arnold schwarzenegger

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Training Tips Long before he governed the Golden State and outmuscled bad guys on the silver screen, even before he won a then-record seven Mr. Olympia titles, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a promising young bodybuilder who had one glaring weakness (seriously) -- his legs. At 6'2", Arnold knew firsthand the difficulty tall bodybuilders face in bringing up their lower bodies. Rather than accepting this shortcoming, however, Arnold endured the most grueling, even sickening, workouts up to three times a week to build massive tree-trunk thighs worthy of someone nicknamed The Oak. While Arnold did conventional exercises, his training strategy was anything but. He approached leg days with an extraordinary tolerance for pain and dedication to push his body past its physical limits. While anyone can repeat the six exercises that make up his routine, few can duplicate his legs-into-Jell-O intensity. But we're guessing at least a few of you have the cojones to give it a try. That's why, for the first time ever, M&F is publishing the incredibly effective workout and training techniques that completely transformed Arnold'’s legs. Turn up the Volume Endurance, in addition to sheer size, makes the legs a difficult bodypart to train. "It isn't enough just to subject the legs to heavy overload"” Arnold said. "“You have to use

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Training Tips

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Training Tips

Long before he governed the Golden State and outmuscled bad guys on the silver screen, even before he won a then-record seven Mr. Olympia titles, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a promising young bodybuilder who had one glaring weakness (seriously) -- his legs. At 6'2", Arnold knew firsthand the difficulty tall bodybuilders face in bringing up their lower bodies. Rather than accepting this shortcoming, however, Arnold endured the most grueling, even sickening, workouts up to three times a week to build massive tree-trunk thighs worthy of someone nicknamed The Oak.

While Arnold did conventional exercises, his training strategy was anything but. He approached leg days with an extraordinary tolerance for pain and dedication to push his body past its physical limits. While anyone can repeat the six exercises that make up his routine, few can duplicate his legs-into-Jell-O intensity. But we're guessing at least a few of you have the cojones to give it a try. That's why, for the first time ever, M&F is publishing the incredibly effective workout and training techniques that completely transformed Arnold's legs.

Turn up the Volume

Endurance, in addition to sheer size, makes the legs a difficult bodypart to train. "It isn't enough just to subject the legs to heavy overload" Arnold said. "You have to use heavy weights and sufficient volume to stress the fibers involved and exhaust the endurance capacity of the muscles".

Arnold's early training wasn't sufficiently high in volume. "For many years I did only five sets of squats when I really should have been doing eight . . . [and] I did not put enough weight on the leg-press machine" he said. "Once I realized my mistakes and corrected them, my thighs began to grow thick and massive". At his peak, Arnold did at least 20 working sets for legs and took each set except his warm-ups to failure. This high-volume approach helped him put on the size and build the strength (his best was a 400-pound squat for eight reps) that turned around a weak bodypart.

Note: Arnold's high-volume approach is extremely taxing at first, but eventually the body adapts and grows stronger. Stick with it for 6-8 weeks to induce dramatic changes in your own legs.

Mind Over Muscle

Muscle fatigue inevitably sets in when you do several sets to failure, but Arnold used his mind to fight it.

"I accepted the fact that leg workouts simply have to be brutal to be effective" he said. "Normal workouts are hard enough, but if thighs happen to be a weak point in your physique, you have to be prepared to push yourself even more. This involves a mental effort almost as much as a physical one. . . . This means forcing yourself to break down any inhibition or barrier".

Note: Don't train legs without a partner. "A good training partner pushes you to handle more poundage and gives you incentive to grind out more reps per set" Arnold wrote in his early autobiography. "Workouts are more fun with a partner as well as more competitive . . . you challenge each other". When you've forced out all the reps you can for squats, for example, stand holding the weight for a moment, then do one more rep (with a partner spotting you) to push your body to its absolute limit.

Shock it to Me

Arnold found that traditional training techniques weren't enough to bring up his legs. At various times -- especially before a competition -- he used partial reps, drop sets, supersets and pre-exhausting techniques to make his thighs work overtime and bring out their muscular detail. Anyone with at least six months of training experience can increase his workout intensity with advanced training principles.

Note: When you reach failure, don't just put down the weight and take a breather. Try the following techniques to push your leg workouts and test your physical limits -- or at least make it unbearable to walk up a flight of stairs.

