Only lightweight works for arms?
Curious if anyone else has experienced this. I trained for years using heavyish weights on arm days (6-10 area) and although they got much stronger, my arms didn't budge in terms of size. They slowly lagged farther and farther behind my chest, back etc.
Then I watched a video by that famous moron rich piana who told me to do only lightweight on arms and go for the pump and squeeze. And the man's advice actually worked! Appears he may know what works experience wise he just has no idea why haha. Started bringing my arms back up and now they're at the point where they're nearly proportional again although my strength gains slowed way down on them. It's just odd because my chest, back, and legs respond very well to pushing heavy weight but my arms, calves, forearms, and even shoulders need a massive pump and good squeeze to get any size in them. This hold true for anyone else or am I weird?
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Hi, I use lightweight for every muscle group,I have some back problems and If I start to train heavy ill be over.
In the past 6 months with light weight I grow a lot,not only the arms but also every muscle grow perfect.
Focus on perfect movement,I can't increase the weigh for this back Peoblem but if I change the routine I grow good with the same amount of weight.
for me, my arms need to be murdered. on arms day, i only do barbell curls 6-10 reps heavy weight, 4 sets. then everything else i'll do 10-15 reps 4-5 sets. high volume for my arms is what works for me
I experienced the same. Although I will go heavy on arms its typically with hammer curls or weighted reverse grip pull ups. My thinking is the bicep and tricep are pretty small muscles in reality and aren't "suppose" to stabilize heavy amounts of weight. That being said when you do use heavy weight for instance doing curls...your chest back and lats "stabilize" a good deal of the weight. I'm a pretty big guy at 280 and guess what...a 30lb dumbell is enough weight to blow my arms to shit. Sure I can curl 80lb dumbells but I'm definitely lacking in squeezing at the top using a slow deliberate motion. So again...yes brother I have and do experience the same.
Volume/time under tension/ full range of motion/ stretching at the negative and squeezing at the positive. More blood pumped into the muscle the more it expands the fascia and breaks down, given your diet is where it should your body will repair it. That's also not saying don't go heavy have your heavy days and your lighter days not to be confused with light weight. Drop sets and super sets have their place also. If you continue to do the same weight same rep ranges and same exercises you will experience a whole lot of the same as far as progress goes. For maximum progress , maximum training and focusing on all aspects of the lifestyle bro.
I remember couple years back seem a guy with good arms doing dumbbell prechure curls with only 10lb for extremely high rep and I was like this dudes out of his mind! Then years later I seen a video with stan efferding say that flex told him to drop the weight high reps to get his arms to catch up with his upper body . Soo now I will need to try this my arms are weak point for sure always would stay to the 6-12 range never see any great results
Funny you mention piana. Him and Yates made me realize to use good form and contract..way more progress at higher reps and lower weights. Although I do more reps throughout the week, I still do only 8-12 per set but always superset tris bis.
Everyone is different and you have to experiment until you find what works best you you. The same goes for training as does diet and gear use.
Good to see I'm not alone on this one guys. I'll keep up the higher reps then since I'm seeing the fastest gains I ever have doing it this way. So I should still throw in some heavy work? I still do heavy close grip bench and occasionally heavy straight bar curls but that's about it
I switched recently from 10-12 to super sets of 20+reps. Chase the burn, worked great for me. Put about an inch in a month on my arms once I made the switch. I change it back to heavy every now n then
I use both. Stick worh one rep range for to long and you'll stall. I'll either do two things, spend 3-4 weeks with moderate weight higher reps then 2 weeks or so heavy to shock them or my second routine is to start my first movement heavy 6-8 reps then next movemtm 8-10 then next 12-15 etc and get a mix of all rep ranges in one workout. Still they grow slow and lag behind.
Like rich said they get hit heavy on chest and back day so on arm day hit em with the lighter weights with higher reps. Shit lee Haney and those guys would do sets or 50. Try everything, keep diet consistent and measure results and find what works best.
That's the way I train mine. High volume, light/moderate weights, fast paced.