing bicep curls are a good example of a classic exercise that is a little underwhelming. At a full stretch (arms hanging down straight) there is hardly tension at all in the bicep. That first part of curling up is super easy compared to the rest of the rep. Try to replicate this with bands and again the tension is minimal at the bottom of the curl. 

A little more complex but more effective move for bicep hypertrophy would involve setting up in a cable machine with two cable arms. Set the arms low, grab a handle in each hand, walk forward until there is tension with arms down and slightly behind you, like a standing bicep curl, but with your elbows a little behind your back. Then curl the cables forward and up. Another way to achieve a full tension stretch in the muscle while avoiding fatiguing the rest of the body is with a cable bicep curl perform lying on the ground. This is a little awkward at a public gym, but really lets you crank out some bicep curls to failure. It looks like this:

A good arm workout plan should include different elbow angles for the bicep and tricep moves. Notice... not different grips, that changes nothing. Here's what I mean: Bicep preacher curls have your elbows out in front, standing curls have elbows at sides, and a flat or incline bench curl places your elbows behind you. Similarly, skullcrushers have your elbow placement in front of you, tricep pulldowns have your elbows at your sides, and any kind of overhead pull or tricep press provides a third angle. You might include a tricep overhead press in one workout, but do a tricep pulldown later in the week. One great tricep move for a full muscle stretch and some mobility gains is the single arm overhead tricep extension. It does not take much weight to be effective, but it does require some focus on form. Keep your head up, neck straight, and elbow aimed high. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KRUrrf-ANao&t=0s 

2. Train them to failure more often. Bicep and triceps are smaller muscle groups, or accessory muscles, if you will. It simply is not as taxing on the body to smash these muscle groups as it is to do a compound lift like a squat or overhead press. This means you can hit them a little harder every now and then and not worry too much about overdoing it. When you do employ training a muscle to failure, I recommend using a higher rep range, but only completing one hard set. After that hard set, immediately give that muscle a nice static stretch for over 30 seconds. 

3. Frequency. Many lifters are quick to load up the volume, or amount of work they perform in the gym, only to miss out on the magic of frequency. More is not always better. Twelve sets of bicep moves in one workout is a waste of time; the last 8 or so sets are basically accomplishing nothing. Divide up those twelves sets into 3 separate days of 4 sets of biceps, and now you have spread out the volume effectively. Hitting a muscle group two or three times per week is much more effective than smashing it hard then doing nothing for a whole week. If you have a lagging body part, or just want to grow one part more specifically, train that part with frequency. Two to three times per week is plenty, every day is too much. 

4. If you have neglected the compound lifts that also hit arms, do that first. I am talking about: pullups, overhead press, bench press, close grip bench press, barbell row, and the like. Not only do you want to build the base of great strength before worrying about the accessory muscles, but also they are the best exercises for building big arms! Performing a close grip bench press can load up the triceps way heavier than all the accessory exercises; doing some low rep, heavy sets for the triceps is possible this way. Think of how little you can shoulder fly, compared to the massive amount of work you are doing when overhead shoulder pressing.

*bonus tip: If you just wanna look bigger and stronger, build your shoulders. Get good at barbell overhead press and have some single arm presses in there as well. If you just want your arms to look thicker, realize triceps are doing more for you than biceps. The triceps actually make of much more of the arm than biceps, so at rest you will have much bigger looking arms if the triceps are more grown. 

Is Sunscreen More Harm than Good?

https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/report/the-trouble-with-sunscreen-chemicals/

Sunscreen is on the long list of products attacked for containing harmful chemicals. I don't blame anyone for being cautious; you rub the stuff all over your body multiple times a day when you are using it. People take sunscreen to both extremes: do not use it at all or you will get your hormones disrupted or get cancer from the ingredients, or use it everyday, even in your daily makeup lest ye be fully stricken by one ray of the unforgiving sun. Common sense tells us the sun is not to be avoided altogether. Sunlight is not only good for you, but necessary. Common sense will also tell you that not every skin cancer is caused by sun exposure. Usually it's found in a mole, and often that mole is located where the sun don't shine. I shared information before about exposure to sunlight being the most influential factor when it comes to influenza outbreaks. We were made to get outdoors, and we need the vitamin D. In an ideal world, we would have regular moderate exposure to the sun making sunscreen almost unnecessary. But, more accurately we spend lots of time indoors, then finally get a break or summer rolls around and we are ready to spend all day in the sun. In this case of overexposure, yes, sunscreen is worth it. 

Good news is, there are sunscreens with safer, more natural ingredients that are effective. A mineral sunscreen, or something with zinc oxide or titanium oxide are the gentler options. But if faced with a sunburn or applying some chemical-laden sunscreen, I would still take the cheap tube of sunscreen; we know there is harm from sunburns, we only suspect harm from the sunscreen. 

Challenge for the Week: Check Your Intensity

It can be easy to coast from workout to workout without checking in on your intensity. For some, they maybe have not really tested their max or pushed any exercise to failure in a long time, or even ever. For others they may be going too hard all the time and just don't realize it because they think they feel good. If you have worked out 5-6 days a week without a day off for a really long time, your challenge this week is to take a rest day. You don't have to lay on the couch, but no lifting or cardio. Just chill, you will most likely feel better the next day. If this does not sound like you, then your challenge is to pick one exercise to push to your true limit. Not just to rep number 10 because that is the end of your usual range, but until you physically can not do another. Alternatively if you haven't checked what your maximum one rep weight is for a squat, deadlift, or bench you can attempt that. Then you will find your limits may have changed and perhaps you have just been going through the motions without adjusting intensity.