Partial Reps When you can't complete any more reps with a full range of motion, do more with just a portion of the movement, such as three-quarters or just half of the full range of motion.

Drop Sets (AKA Strip Sets) After you reach muscle failure on a particular exercise, instead of stopping, immediately reduce the weight by about 25% and continue repping out. This allows you to continue a set well past the point when you'd normally stop because you're using a lighter weight.

SupersetsTrain two opposing muscle groups, like quads and hamstrings, back to back without resting to speed up your workout and get a tremendous pump in the working muscles. Arnold favored the pairing of front squat (which hit the quads hard) with the leg curl (for hamstrings).

Pre-ExhaustionDo an isolation exercise, such as the leg extension, before a more demanding one such as a squat. This pre-exhausts the quadriceps, making them the weak link in a squat. "I hit the leg extension hard, so I was very tired when I got to squats" Arnold wrote. "But I kept trying and soon was able to do heavy squats immediately after leg extensions, and my thighs responded tremendously".

Next step?Infuse your training sessions with some of the principles that worked for Arnold and follow his brutal yet effective leg workout. Just one piece of advice: Skip the stairs after you're done.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Secrets For Building Mind-Blowing Arms

Arnold hit every muscle group with unparalleled intensity. Build epic arms by following his principles and workouts!

Arm training for Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't simply about hitting the gym and doing a few finishing sets. Not Arnold.

He hit every body part with mind-numbing intensity and developed every muscle group to its maximum. To build the massive upper appendages that allowed him to win seven Olympia titles, Arnold employed every trick in the bodybuilding book.

What follows is a detailed look at what arm-training techniques Arnold employed, as well as two programs, one basic and one advanced, based on the Oak's methods. Use them to develop your own massive guns, if you're up to the task!

Arnold's Arm Training Principles

When aiming to build his arms, Arnold would use his brain and instincts as much as sheer strength. He advised all who aim for similar development to do the same. The following are some of the major principals he applied to arm training.

Aim For Equal Development ///Arnold always believed that since the arms can be seen from all poses and from every conceivable angle, they should be trained from all angles.

"You don't develop championship-winning arms simply by throwing around a heavy barbell doing curls or blasting out some reps for triceps," he said. Clear visible development between all muscle of the arms with equally full muscle bellies and perfect balance is what Arnold constantly sought.

To achieve balance, proportion, size and shape in the arms, work all arm muscles with equal intensity. Break the individual muscles of the arms down into separate categories. This is where planning your arm training routine is all-important.

Keep Things In Perspective ///Although Arnold advocated training biceps, triceps, and forearms with equal intensity, he also liked to draw attention to the fact that the triceps are the larger and more complex muscle group of the upper arm. The biceps have two heads, while the triceps have three.

As such, Arnold suggested viewing your arm as being one-third biceps and two-thirds triceps, because while it is possible to hide your biceps in some poses, it is almost impossible to hide your triceps. Therefore, he advised, the triceps need to be trained from more angles. When training the triceps, use a variety of exercises to hit all three heads.

Focus ///Concentrating on every rep of every set was something Arnold did religiously. It is often said that once Arnold began to focus on his set, nothing could distract him.

After training, Arnold was a lighthearted guy, but once in the gym he was all business. At no time was this more evident than when he trained his arms. Arnold would visualize what he wanted to achieve, believing that this would actually force gains in muscle size.

His visualization quote has been repeated countless times, but the image is vivid enough to deserve revisiting: "In my mind I saw my biceps as mountains, enormously huge, and I pictured myself lifting tremendous amounts of weight with these superhuman masses of muscle."

For anyone who wishes to gain boundless muscle size and shape, the power of the mind cannot be underestimated. It was Arnold's secret weapon in the fight for huge arms.

Shock The Muscles Into Change ///Arnold always believed that the body was amazingly adaptable and could "accustom itself to workloads that would fell a horse."

However, he knew that even training at a very high intensity level will elicit no new gains if it is all done in the same manner, with the same routines, day in and day out.

Arnold advised "shocking" the arms by integrating tricks like switching up weight amounts, adding reps and sets, speeding up training so as to lift more forcefully, decreasing rest between sets, performing unfamiliar exercises, and doing your normal exercises in an unfamiliar order.

