5
BIGGEST MISTAKES WITH YOUR ARM WORKOUTS
I get a lot of questions about
arm workouts. I get it. All guys want bigger arms and all ladies want more shapely
arms. For men, arms are a sign of strength.
For women the arms are one of the first places excess weight shows up.
But simply putting more
weight on the bar or adding additional sets usually doesn’t work. The arms,
along with a few other muscles, simply don’t respond to the “more is better”
approach. If fact, in some cases it’s actually counterproductive.
Don’t make these common mistakes:
1.
Putting too much
weight on the bar.
It’s tempting
to try to impress everyone with 90 pounds on the curl bar or 60 pound dumbbells in
each hand. But trying to curl or do skull crushers with that much is
counterproductive for most people. Moving that much weight with the relative
small bicep or tricep muscle is going to require you to engage your shoulders,
back, hips and knees. The result is your biceps or triceps actually get less
stimulation. Working heavy on single joint exercises is going to put tremendous
stress on the elbow. Trust me you don't want an elbow injury.
2.
You bail out too
soon.
To get
maximum stimulation on the biceps or triceps you don’t need to go to momentary
muscle on every set. But you do need to go to failure at least once or twice in
a workout. Going to failure can be very uncomfortable but it’s worth it. Be careful
to avoid “false failure”-when the discomfort gets high enough you can easily
convince yourself that you’ve hit failure when you really haven’t. If you have that problem,
try some intensity tricks; rest pause, drops sets, slow negative or partial
reps. And always, always use strict form.
3.
Sticking with
your favorite exercises.
Change the
exercises every few weeks. Go to the http://www.alphaedgefitness.com/p/resources.html
for examples of exercises for biceps and triceps.
4.
Ignoring some of
the parts of the muscle
You train
biceps by bending your arm. But remember, it’s called a bicep for a reason. It has two parts or heads. You stimulate the tricep by straightening the arm. The
tricep has 3 parts (or heads). Each head is stimulated by slightly different
movements-mostly controlled by how you grip the weight. Use a neutral grip (palms
facing each other like gripping a hammer), a pronated grip ( palms facing down
or forward) and a supinated grip (palms
facing up or toward your face).Don’t ignore any of the parts of either muscle.
Work them all in every workout.
5.
Ignoring the
seldom discussed “hidden” muscle in your arm.
The Brachialis muscle hardly shows on the
exterior of your arm but it can add greatly to the appearance of thickness of
the arm and the height if the bicep peak. It mostly lies underneath the head of
the bicep. But stimulating the Brachialis you are pushing the bicep higher. Work
the brachialis by using lifts with a neutral or” hammer grip”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated and will posted once approved