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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only 1 place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. Ooh, today's episode is all about the arms. This is the arms masterclass. We talk about training the biceps, the triceps, and even the forearms, how they work, best exercises, Things to focus on, things to ignore.

If you want to develop amazing arms, this is the episode for you. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Element. This is the best electrolyte powder you'll find anywhere. It's all natural, no calories, no artificial sweeteners, and it has the right amount of sodium for performance and pumps during your workout. Anyway, go to our link and get yourself a free sample pack with any order.

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for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show.

All right,

let's talk about arms. This is probably 1 of the most prized body parts, biceps, triceps, forearms. They're often exposed. This is why people like to develop them, men and women. So in today's episode, we're gonna talk all about the muscles of the arms and the best Exercises you can do to sculpt and shape amazing arms this

My favorite subjects. Yeah, it's my favorite to us.

This is the killing it the first body part ever trained I think

okay So well when you guys were younger, was this the main 1? I mean, you were big into bench press.

No, I did everything. I trained everything.

Arms, yeah. I mean, that was probably my first. I really liked training arms. It was just like it gravitated to me. Then chest, of

course. I'm guilty of like...

Most kids.

...Only arms for like 2 or 3 years.

That long?

Yeah, because I was terrible at bench So even my buddy that try and definitely do legs as a kid. I mean that was like crazy Yeah, you know, I don't screw up my basketball skills whatever the excuse was I used back then as a kid, didn't want to do legs for sure. And so it was arms. Arms was all I trained. And when they tried to get me to bench press, my form was so terrible.

I've told you guys before, it took like 3 guys. 1 guy would pin my shoulders down, the other 2 guys would spot the bar. And then I was like 135 pounds, like just terrible. So yeah, all arms, all arms, like all the time. And when I got into being a personal trainer, I had trained them so frequently, so often for all my early years, teenage years, that they became really stubborn.

Like I could just, you couldn't hammer my arms and I wouldn't get sore. I mean, I had thrown something. Yeah, throwing something at them.

No, for, I mean, I always train kind of everything right out the gates, because right out the gates I bought books and followed routines. And there's that story when I met those power lifters type of deal. Just curling books. But I mean, there's a reason why arms are so popular. It's because it's a proxy for a strong physique, meaning, You know, for the most part, if anything's exposed, unless you're at the beach or something like that, right?

If anything's exposed, it's usually your arms. And if you have muscular, fit-looking arms, it typically tells the person that The rest of you is fit. That's what it means by proxy. So it's no wonder why it's such a popular body part to train. There was a time when women didn't want to train arms, but then it became popular for women as well because you know, they realized like, well, I'm not going to get big arms.

I'm gonna get nice sculpted looking arms. Yeah. And women's arms are shown as often, if not more often than men's. So now what's funny is this is so many myths that surround arm training, that this will be fun. This will be a fun thing to talk about in terms of like, what are the best exercises or the best, even more importantly, what are the best combination of exercise to develop, you know, to get well-developed arms.

So this will be this will be a good 1. But we're going to talk about like the basic because there's more muscles than the ones we're going to highlight today. There's lots of lots of small muscles that are in there and stuff like that.

We're not

even gonna cover the shoulders, we're just sticking with-

Thighs and triceps.

Yeah, thighs,

triceps and forearms. We did a whole shoulder masterclass already, didn't we? Yes. Yeah, we did a whole shoulder. And I definitely think that, you know, refer to that episode because I do think that when in pursuit of like aesthetic looking arms-

You want nice shoulders.

Yeah, that makes as much of a difference, if not more. In fact, I think I have smaller arms today than I did in my early 20s, but I have better looking arms because my- Because

your shoulders.

They're more proportionate to my shoulders. So that makes a big difference.

Now, arms feel awesome to train. That's true. That's for sure. It's a really nice feeling. It's typically not hard to connect to the muscles of the arms, which is kind of cool, mainly because we still use our hands and arms.

We haven't reached the point yet where we're completely machine or whatever, a computer. So I can almost always get someone to feel their biceps, feel their triceps, and feel their forearms if I want them to. So this isn't really an area where typically it's like, ooh, we got to figure out a way to get

you to come in. There's not

really a loss of connection issue. Right, right, right.