To meet the overarching goal of keeping the muscles constantly guessing as to whateach new training stimulus will bring, he also advocated integrating "intensity methods" such as:

Forced Reps: Forced reps are employed by having a training partner assist you with a final rep that would otherwise be impossible to achieve on your own. This method to shock the muscles should be used sparingly, perhaps once every second workout for one set per exercise.

Partial Reps: Except in the case of lying triceps work, partial reps can be completed without the assistance of a partner. To perform partial reps, continue with reps of decreasing range when muscle fatigue begins. For example, upon completing a set of barbell curls, continue with partial (half- or quarter-reps) until the bar can no longer be moved even an inch. Again, use this technique sparingly.

Negative Repetitions: This muscle-shocking technique can be incorporated two ways. The negative, or lowering half, of the repetition can be emphasized in the normal course of the workout, rather than just to set up the contracting, or raising. In the second method, a partner can assist a forced negative at the end of a hard set.

For partner assisted negatives, have someone assist you on the upward phase of the movement and complete the negative on your own. Do two to three such reps and then have your partner rack the weight.

While emphasizing the negative can, and should, be done often, forced negatives can be used every second or third workout to stretch out the muscle fibers and assist new growth. Negatives will also build ligaments and tendons faster than conventional reps and, in the long run, this will enable the muscle to lift heavier weight, which will translate into new growth.

Use Perfect Technique ///To fully isolate the biceps muscle when curling, Arnold would advise newcomers to perform this movement with their backs against a wall. When doing strict curls he believed that the arms, and only the arms, were to do the work. Any other muscular involvement would dilute the isolating effect the exercise aimed to achieve.

"You also need to find the right groove, and do any curl movement through the longest range of motion," he said. "When you do a curl you must bring your hand directly up to your shoulder. If you change that line an inch to the inside or the outside, you are taking the stress off the biceps and you won't get the same results."

The same thing applies to triceps and forearm training. Engage each rep through its full range of motion in a controlled fashion for optimal results.

Arnold also believed hand grip to be all-important to his success. He would advice against starting off a curl movement by bending the wrist back and up. He said, "All this does is take stress away from the biceps by using forearm strength rather than biceps strength, and the result will be huge forearms and mediocre biceps."

Cheating ///Although he stipulated perfect form as a rule, Arnold saw cheating as an effective way to fully tax the muscles while arm training.

In fact, Arnold was one of the first advocates for cheating, and his mentor Joe Weider eventually standardized it as one of his Weider training principals.

Arnold's specific brand of "controlled cheating" was acceptable, he said, because it it actually made the exercise more difficult. Here's how he explained it in The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding:

"Say you are doing a heavy barbell curl. You curl the weight up five or six times, and then find you are too tired to continue to do strict reps. At this point you begin to use you shoulders and back to help you in the lift slightly so that you can do another four or five reps. But you cheat just enough so you can continue the set, and your biceps continue to work as hard as they can. By cheating you have forced the biceps to do more work than they could have done without help from the other muscles, so you have to put more stress on them, not less."

The cheating method can also be applied to dumbbell curls and other curling variations.

Use Supersets ///Always a big believer in maximizing his time in the gym, Arnold often employed supersets in his training. He was especially noted for using this method to build his superior arms. The second arm workout featured in this article is comprised primarily of supersets that maximize stimulation of the biceps and triceps.

Supersets work to shock the muscles by compounding the stress the entire muscle grouping receives. This forces as much blood as possible into the target area, leading to superior growth.

Prioritize Weak Points ///If you have a body part that is especially lagging, Arnold advised priority training it. This principal, when applied to arm training, is most often used by those with severely underdeveloped forearms, which are often a result of a genetic weakness more than anything else.

To prioritize weak forearms, Arnold suggested training them "by themselves when you are rested and strong." This can be done either before training any other arm muscle or on a separate day on their own. Alternatively Arnold suggested training lagging forearms on leg days when the rest of your arms are being rested.

However, even though you may do everything to plan and execute his suggestions perfectly, there may still be weak points that need specific attention. These should be targeted and should be trained accordingly. For biceps, triceps, and forearms Arnold recommended targeting weak points in several ways.

Use Dumbells: Using dumbbells with one arm at a time instead of barbells with both arms will allow a greater degree of focus to be applied on each side of the body. This helps to bring out the best in each individual set of muscles. Said Arnold: "Doing an entire set with just one arm at a time allows for maximum concentration and intensity, and ensures that each arm works to its maximum."

