Destination Jacked: Muscle Headquarters : The Science of Building Big Arms: A How-To Guide

There has been an abundant amount of research in recent years that has confirmed some of the most effective and best ways to build a significant amount of muscle mass.

By applying some of these well-documented principles, you can apply some of scientifically proven ways to build big arms.

What Are Considered Big Arms?

The most popular post on this blog is What Are Considered Big Arms. I’ve written and spoken extensively over the years on how to gauge the size of your biceps and triceps s to determine if your arms can be called big.

In the article, I go in depth on how to tell if you have big arms but I’ll give you the breakdown here:

11–12 inches – Small arms.

13-14 inches – Moderately small arms.

15-16 inches – Decent size arms.

17-18 inches – Muscular arms. .

19-20 inches – Big Arms.

21+ inches – Massive Arms.

How to Grow Big Arms – Latest Research

Based on the latest scientific research and literature, the mechanism and process of what is called stretch mediated hypertrophy seems to be superior for growing muscle tissue, including building big arms.

Simply stated, stretch mediated hypertrophy is the process of growing muscle mass by performing exercises and allowing the muscles to experience stretch and tension under load. In even simpler terms, it is likely that the best way to build muscle is by doing resistance exercises using a full range of motion with emphasis on the stretched portion of each repetition.

It’s quite simple to build big arms by taking advantage of the mechanisms involved in stretch mediated hypertrophy. Here are some of the best exercises using this technique to build large biceps and big triceps:

diagram of building arm muscles with preacher curls

Biceps

Preacher curls
Cable curls
Incline dumbbell curls

Triceps

JM Press
Overhead triceps extension
Skull crushers

These exercises are just a few of the many effective exercises to promote muscle growth of the biceps and triceps.

It should be remembered that to experience the benefits of stretch mediated hypertrophy to grow the muscles of the arms, each repetition should be performed using complete range of motion with primary focus on the lengthened, or stretched, portion of the rep.

How Long Does It Take to Build Big Arms?

How long it takes to build large muscles of the upper arm depends on a few variables.

Genetics are probably the most influential factor in how much muscle you can grow and how long it will take to build noticeable muscle mass. You are born with qualities that determine how much and how long it will take to build a significant amount of muscle mass.

Your genetics cannot be changed but you can take advantage of your strengths and optimize your potential to reach your full genetic abilities by implementing sound training principles and eating mostly nutritious foods.

Training age, or how long you have been consistently working out with weights, also determines how long it takes to build big arms. If you are new to resistance training, you are likely to notice muscle growth rapidly, at least for the first year or so.

Once you’ve consistently lifted weights for two to five years, muscle growth will come a little bit slower. After seven to ten years of regular weightlifting, muscle growth will slow significantly. This is why it is important to keep solid training principles in your exercise or diet plan.

Consistency and how much focus you put on your bicep and triceps training will make a big difference in your upper arm growth. To grow big arms, you must focus your weight training on exercises that target the biceps and the triceps and do it regularly and consistently.

Growing Big Arms - Pro Tips

Build Your Program Based on Specificity

The best way to build big arms is to perform bicep and triceps exercises first, or at the beginning of your workouts. This may mean that you can’t use a lot of weight on other exercises such as bench presses and rows, but the idea is to grow the biceps and triceps, not build strength in other exercises.

Additionally, your exercise selection, order of exercises and choice of exercises should focus on isolating the muscles of the arms.

For an advanced, scientifically-based look at how to optimally build muscle, Renaissance Periodization's Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training is the most comprehensive text on developing the best muscle building programs that I have read to date.

Train Your Arms Frequently

The biceps and triceps muscles are relatively small and recover faster than large muscle groups like the legs and back. That means that they can be, and should be, trained more often. You can perform arm exercises two to five times per week.

Track Volume

A good way to keep track of how many exercises your doing to build big arms is to count your weekly working sets in a workout journal like the Fit Log. Begin by trying to do 8 – 12 sets each for your biceps and triceps and spread them out over a few days per week.

Determine how sore your arm muscles are between workouts and increase or decrease your sets as needed over the next few weeks. If you can manage to improve your technique, strength and manage your level of fatigue, you can increase your total number of weekly sets for your arm muscles as high as 18 – 24 over 3 – 5 days. That means that you may be doing as few as 4 sets of bicep and triceps exercises per workout.

Use Periodization

Focus on pre-planned periods of training to optimize muscle growth. By paying attention to your strength, growth and level of fatigue and soreness, you can increase your total number of sets and effort over a period of four to eight weeks.

After you’ve reached a limit where your workouts start to suffer, back off the load and volume for a week or so before beginning another period of four to eight weeks of gradual accumulation of weight and number of total sets.