I’ve just started a gym work out and am looking to build up my scrawny T-rex looking arms. Any suggestions?
If you’re going for mass, go for lots of weight. Not too high, of course, or you can seriously injure yourself. You’ll want to start with a lower weight than you think you can do, and then work up from there until you know what you can do without hurting yourself. A good workout buddy is recommended, too, in case you get into a tight spot.
To get a good foundation on your arms, I recommend the following. You should pick a weight you can do perhaps 6-8 times before your muscles fail.
For triceps, a good mass exercise is the incline dumbbell press. Real easy; lay on your back with a dumbbell in each hand and push them up.
To get your biceps going, start with simple curls. Any way you like, as long as you don’t use your back. Once your muscles are used to that, there’re a ton of specific things you can do that’ll tweak one part or another, but for starters, your basic curls are good enough.
For your deltoids, just hold a small weight and raise your straight arm. Do this out in front of you, and off to the sides. Then kneel on a bench with your arm hanging down and do the same motion to hit the deltoid heads on the back.
Your forearms will likely get a good workout doing all this just from holding the weights as well.
This is a pretty basic summary, so if you want to know anything more specific, just ask, and I’ll be happy to expand on the answer.
Check out this site for loads of exercises and info. The advice Mnementh gave is very good advice. Are you interested in working on other body parts, or just arms?
I think Mnementh is right on target. I would just like to add that form is more important than weight. So when you are working out; use as much weight as you can but not so much that it will throw your form out of wack.
Oh and one other thing that bothers me when I go to the gym. When you are doing bench presses make sure the bar goes all the way down to your chest! as opposed to just halfway down; which is what I see of about 50% of the people that goto my gym.
Hope you stay motivated to working out.
One thing about this, in reference to strength training. Of course, the majority of your exercises should be through the entire range of motion. However, and this especially refers to the bench press, sometimes when you’re stuck on a plateau, loading on more weight than you can handle comfortably and only doing it through the strongest range of motion can be very useful in getting past the plateau. I like to do this very often; I’ll do a lot of bench pressing with the full range of motion, and then up the weight 15-20 lbs and only go halfway. I’m finding it tremendously effective.
Feel free to argue with me, though, I love discussing this stuff.
Thanks for the advice and links guys. Very informative stuff! In answer to Ultrafilter, I’m looking to build up my entire body but I’m starting with my arms because I feel they are particularly skinny and weedy. Thanks again for the advice.
You should probably do some work with your waist and legs to start. These muscles help you maintain your balance when you’re doing arm exercises either standing or seated, and that makes quite a bit of difference as to how much you can lift.
Actually, “quite a bit” of difference may be a bit of an exaggeration. Still, they do help.
Super sets.
These are workouts that work both sides of the upper arm - triceps and biceps. For buiding mass after you plateua, search for info on “supersets” or “super sets”.
You do a set of bicep curls, then tricep extensions. You get so much blood into the region that you get your normal “pump” and then some.
Supersets. Very effective bodybuilding/mass building technique, especially for opposing muscles like the upper arm.