Start With Your Weakness: Training your weak point first will allow this muscle to work harder, as it will be fresher and more receptive.

Emphasize Technique: Maintaining correct form is even more difficult for a weak muscle group, as it will not often have sufficient strength to allow the weight to follow the correct movement arch. Therefore special emphasis must be placed on technique when training weak groupings.

Posing ///One memorable scene from Pumping Iron shows Arnold flexing and posing his muscles between sets, when they are pumped to the limit. Arnold believed that posing between sets allowed him to gain mastery over the muscles he was training and lengthen the individual muscles for more complete development.

Running through the basic compulsory poses, ones that employ to a large extent the arms, and holding each pose for a minimum of three seconds, is one way to further peak contract them and flush them with blood.

Change Hand Position ///Arnold's proclivity for changing his workouts around to continually stimulate the muscles extended to his hands as well. He advised changing his hand spacing regularly, as the subtle differences caused by hand position can help to completely stimulate all the different areas of a muscle.

This can be applied to biceps, triceps and forearms training as a further way to shock the muscles into new growth. For example, biceps and wrist curls and pressdowns can be done with a wide, narrow, reverse or medium grip.

31 Arnold-Approved Training Tips

Have you ever asked yourself, "What would Arnold Schwarzenegger do?" These 31 ironclad tips straight from the Oak's library answer that question, and they'll help you grow!

Long before he was paid $25 million for his movie roles, Arnold Schwarzenegger penned monthly articles for bodybuilding godfather Joe Weider's muscle magazines. Arnold's writing didn't win any journalism awards, but he later collected his ideas and training philosophies in his best-selling "The New Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding," which is still used as a reference tool by bodybuilders today.

Perusing Arnold's signature tome requires some effort: The hardback version comes in at an even 800 pages, after all! While it's hefty weight might make it a nice addition to your coffee table, the nuggets of training gold take a little work to find. In the interest of mining the best knowledge from one of the strongest minds in bodybuilding, here are 31 Arnold-approved training tips to help you build your best body ever!

General Training Tips

1

Choose the Best Exercises For Growth

For the Oak, training hard was as important as training smart. "To get big, you have to get strong," he wrote. "Beginning and intermediate bodybuilders shouldn't be as concerned with refinement as with growth."

With this in mind, focus less on single-joint movements (sometimes called isolation exercises) in favor of multijoint ones. The bench press, squat, deadlift, overhead press, bent-over row, and power clean are examples of solid multijoint exercises that require several muscle groups to work in coordination. These exercises should form the foundation of your training plan.

While these movements are more difficult to master than their single-joint counterparts, they offer the added benefit of allowing you to train very heavy to overload the target muscle groups. Arnold believed that performing these moves and challenging yourself with heavy weights was the single most critical component of gaining strength and size.

2

Use Heavy Weights for Low Reps

For Arnold, choosing the right load was just as important as selecting the right exercise. After all, 8 reps of squats with 365 pounds taken to failure elicits a far better muscle-building stimulus than a set of 95 pounds for 40 reps.

"Start with a few warm-ups [not taken to muscle failure] and pyramid the weight up from one set to the next, decreasing the reps and going to failure," Arnold wrote. "Usually, I'll have someone stand by to give me just a little bit of help past a sticking point or cheat the weight up just a little [once I've reached muscle failure]."

Arnold wasn't just concerned with feeling the weight; he wanted to make sure the load induced muscle failure at a target range: "I make a point of never doing fewer than six repetitions per set with most movements," he notes," and nothing higher than 12. The rule applies to most body parts, including calves." Make sure to choose the right weight to fail within that rep range.

3

Don't Get Comfortable With a Routine

Few people know that Arnold has a business degree, but he didn't need his diploma to realize that diminishing returns applies to workouts, too.

Do the same workout for too long without making significant changes, and its value will fall over time. That's when a bodybuilder finds himself in a training rut.

"Within a basic framework, I was constantly changing my exercises," Arnold wrote. "I liked to shock the muscles by not letting them get complacent in a constant routine."

Arnold did his homework when it came to planning his training sessions. If he found that an exercise was no longer producing gains, he'd switch it for another.

Never afraid to experiment with new exercises or alternative training methods, Arnold was on a perpetual search for new ways to become bigger and better as old ways became stale.