So I don't, there is sometimes with tricep though. Tricep sometimes can be more difficult for some clients to feel and I don't want to mess up the flow of your your episode right here but I am curious like do you guys remember like of all the things that we learned and what we're probably gonna talk about in this episode as far as exercise selection and lifts and sets and reps and all these different things. Do you remember what were some of the most pivotal things that like, or aha moments when training arms were? I know, there was a big 1 for me that was like made a huge difference. I think it

was probably the same thing for me, it was the elbow position.

Yes.

Yeah, that was a big 1.

That was just, I didn't understand that. Like I didn't understand how you were manipulating the strength curve and with the stretch position versus, I didn't learn that until I learned like biomechanics later on.

Let's talk about that first, right? Let's talk about the biceps, right? They attach, um, you know, here underneath the elbow and then right at the shoulder or a bit higher, there's 2 heads of the bicep. So because the attachments way up here near the shoulder, I can make my bicep shorter simply by lifting my elbow. And I can make it a bicep longer by putting my elbow behind my body because it'll automatically lengthen or shorten by the position of my elbow.

So that's what we mean by elbow position. I can do exercises where my bicep's shortened. I can do a position exercise where my bicep is lengthened. And then I can change the resistance so that it's hardest when I'm squeezing or it's hardest when it's stretched or extended. And those are the factors to consider when you're training biceps along with, this is different for triceps, but for biceps, hand position also matters.

If you were to look at your bicep right now, if you were to kind of partially flex your arm, take your palm facing up and then have your palm facing down and then facing up, you'll notice your bicep shortens and lengthens. 1 of the actions of the bicep is also to rotate the hand.

Pronate and supinate.

So that also is something you want to consider when you do bicep exercise.

Yeah, 1 of the things I was thinking of when I was just young and just starting out and especially doing curls was, I was doing a preacher curl and then my range of motion was tiny. Yeah, I was just come down and then bring it back up and like get a squeeze and I thought I was doing something and then like I remember yeah, a bodybuilder or somebody came over and was like, yeah, you want to go all the way and I was like I had to drop like a ton of weight. Like it was very humbling, but then I was like, oh wow, okay, I have to go all the way down. And so I applied that again to the elbow position on all the other exercises, but that was like a huge thing. If I was just doing short reps all the time.

3 things for

me, 3 things that were very huge moments in my arm training for that. Range of motion, elbow positioning, and compound lifts for that. Because it was popular when I first started learning to do all these isolation exercises.

Well, almost every bicep exercise is isolation. Yeah, so there's- And the ones that are compound are not called bicep exercises.

Right, so it's like a sneaky way for your biceps to build and nobody would label it as that. And so I totally ignored that in my bicep and tricep training. I ignored the compound lifts that didn't fall under that category because they were either a bench press or a pull-up or these movements that were for your back or your chest. And so you're like, oh, this isn't for my triceps. Yeah.

And also, I was still in that trap when I was a kid of thinking that just because I felt it the most in an exercise that it must be building that muscle, and that's a fallacy. Like there's exercises sometimes, and we know this when we talk about things like legs, like a leg extension, you're going to feel your quads more than

you will. They're going to go on fire.

Yeah, they're going to be on fire compared to a squat, but they ain't going to come close to building your legs like a squat will. And it's like, we knew that, that's obvious, but for some reason, that same principle, people, it's not obvious to them when it comes to their biceps and their triceps, but

it's still true. The craziest mass builder you'll ever do, just overall development of your bicep, is going to be a supinated grip chin-up or pull-down.

Yes.

This is a compound lift for the bicep, okay? Just like we do compound lifts for the chest, the back, the legs, and we know that those are the best for the bicep suit. Now, I do wanna say this, the technique's a little different, okay? If I do a supinated grip pull-up, I'm leading with my chest and I'm squeezing back. I'm trying to get my back activated.

If I'm doing it from my biceps, I'm rolling forward and I'm pulling with my arms. Same thing with a pull down. I'm doing what would look like. You're trying to bring your knuckles towards your chest. Yes, I would look like what I'm doing is bad form.

