How to Build and Define Your Arms

For illustrations on How to Build and Define Your Arms, make sure to watch the video located at the bottom of the page.

Before I go out and make all kinds of promises, there is one thing that needs to be understood. Muscle growth is determined on a few factors and one very important factor is Genetics! Genetics will determine how quick it will grow, how large a muscle will grow, and which muscles on your body will respond to training better than others.

That's right, when we workout and even if we train everything equally, some muscles will grow faster than others and some will outright grow larger than others. So if you see a person with really well built arms compared to the rest of their body, it may not be because all they do is train arms all day long. They may simply have the right type of genetics for building well developed arms.

That's the beauty of body building, you are a work in progress that requires constant reworking to achieve the best results for you. And sadly even with the best training program and diligence, your arms may never be what you inspire them to be. And that goes for every body part, my personal challenge is building wide shoulders as my frame is not wide, on the other hand I have good thickness through my chest! Remember, base your expectations on what is realistic for your body type, not on other peoples builds because you are built differently and believe me they have their own areas of muscle development to deal with.

So now that we all understand what to expect, how do you go about building those well developed arms? There are three main muscles to consider when training arms, the Biceps, the Triceps, and the Forearms. The Bicep is the round ball shaped muscle on the front of your arm between your elbow and front shoulder. Many people think that large Biceps equals large arms! The reality is that the Triceps, located on the back of the arm between the elbow and rear shoulder is actual a naturally larger muscle than the Bicep and contributes to about two thirds of your upper arm. So don't forget to put the time in and get your Triceps up to par.

It's pretty obvious where the Forearm muscles are located but for those that are at a loss, the Forearm is located between your elbow and wrist. To be honest, unless you are planning on getting super huge, often enough you don't really need to work your Forearms all that much since they are brought into use every time you grab and hold a weight, and perform a pull or press. But again if you have genetically small Forearms then you may want to train them additionally.

I personally only train my arm muscles once per week because I genetically have decent arm development. I also find that performing many traditional compound movements like bench press, shoulder press, pull-ups and rows hit the Biceps and Triceps pretty well already. Since on back day I do a lot of pulling and work my Biceps along the way, I generally end my workout with a few Bicep exercises to finish them off. Likewise When I have my chest workout day, my Triceps are already fairly exhausted so hitting them at the end with some sets of Triceps exercises gets them fully worked out.

The best way to educate you on what exercises work best for hitting your arms is to show you in a video so again, make sure to watch the below video where I talk about some of the concepts in this article and also show you some of my favorite Arm building exercises like:

Triceps: 

• Seated Dumbbell Tricep Extension
• Standing Cable Tricep Extension (With Bar or Rope)
• V-Dumbbell Narrow Tricep Pushup
• Narrow Barbell Tricep Extensions (Free Weights or Smith Machine)
• Standing Tricep Kickbacks
• Bench Tricep Kickbacks

Biceps: 

• Barbell Bicep Curls (Free Weights or Smith Machine)
• Standing Dumbbell Bicep Curls
• Seated Dumbbell Bicep Curls
• Standing Bicep Curls with Cable System
• Dumbbell Bicep Curls Using Bench For Isolation

Forearms:

• Wrist Forearm Curls Palm Down
• Wrist Forearm Curls Palm Up

Back to the Basics - Body Weight Only Full Body Workout

In this "Back to the Basics" YouTube Video I show you a Full Body Workout using only your body weight. Well I bring in some dumbbells for some option add on exercises but they are not required to get a full body workout.

The main exercises I show you are: the push-up, the pull-up and chin-up, the air squat, the single leg lunge and sit-ups and crunches. I show you proper technique along with scalable variations for all levels of fitness even beginners.

Using your body weight with the right exercises and from is a great way to build muscle and shape, and you can even get a cardiovascular workout at the same time if you pick up the pace! This workout can take as little as 10-15 minutes or you can do more reps and sets for a longer more aggressive workout.