4

Go Past Failure With Advanced Techniques

In his book, Arnold identified the use of a number of advanced training techniques as a weapon to bring up a lagging body part. Arnold used just about every intensity booster in the book, so to speak, but he zeroed in on what worked best for him simply through trial and error.

Don't be afraid to apply such techniques as forced reps, negatives, dropsets, partials, rest-pause, or other ideas you may read about to your own training. Be sure to evaluate how you feel after using one, and remember not to take every set past muscle failure; save it for your 1-2 heaviest sets of each exercise.

5

Guard Against Overtraining

In your zeal to bring up a stubborn muscle group, you might be tempted to employ the "throw everything at 'em but the kitchen sink" approach, but Arnold warned that this strategy might be counterproductive. "There will be times when a body part lags behind because you are overtraining it, hitting it so hard, so often, and so intensely that it never has a chance to rest, recuperate, and grow," he wrote.

"The answer to this problem is simply to give the muscles involved a chance to rest and recover, and then to adjust your training schedule so that you don't overtrain [the same body part] again. Remember, too much can be as bad as too little when it comes to bodybuilding training."

Shoulders

6

Overhead Presses Are Your Best Mass Builder

Multijoint movements like presses and upright rows are the best mass builders for shoulders, since they engage the greatest degree of deltoid musculature. Arnold would go heavy with these movements, especially early in his workouts when his energy levels were highest. He commonly did presses both behind and in front of his head for complete development.

7

Learn Multiple Ways to Do the Same Movement

Small differences in how similar movements are done work the target musculature in slightly different ways, allowing for greater overall stimulus.

Arnold sought out alternative exercises that worked a target muscle from slightly different angles. When using dumbbells rather than the barbell on overhead presses, for example, he deliberately lowered the weights several inches below the bottom position of the barbell movement, and he brought them together at the top to elongate the range of motion.

8

Attack Each Delt Head With A Single-Joint Move

Arnold used single-joint movements to complement overhead presses and isolate each delt head individually. Here, too, he sought subtle differences that would, over time, build better overall size. For example, the cable lateral raise in front of the body has a slightly different feel than when the cable runs behind you. Knowing how to do a given movement pattern on different pieces of equipment is, according to Arnold, essential for a bodybuilder to take his physique to the next level.

9

Train Upper Traps With Delts

Because the upper traps get some degree of stimulation during many shoulder exercises, Arnold trained them with delts. His main upper-trap exercise was the shrug, though he noted that maximizing the size of this muscle required a number of other movements, including power pulls, cleans, and upright rows. Because the range of motion in a shrug is fairly short, Arnold recommended backing off on the weight in favor of being able to fully shrug your shoulders as high as possible.

Biceps

10

Build Mass With the Standing Barbell Curl

Arnold loved the standing barbell curl for building baseball biceps. When looking for a major mass-building move, Arnold preferred exercises that allowed him to push heavy weight, let him achieve a full range of motion, and could be hammered for 6-8 heavy reps. That's how he built his biceps into mountains, and it's a great start for your workout, too.

11

Don't Stop At Failure

While the Oak commonly took his curls to muscle failure, he didn't stop there. Once he reached a sticking point, he'd use just enough momentum to keep the set going. Such cheat curls allowed him to complete an extra couple of reps, helping to further stimulate the muscle.

12

Supinate Your Dumbbell Curls

Arnold wrote that he always included at least one dumbbell movement in his routine. By supinating his hand (turning it upward as he curled), he felt he got a greater "peaking" effect because the brachialis is recruited into the motion when the hand starts in the neutral position. Arnold performed supinating dumbbell curls simultaneously and with alternating reps. The latter allows more body English and a bit of rest between reps.

13

Use Higher Reps on Certain Exercises

Not every biceps movement was done for 6-8 reps. Arnold identified certain exercises that he called "definition-building movements," which he performed with relatively lighter weights for sets of 8-12 reps. Here, his focus was on squeezing and contracting the muscle, and holding the peak contraction for a long count. Concentration curls, preacher curls, and alternating dumbbell curls were among his favorites.

Triceps

14

Experiment With a Strong Body Part

Arnold's chest and triceps were particularly strong body parts, so he didn't train them in the same ways he did his biceps. Because his triceps were already strong, Arnold allowed his rep range to drift up to 20 per set in an effort to hyperpump the muscle.