So

if someone saw me do a bicep pull down like this, you might be like, oh, he does it, that's a crappy looking pull down. No, no, I am emphasizing the bicep on the way down versus the back with my chest out. But try those, try do, first off, a chin up this way, most people aren't strong enough to do it this way, So you'd have to do a pull down but grab the bar and curl it down with this kind of rolled forward position and squeeze the biceps at the bottom. You have now done a compound lift for your biceps and they do

feel the difference when you do they build.

Oh, yeah doing

this and I've done chin-ups like this where I'm only doing 3 or 4 reps and the biceps just let up.

I did that with a super set. Oh man, that destroyed my biceps.

So you've talked before about how like certain muscle groups or how low reps only lend themselves to certain muscle groups. This is the exception for, like, and we've talked about like, you know, 3 rep range doesn't do much, isn't a typical way you would lift biceps. The only way I would is if I was doing

this,

a pull up.

I wouldn't do 3 reps for curls.

Yeah, no, it's just too much isolation exercise 3 times

and your form is going to be off and yeah, 100% kick

in the shoulders and everything else to get it up.

So we talked about elbow position. So the 3 basic elbow positions you want your bicep exercises to fall under would be elbows in front of your body, elbows next to your body, and then elbows behind your body. So here's 3 exercises that fit that category, which is great. Now, why all those? Because elbows in front shortens the biceps, to the sides it's kind of neutral, you know, kind of in the middle.

Behind the body there's a stretch when you do a full extension. So the best exercises, or some of the best exercises like this are preacher curls, elbows in front of my body, standing curls, barbell or dumbbell by my body, and then incline curls where I'm sitting back on an incline, my elbows are behind my body. Those 3 exercises right there hits all 3 elbow positions. And then there's a muscle that we should probably talk about that you if you want well-developed biceps, you also need to work on which is the brachialis

for hammers.

Yeah. And this is a flat muscle underneath the bicep. And when it develops, it really gives you this nice full look to your arm. This muscle flexes the elbow and it's most activated with a what's called a neutral grip a hammer curl a hammer curl will develop the Brachialis pretty damn well. I mean that kind of covers it

well, so okay now talk about programming that and how I do this So if I back when I was doing like body part splits and arms would be like an arm day, I'm actually going to do an exercise that hits each 1 of those in the workout. Correct. If I'm following more of a MAPS anabolic routine.

Where you're doing 1.

Where I'm doing 1 exercise, I do 1 on Monday, a different 1 on Wednesday, a different 1 on Friday for the week so that in the week I get all 3 elbow positions. So that's how I would program that is I want to in a week's time I want to make sure I hit all 3 elbow positions whether I'm doing all that arm workout in 1 or 2 workouts, or I'm spreading it over 3 or 4 workouts, I wanna make sure within the week, I'm hitting all 3 major elbow positions. And then I'm gonna stay with those exercises for an extended period of time in order to get good at them, right? So I wanna stick with those 3 movements that you're saying for at least, you know, 468 weeks and Then I'm gonna change the exercises up too. So then I'm gonna switch up

right

but still follow the elbow position

I'm gonna people you'd be like, well, what's the difference elbows in front of you preacher curl versus another elbows in front of exercise Well, here's now where it gets interesting. A preacher curl, especially a free weight preacher curl, most of the resistance is at the bottom because that's where gravity is fighting the most. Here at the top, there's not much resistance because now my forearm is perpendicular to the weight and into gravity. Well, if I do a concentration curl, where I'm leaning over, my elbow's still in front of my body, but now the hardest part of the rep is the squeeze. I'm doing elbow in front of my position exercise, but the squeeze is the hardest, not the extension.

So I would switch out preacher curls for something like a concentration curl because it's the squeeze now. That's the emphasis.

Well, yeah, you're talking about triceps. Then you're talking about skull crusher being the top position right here. Right. And then you're talking like, say, you're doing like a tricep extension for neutral. I mean, obviously that's probably not the best 1, but then, and then dips.

Yeah. We're going to get there. Absolutely.

