While it is true that all muscles are important when planning our gym routines, the arms are the part of the body that will attract the most attention in your day to day life. And I say in your day-to-day because well-developed pecs or perfectly sculpted abs are only going to be able to show them off on the beach or on social media.
Therefore, it is normal that we want to focus more attention on the arms in order to achieve the maximum possible development. If you follow a routine in which you train one muscle per day, one of your best options is to train biceps and triceps on the same day so that you can repeat this training twice a week and maximize hypertrophy without harming any other muscle. An example of the routine to get big arms that you could follow is:
- Monday: Pectoral
- Tuesday: Shoulder
- Wednesday: Biceps-Triceps
- Thursday: Leg
- Friday: Back
- Saturday: Biceps-Triceps
This type of training will require you to put much more effort on the day of biceps and triceps to hypertrophy both muscles. If you notice that you don’t finish your two-muscle workouts well, go back to your normal routine of one muscle group a day. It is better to train each muscle well than two bad ones.
What else can I do?
Apart from increasing the frequency with which you train them, there are more resources at your disposal to accelerate the growth of your arms. The more knowledge you acquire, the easier it will be for you to find the technique with which you get the best results. Today I am going to tell you what has worked best for me after reading hundreds of posts about it.
How to train biceps and triceps on the same day?
When I train both muscles on the same day, the first thing I do is classify the exercises for each muscle as heavy or light. For example, the straight bar bicep curl would be a heavy bicep exercise while the Arnold curl would classify it as light. I set up the routine so that it is made up of two or three heavy exercises for each muscle plus two or three light exercises for each muscle.
The structure that I follow when training consists of first performing the 2-3 “heavy” exercises for the biceps, then the 2/3 “heavy” exercises for the triceps, and finally I perform the “light” exercises for both muscles as supersets (exercise biceps + triceps exercise).
Although in the “heavy” exercises I focus on trying to exceed the maximum weight I am capable of lifting for sets of 8 repetitions, my 8RM, in the “light” exercises I focus more on controlling the time of the repetitions, 1 or 2 seconds for the concentric phase and 3 seconds for the eccentric phase. Technique is equally important in all exercises, although you will be able to control it much more in the “light” exercises.
Sample routine for arms
Exercise Sets Repetitions Straight Bar Curl 3 8-10 Straight Bar Curl 3 8-10 Preacher Curl 3 8-10 Parallel Dips 3 8-10 Z-Bar French Press 3 8-10 Pulley Rope Extensions 3 8-10 Arnold Curl
French press one hand
4* 10-12
10-12
Alternate Hammer Curl
extension dumbbell over head
4* 10-12
10-12
* Perform as many series as you need until you feel that the muscles are totally exhausted.
As always, if you don’t accompany your training routine with a good volume diet, you won’t get the muscle gains you’re looking for.