15

Find the Target of an Exercise

"It's silly doing a triceps movement and not knowing precisely which part of the triceps you're hitting," Arnold wrote. Great advice, but how should you apply it?

Arnold suggested a tip he learned from legendary trainer Vince Gironda: Do 20 sets of a particular movement, and then nothing else for that body part.

See where the soreness is most concentrated the following day.

16

Add Partials After Failure

With triceps, Arnold's advanced technique of choice was partial reps. After doing a set of full-range push-downs, for example, he'd extend the set with 5-6 partials, either over the top or bottom half of the movement.

Even though he couldn't do any more full-range reps and was limited by the sticking point, he could still manage a few more reps to really spur growth.

17

Do Supersets to Intensify the Pump

Arnold frequently supersetted biceps and triceps movementsor, in other words, performed exercises back to backto bring an enormous amount of blood into his arms. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients critical for growth, but these supersets also enabled Arnold to achieve his ultimate training goal: a killer pump. Supersetting a smaller muscle group like arms is easier than a larger one like legs, though Arnold often did that pre-contest as well.

Legs

18

Prioritize Your Weaknesses

If you've got big pecs, it's only natural to want to show them off, and you probably also give them a little extra effort in the gym. But Arnold took exactly the opposite approach. In fact, at one point, Arnold decided his calves had fallen behind the rest of his physique in overall development.

Rather than hide the glaring weakness, he famously cut off the lower half of his pants and wore shorts to constantly remind himself of his weakness and redouble his efforts to bring them up. He trained calves more frequently, early in his workouts when he was fresh, and sometimes between sets for larger body parts, a strategy that helped him claim the world's biggest bodybuilding title.

19

Test Everything

Being long-legged, calves weren't Arnold's only shortcomings early in his career; his thighs were also comparatively small. That meant throwing out the usual playbook on leg day. "Building up legs was hard for me because I have long legs and long leg muscles," he wrote.

"The long-legged bodybuilder has to explore a wider variety of exercises in his lower-body routine. That means incorporating other exercises until you find out which ones make your legs respond best. And you have to keep varying your routine so that your muscles are constantly surprised by the demands you're putting on them."

20

Adjust Your Stance As Needed

When squatting, Arnold found that different foot positions worked different areas of the thighs. "With my feet farther apart and toes pointed out, I feel squats on the insides of my thighs," he wrote. "The position of the feet largely determines which part of the thigh is most affected."

Arnold liked to use various squats and squat machines, both standing and lying, so he could to use various foot placements and target every part of his legs.

21

Use Machine Squats to Your Advantage

Machine squats may not be superior to free-weight ones, but Arnold goosed them to make them harder. Here, Arnold used a shortened range of motiongoing about three-fourths of the way down to a quarter of the way from the top, a technique he called "tension squats"which allowed him to induce an incredible burn without having to balance the weight.

22

Add Hamstring Exercises

While the hammies get worked during basic squat and leg-press movements, contracting to control the speed of the descent as the quads are being stretched, Arnold argued that you still need to do exercises that directly target this area.

Deadlifts are a great total-body movement, and single-joint leg curls and Romanian deadlifts also focus on the rear thighs. Hamstring strength is important to reduce the risk of knee injuries, which can occur when the strength of the quads overpowers the strength of the hams.

Abs

23

Train Your Abs Indirectly

Arnold's approach to ab training was fairly simple, and he had a few favorite moves that he did for fairly high reps. Then again, when you consider how hard he trained his core with his thrice-weekly leg and back workouts, you'd venture he probably didn't even need to train his abs at all.

Heavy, multijoint free-weight movements clearly played a bigger role both in the strength and aesthetics of his midsection than his limited abdominal workouts.

Chest

24

Build Strength to Build Size

For Arnold, building a big chest started with training for strength since he competed as a powerlifter early in his career. With a foundation of strength, Arnold discovered that gains in size came easier. Consider an offseason powerlifting cycle to help boost all your numbers before shifting back into bodybuilding-style training. For the record, Arnold once benched 225 pounds for 60 reps!

25

Use Multiple Angles

Arnold included basic multijoint movements in his routine that hit the pecs from a variety of angles. "I knew the routine had to be basic and very heavy," he wrote. Basic, for Arnold, meant sticking to flat, incline, and decline benches while occasionally training like a powerlifter rather than trying a multitude of machines or using trendy techniques. Arnold saved pumping sets for the end of his workout.