Yeah. But with the, back to your point with the biceps, like, so another thing to manipulate your point. So you could also do a preacher curl with dumbbells for that for 4 weeks. And then I go over to a preacher curl on a machine.

And now it's different

because the tension is still all

the way

all the way to top. So people have to understand that like you can do dumbbell curls on the which I love to do or a camber curl bar on a preacher bench. It's now a different exercise when I... Same preacher bench, but now I'm on a machine, right? Now it's got the cable, right?

That's attached to it or whatever because of the way the tension is on it. So that is a way of taking a movement that is the same, but then changing it because you are changing the tension on it throughout the strength.

By the way, if you use a bicep machine, you can figure this out by looking at the pulley and the shape of the pulley, and you'll notice that it won't be perfectly circular. It'll maybe be oval shaped or be kind of odd shaped. And you can tell when the resistance is gonna get harder. So some machines on a preacher curl, even though it says 50 pounds on the stack, it's actually 30 at the bottom, 50 at the top. Now, you might not be able to know this by looking at it, if you're not experienced, go try it.

Go try the exercise, notice the most difficult part of the rep, and then the next time you do a similar exercise, find 1 where the hardest part of the rep is in a different position. By the way, bands are a great way to do this. I used to do this at home when I was a kid. This is before I knew anything about bands. All I knew was, wow, this preacher curls easy up here.

So I attached a band around the bar and I attached around a pole and I knew that the band would make it harder at the top and I used to blow my friends away whenever I try that

you know I was I was always surprised why those machines didn't get I don't know more talk like as far as I You think so that's

why I guess that people don't know to change that pin that changes the pulley position.

So what the your your American barbell, which was gold when you work there, they still have some of those. I love those and you can change and they so there's these machines if you've ever seen them. So we can educate the audience that doesn't know what this is. Some gyms will have like the preacher curl machine and then on the right normally right on the side where the where the wheel is or whatever there'll be a handle that you pull out and it normally has numbers 1 2 or 3 and what you're doing is you're changing the heaviest part of the weight to be either in the stretch position at the middle position

or the top,

which is a cool way to manipulate an exercise that is in the same plane, is virtually the same thing, but now because you manipulate that, it's novel to the muscle because it's not used to the load hitting you like that.

That's right. But if you just picked an exercise from elbows in front, elbows aside, elbows in back, you're 90-something percent of the way there. Throw in some chin-ups where your bicep emphasize, you know, a squeeze. Now you're doing a compound lift.

How often do you do reverse curls? Because I know for me, like if I go back to them, it's always like I always do too much weight because it's a very like different.

So reverse curls. It's that or hammers. That's I'm, I normally bounce between.

So hammer curl, more brachialis, reverse curl, the weak link tends to be the brachioradialis, which is the top of the forum, which we'll go to, because we're gonna get to the forums in just a second.

Okay, yeah, I'm jumping ahead

all over

the place.

So next, let's talk about triceps. Now, triceps are different than biceps because the hand position matters 0. If I'm doing a press down and my hands are facing in, facing down, facing up, that doesn't do anything at all. Which you

will see this, okay, next, for the listeners, the next time you go to your commercial gym, okay next thing you go to a commercial gym, you'll always see this, it's normally the young teenage boy, I'm guilty I'm sure of doing this at 1 point in my lifting career, and he'll go over to the cable machine and he'll do the metal triangle, then he'll do the rope pushdown, and then he'll do the reverse grip. All the same thing. All the same thing. And you think it's different because you're doing the rope, the triangle, and they may even argue like, it feels different.

Yeah, well, we know why it feels different. When you supinate your hand, you drive your elbows into your sides

a

little more. And so it's really about that.

But as far as what it's targeting, as far as your tricep, it is the same thing. And that kid would be far better off doing the rope pushdowns and then moving the cable all the way down the bottom and then flipping around and doing overhead extensions. Like that is going to target that completely different. So yes, the elbow position, I mean, wrist position no longer matters when we're talking about triceps.

Now elbow position matters a lot with triceps because of the way the attachments are for the tricep. If my arms are behind my body, my tricep is shortened. As I move my elbow to being above my body or by my head, now the tricep is being stretched, or at least the long head, what's called the long head of the tricep. There's 3 heads. The long head attaches, I believe, near the scapula.