Home CrossFit Style Workout for Chest - Back - Arms - Abs

It's been a while since I did an at-home workout video! Most weeks I workout 5 days at my CrossFit Gym since it's close to home and my membership lets me go as much as I like, so I may as well get my moneys worth and get some extra motivation in a supportive group situation.

This week my schedule just didn't work with the CrossFit times so today I decided to do my workout at home and take this opportunity to record it for you all.

I only really had a half an hour or so, so to maximize my workout I did my usual high intensity CrossFit Style no rest multi exercise workout and in this program I worked my Chest, Back, Arms and Abs.

This high intensity workout consisted of 10 complete rounds, each round I did 6 reps of each of the following exercises:

• 6 Pull-ups x 10 rounds (total of 60 reps)
• 6 Push-ups x 10 rounds (total of 60 reps)
• 6 Sit-ups x 10 rounds (total of 60 reps)
• 6 thirty pound Dumbbell Curls x 10 rounds (total of 60 reps)
• 6 Olympic Ring Dips x 10 rounds (total of 60 reps)

The entire workout took me about 17-18 minutes and it got really hard to complete some the exercises near the very end which is pretty much what you want to achieve if you want to push yourself.

Paul Garay Custom Workout Program - Day 3 Arms & Legs

This is the last of the Custom Workout Program day videos for my very good friend Paul Garay, todays YouTube Workout Video shows you Day 3 where we go through some Arm and Leg Exercises Paul will perform using his Total Gym and body weight. Paul will also be incorporating Cardio using his Precor Elliptical, or some Skipping or Burpees. Paul will work towards being able to complete this entire workout without breaks but may at first need to take some rests so that he is able to do complete sets. I will be checking back with Paul and we may make some adjustments along the way.

Here is an example of a complete Shoulder and Legs workout that Paul can scale to meet his available time and fitness level.

• Total Gym Seated Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Extensions with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut) 

• Total Gym Seated Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Extensions with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut)

• Total Gym Seated Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Extensions with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut)

• Total Gym Lying Down Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Dips with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut)

• Total Gym Lying Down Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Dips with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut)

• Total Gym Lying Down Arm Curls (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Total Gym Triceps Dips with back to board (1 set of 10-20 reps)
• Air Squats (1 set of 20+ reps)
• OPTIONAL - High intensity Elliptical, Skipping or Burpees. (1 minut)

Paul can add more sets to this workout as his fitness level increases. I also showed him some Ab exercises he can do after each workout to build his Abs.

This is a full 18 separate sets that should take Paul around 30 minutes to complete and will give Paul a complete muscle building and cardio workout targeted for Arms and Legs. Paul can scale it by doing more or less sets and also adjusting the level of his Total Gym for more or less resistance and adding in either a medicine ball or free weight to his leg exercises.

• Part 1 - Interview with Paul
• Part 2 - Workout Day 1 Chest & Back
• Part 3 - Workout Day 2 Shoulders & Legs
• This is Part 4 is Workout Day 3 Arms & Legs

Watch my YouTube Video for this Custom Workout Program Geared Towards Arms & Legs:

CrossFit Style Upper Body Ladder Workout

Another CrossFit based workout for you, this one is based on using the "Ladder" format which means you start your set off with the highest number of reps (Usually 10)  and work your way down to 1 rep per set.

Here is an example of the Upper Body Ladder Style workout I did in this video:

• For the first round I did 6 different exercises with 10 reps each.
• For the second round I did 9 reps for each exercise and then 8,7,6,5,4,3,2 and lastly for my final round I finished off with 1 rep for each exercise. For a total of 55 reps per exercise and 330 reps in total.
• I did the following exercises in each round - Dumbbell Press with 50 pounds in each hand, Wide grip pull-ups, Olympic dips, Sit-ups, Push-ups and Arm curls with 30 pounds in each hand.

I also show you how you can "scale" your workout to fit your level of fitness since not everyone can do a full push-up or pull-up ;)

This was a hard workout on my triceps since the Shoulder press, Olympic dips and Push-ups all hit my triceps hard. I did make it through with only a few small pauses and got pretty close to the 20 minute mark!