26

Cycle Training Volume to Spur Growth

What makes Arnold's routine stand out today is the volume and frequency with which he trained every body part. His offseason chest routine consisted of up to 26 working sets on a high-volume day, and he trained his pecs three times a week! Arnold also cycled heavy and light days to work the muscles with different relative intensities and ensure he wasn't overtraining his pecs.

That kind of volume and frequency suited the Oak during his competitive years, but cycling off periods of high volume or high-frequency training ensures you're less likely to overtrain.

27

Get to Know Dumbbell Variations

While Arnold favored barbells in the gym because of the heavier weights he could lift, he knew the advantages of dumbbells. "I feel a better stretch when doing dumbbells, especially with incline movements. The dumbbells can be lowered deeper than a barbell," he noted.

Dumbbells allow you to work through a longer range of motion, but be careful not to overstretch the shoulder joint at the bottom of the move.

Back

28

Vary Your Pull-ups and Pull-downs

Arnold typically divided his back training into two types of movements: chinning and pull-downs for width, and rows for overall thickness. With the former, he used all kinds of variations, in part because he had to bring his back up to match his pecs.

So he did underhand-grip chins and pull-ups with and without added weight, and he varied his pull-downs, sometimes bringing the bar behind his head and other times to his chest. The net result was an assault that worked the lats from multiple angles for better overall development.

29

Mind Your Elbows

"Wide-grip pull-ups coax the upper lats to come out," Arnold wrote. Understand that with wide-grip movements, the elbows stay out away from the sides, which engages the upper lats more effectively. With closer-grip and reverse-grip back exercises, the elbows stay in tighter to the sides, which reduces the emphasis on the upper lats and instead places more of the focus on the lower lats. So depending on elbow position relative to your torso, you can effectively focus on some areas of the back over others.

30

Shoot for a Rep Target

Most trainers typically do 3-4 sets of an exercise, but with chins Arnold commonly used a technique in which he aimed for a total number of repssay, 50rather than target a particular number of sets: "On the first set you may do 10 reps. Perhaps you struggle with 8 reps on the second set. You have 18 reps now. If you make 5 on the third set, you have 23 reps. You continue to add them until you've reached 50, even though it may take you 20 sets to do it. That's how I built up my chinning power, and I was very successful with it."

31

Do Rows, Pyramiding the Weight Up

Exercises in which you pull the weight perpendicularly into your bodyoften called rowswere a big part of Arnold's back workout. He favored all kinds of variationsseated cables rows, T-bar rows, bent-over barbell rowsbut each one was done with high volume and progressively heavier weights. Arnold followed a pyramid scheme in which he increased the weight on successive sets for fewer reps. Only the heaviest sets were taken to muscle failure.

Grow Like the Oak

Armed with these 31 ironclad tips, it's your turn to train and grow like Arnold! Get to the gym, get under the bar, and be sure to hit compound exercises for some heavy weight. Oh, and if you have any favorite tips to share on your way out, drop them in the comments section below!

5 Tips for Bigger Biceps

By Nick Tumminello

Heres your step-by-step guide through 5 battle-tested biceps workout tips and training strategies we've used with athletes and bodybuilders to help them pump up their arms and build bigger biceps.

1. Mix up your Force Angles to target the Biceps PeakWe all know that using a variety of exercises helps make our arm workouts (and all other weight training workouts for that matter) more versatile and more effective. But, its important to understand that simply changing the exercises doesnt always mean youre hitting your biceps in a different way.

You see, to thoroughly hit your biceps (or any other muscle group youre training) you need to mix up the force angles, which changes the point of exercise (within the range of motion) where the muscle(s) is being maximally loaded, within a given workout.

Many lifters are under the impression that each time you change the exercise youre changing the force angle. But this is not so, as many biceps curl exercises may look different - Example: Barbell biceps curls, EZ-bar curls and dumbbell biceps curls but they may create the same force angle, which, therefore, hits your biceps in basically the same way.

Heres a quick lesson on Biomechanics to help you better understand force angles:

All exercises that involve free weights and cables have a point within the range of motion (ROM) where the exercise is hardest on the muscle(s) involved, and where the exercise is the easiest. The point at which the exercise is most difficult is where the lever arm becomes the longest, which makes the muscles involved work the hardest.