So if I bring my elbow up, now I'm stretching the tricep. So shortened versus, you know, moderate versus lengthened. You want to look for different elbow positions when you do tricep exercises. So you could pick 3 to 4, because you could actually pick an exercise where your elbows are next to your body, in front of your body, overhead, or even behind your body. So there's actually 4 choices, although 1 of my favorite compound lifts for triceps is elbows kind of behind the body.

So I tend to leave that out when I'm looking at isolation exercises. So the best examples of, or some great examples, I should say, of different elbow positions are press downs, press downs, elbows next to my body. Now, elbows in front of my body, skull crusher, great exercise for that, and then elbows here, pointing up next to my head or above my body, overhead tricep extension, rope, cable, dumbbell, barbell, all elbow up by my head. All 3 should be present in your routine, all 3 elbow positions. Now I did say next, like behind the body as well.

This is where compound lifts. Now it's not so controversial or weird to hear people say compound lifts are great for triceps just because I think it's been more communicated. Close grip bench press is amazing. Dips is my favorite. I don't think you could beat dips for developing the triceps in terms of compound lifts.

And that would kind of qualify as behind the body as you go down to the bottom. So I don't know what do you guys like better dips or close

grip? So I'm partial to the close grips.

You're a dips, you're

a close grip dip guy. You know, I'm trying, what is it about that that I like better? Maybe I feel like I can load the bench press more. It's

harder to load dips, you have to put a chain. And

focus more on tricep because it's just there's more of a like dips are a better how about this dips are a better overall exercise I'll concede that no all day long because it's more functional you have to stabilize your body shoulder stabilization in their core stabilization in their control of your own body weight it would win as far as a better exercise. But I personally think I've had more success putting mass on my triceps from close grip bench press because it's easier. Because it's easier to control, I can load it more, and I can concentrate just on tricep and take it out of my chest and shoulders and put more on my tricep. And for that reason, I lean that way a little bit more. Although both belong in the routine.

And I know there's probably a lot of people out there too that I've come across that avoid dips because of their shoulder has issues. And so I get that, like too. So the close grip bench press is a great option for that to learn.

I would say use band assisted dips if that's the case, get good at them, because they're such a great exercise.

It is.

By the way, dips for triceps and dips for chest look a little different If you're doing dips for chest you got want to lean forward and you want the elbows to flare out a little bit if you Want dips for triceps you're gonna stay more upright Elbows are gonna be much tighter to your body. That's gonna emphasize the triceps close grip presses people always screw up by going too close. You go too close, you are asking for trouble in the ribs.

This is how I tell people to line up. So you pinch your elbows by your side and you want your

arms bent 90. It's about shoulder width. You have to

slide into your ribs.

Like it has to come straight back. That's where you want your arms lined up to where it's comfortable. You don't wanna be like this to where you're flaring.

No, and then another thing is if you wanna emphasize the triceps with this close grip press, you want the bar to come towards the chest or nipples. You want that tricep extension. You don't want the bar to come down at the belly because then what you're doing is a front delt lift. It's very front delt heavy. So the bar should come back as you go down, almost like a compound skull crusher.

Not quite, because there is a lift like that that we're not...

But do not neglect these 2 exercises. No. Like that, and in fact, when I'm building a routine for my arms, these compounds, just like our legs, it's so funny, like legs, we've convinced Everybody, obviously, squatting and deadlifting should be the core of your leg routine. Well, your dips and your close grip bench press and your pull up, in my opinion, should be the core of your arm routine. And then you build the other, use the elbow positioning stuff that we're talking about for all your isolation exercise, but in a week, those have got to be in there.

You can't have a week go by and there's not a dip, there's not a close grip bench press, and there's not a pull-up involved in there. If you are, you're missing out. That's no different than a week going by, in my opinion, and you're not deadlifting or squatting.

By the way, you wanna know what's funny about the chin up that we were just talking about? A beginner who tries to do a chin up tends to do a bicep chin up. It's the advanced person that doesn't, because they learn how to do it

from the back. Yeah, they do it from the back.

And you tell them it's for biceps, they're like, oh, you know, what do you mean? Do it like you don't know how to do a chin up properly, where you kind of hunch forward and you're pulling with your arms, that'll hit those biceps. But yeah, so for triceps, every week, you want to do an exercise that hits the different elbow positions, and the hand position is totally a waste of time.

Is there any exercises that you guys would categorize for triceps or biceps, for that matter, that you think are, and I don't wanna say wasted time because there's no such thing as an exercise that's a waste of time, you know what I'm saying, but that you tend to not mess too much with because you think it brings the least amount of value.

Yeah. I think we've argued this before, Like I'm not a real big fan of tricep kickbacks. Me

too, that's on that list.

I know you argue it's out, but yeah. I'm gonna write, I think I tease them

about it.

Yeah, I tease them

about it. I like it because it's a really good shortened position for the triceps and if you're, especially for advanced lifters who often cut their tricep exercises short, the reps, so whenever you see someone cut a bicep rep short, it typically means they don't go all the way down. Tricep exercises, people don't extend all the way, they do this, But when you do a kickback, you have to really extend the hell out of your tricep. That's when you'll see the squeeze. But I still don't rank it.

It's not a top 10.

Yeah, I think an overhead extension gets that just fine.

Yeah, but people even here, they do this.

You don't see people with all the- Yeah, well, I mean, I still would- No,

I mean full extension.

I would still defer to our original top 3 things that I said, range of motion, compound lifts, and then what was the other 1 I said, elbow position. Those 3 are the, so no matter what exercise you're doing, if you're not doing a full range of motion, you're missing out on gains.

I'll give you a tricep exercise that I think is, I mean, again, they all have value, but this one's less value, is when people don't even use a handle, they grab, for some reason, grabbing the wire, I don't know why people do this, and they do this little tricep exercise by grabbing the wire.

I like that. It's so easy. Hey, so here's the deal. I like that better than a kickback because at least there's tension on the tricep through the entire exercise.

But why grab the cable when I grab a handle or a rope? Because you saw a bodybuilder do it, be honest.

I am the bodybuilder.

No, I'm kidding.

I am the bodybuilder.

I am the bodybuilder. You didn't invent it though. Yeah, I don't think I did

invent it.

You know what, I think the way the ball actually fits in your hand is actually sometimes more comfortable Grab a rope. Than the handle. The rope would be, so sometimes if there's a rope there I would actually do the rope.

For biceps, I know there's value because the elbow position right here, but this is so dumb. Oh

You mean triceps that way

no he means army

curls It's like I get it like you want to put your arms up and get the elbow position.

Oh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna argue The reason why because there's very few other than the chin up. There's not another bicep exercise you're ever gonna do with an elbow position there. In that fully lengthened position like that.

There's even curls behind the head.

Yes, I used to do a lat pull down.

How do

you do that? A lat pull down. I go to a lap pull down and I go and I touch my neck. And I curl

to my neck.

So it's

such a shortened position

for the bicep. And it's so novel. It's so novel that there's nothing else you do

like that. But it's not gonna like, it's not gonna supplant.

They make a great machine that not all gyms have where you sit down in it.

Elbows are way up there.

And it puts you, and you have to, you lock your elbow in here and you curl here. And it's an amazing, it's an amazing exercise. And it's the closest thing to a chin up. There's nothing else, there's no other bicep exercise you'll ever

do

with the elbow position like that. So I thought you meant the reverse skull crusher, which I would tell you,

absolutely. That's why they named it the skull crusher.

That is a stupid way to do that. Because there is no, with the pronating, subinating the hands makes no difference.

No, except now your grip is way worse and you're probably-

More dangerous and you should, absolutely.

All right, Let's talk about forearms. So forearms, obviously, you know, strong forearms connect you to the world. Very important that you have well-developed strong forearms. And a lot of people don't realize, especially guys, this is 1 of the top body parts that women use to judge whether or not they find a man attractive.

Also, many times, the limiting factor why you can't get stronger on some of your curls.

That's right, because we use our hands so little.

Yeah, their forearms get so pumped. And I've been here before where I'm curling and it's actually the pump in my forearms and then my grip gives out before my biceps give

out. Now, forearms are easy to train. Wrist curls, so really anything with resistance where you're curling the wrist, you could do this over a bench or even just standing. Reverse wrist curls,

where

you're just pulling up and then reverse bicep curls or reverse grip curls which you were talking about. This right here, this right here develops this muscle here at the top of the forearm called the brachioradialis here at the top of the elbow and nothing will hit that muscle like a reverse grip, reverse curl. And if you've never done these before, go light, because they get real sore.

Because it gets tight and sore. That's 1 that you'll feel for a couple of days.

And then 1 of my favorite exercises just for overall grip strength, overall stability throughout the entire body, and of course, developing the forearms, heavy, firmer walks. Like you hold on to heavy pair of dumbbells for time while you're walking. And it's an isometric lift, it's true, it's not a full range of motion exercise, but you typically use your forearms in isometric ways. So it's not a bad way to train the forearms. And it's a very functional way to train the forearms because again, you typically need to be able to hold on to something.

Yeah. Well, now how do you feel in terms of like, because we talked a little bit about different handles and grips and things for like bicep tricep, different with forearms, right? Yes. Benefit there.

Different thicknesses of the bar. So because it's an isometric, most of the strength that I'm gonna build is gonna be in the size, that's gonna be determined by the size of the bar that I'm holding. But you could wrap a towel around it and you can have a thicker handle and now it's a different position. Or you can wrap a towel around it, hold the towel itself.

Or you

can pinch grip things in this fashion or even in this fashion, and now you're working different positions.

Now order here, okay, forearms last, not beginning of workout.

Don't work your forearms before your biceps.

Yeah, because you don't want your forearms to fatigue and limit your ability to

do the other. Unless this is like a specialized area for you, it's an area

you want

to focus on, then I'd say it's training first, but rarely ever, I've never had a client I trained forearms before biceps and triceps.

No, that's always, I finished

with that.

I finished with a forearm exercise.

Always at the end of the arm workout.

And then all the other same rules apply that we always talk about with sets and reps, right? I mean, all the research is somewhere between 12 to 20 sets total in a month. Per week. Yeah, per week is what your, did I say month? Per week is what's optimal.

Although I will say this, you could probably get away with, and I'm gonna explain why, you typically people get away with less sets for arms.

Because you're doing it in the other compound lifts?

Yeah, because every time you're working your chest and your back and your shoulders, you're probably involving the triceps and biceps.

That's how my training has completely flipped from when I was a kid and all I did was bicep and tricep stuff all the time. I rarely actually do them now Because I do so much compound lifting, which I neglected when I was younger, it doesn't take much. And obviously, I attribute some of that to how much I train them for so long that when I do heavy bench, heavy pull-ups, I do row, even deadlifting. Deadlifting stimulates your bicep. You do some of these heavy compound lifts, it just doesn't take that much of arm work to continue to stimulate and grow the arms.

No, I do, on average, I'll do anywhere between 12 to 15 sets per body part per week, but arms are always about 9, maybe 10 or

11,

because they're getting hit with all the other stuff. It's like, it would be over-training almost, or a waste of time for me to do as many sets for my biceps as

I do for- Yeah,

they're involved with

almost everything. That's right,

that's right. And forearms, I do even way less, because every back and arm extra, every time you grab something, you need to hold on to it. Those forums,

you know, the strong, I've had phases where I've been on like forum kicks training like that. I never got bigger, stronger forums and just actually all focused on my deadlift. No forum, no forum training. Just when I was list of farmer walks when I was, yeah. And that was, that was in there actually when I was doing that, because we were doing that all training together back in those days.

When I was chasing your deadlift number, that was the strongest my forearm. And I didn't do a single forearm exercise. It was just from getting really, really strong. Holding on

to the weight.

Yeah, you can hold on to 500 pounds, Adele, with no straps.

You're going to

have some serious

forearm strength.

Excellent. Look, if you like Mind Pump, if you want to follow some of our workouts, check this out. Go to Instagram, mindpumpmedia, for under $5 a month. We will provide a new workout every single week. So you don't have to get 1 of our full programs.

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