During any style of biceps curl with a free weight (dumbbell, barbell or EZ-bar) the point at which your biceps is being maximally loaded (stimulated) is the point in the ROM in which your forearm is at a 90-degree angle with the load vector, which in the case of free-weights, gravity is your load vector.

In other words, when using free weights the point of maximal loading on your biceps (during a biceps curl) is when your elbow reaches 90 degrees of flexion or when your forearm is parallel to the floor.

When doing biceps curls using a cable column, the cable itself is the load vector and the point of maximal loading to your biceps here is when your forearm makes a 90-degree angle with the cable.

The nice thing about the cable column is that you can manipulate the force vector to make your biceps work the hardest in ranges of motion (of the biceps curl) that free weights miss.

Heres a way we use a cable column to create a maximal force angle at the top point in the range of motion. In this video youll see how the 90-degree angle is created much higher in the ROM, which we use to maximally stimulate the biceps at the "peak" of the contraction.

Now, dont get it twisted as I'm not saying you can isolate out any particular portion of your biceps (upper, middle or lower) when doing curls; you can't do that with any exercise for any muscle. But, as Ive demonstrated in the video above, you certainly can manipulate the force angles during exercises to cause the point of maximal loading (on the biceps) to be at different points within the range of motion of a biceps curl.

2. Use an Offset GripBasic anatomy tells us that our biceps are not only elbow flexors, but theyre also forearm supinators. Based on this, weve found the best way to ensure maximal biceps recruitment when doing dumbbell biceps curls is to hit both (resisted) elbow flexion and forearm supination by holding the handle in a unique way.

Heres a new gripping strategy we use, which I can promise will give you a much better biceps pump!

Instead of gripping the dumbbell from the middle (in the traditional manner), grip toward the thumb side with your hand as far to this side as possible.

Doing this will force you to resist forearm pronation by using more of your biceps as supinators while you perform the biceps dumbbell curl exercise as long as you perform them in the manner we display in this video:

3. 60/30 Biceps BlasterThis biceps protocol has been one our favorites because it only takes 30 seconds to get your biceps swollen and pumped. And, its effectiveness surprises many lifters who when they first see it think its gimmicky because its so different than any biceps training methods theyve seen before. We then explain to them A) if you always do what youve always done, youll always get what youve always got. And, we also teach them that B) there are three ways to increase muscle: Lift heavy (max effort), lift fast (dynamic effort) or lift a lot (repetitive effort) Our 30/60 Biceps protocol combines both moving fast (to create high intensity) and moving a lot (to create high work volume).

You're going to need a heavy-duty band for this workout. The one I use in the video below is a 1-inch wide superband.

Coaching Tips: We use a band because it allows you to move fast without gaining its own momentum

We recommend using a 1/2-inch band for weaker individuals and a 1-inch band for stronger folks

Perform 60 reps in 30 seconds x 2- 4 sets with 1-2 minute rest

If you can't complete all 60 reps in the given time frame of 30 seconds, the band is too heavy.

4. Biceps 28sMost lifters are already familiar with the classic biceps training method of using biceps curl 21s, which was popularized by bodybuilding legends like Arnold Schwarzenegger and adopted by virtually every young lifter looking to get bigger biceps. We developed our Performance U 28s rep protocol as a way to take 21s concept to create more time under-tension, a better biceps pump and add a new twist to classic method.

If you dont already know: Biceps 21s are where you perform 7 reps of partial range biceps curls going halfway down. Then you do 7 partial reps only going halfway up. Then, you finish with 7 more reps using a full range of motion. Totaling 21 reps.

How to Do the Performance U Biceps 28s ProtocolPerform the following four biceps curl variations seated, standing, or on a preacher bench (using either a barbell, dumbbell or EZ-bar) back-to-back, without rest:

1. Perform 7 partial reps in the most difficult 1/3-1/2 of the range of motion

2. Perform 7 full-range of motion reps

3. Perform an isometric hold (pause) in the mid-range for 7 seconds

4. Perform 7 partial reps in the easiest 1/3-1/2 of the range of motion

Now, there IS a method to the madness behind the way we perform our Biceps 28s protocol, which is based on the Force Vector concepts I shared earlier.

Heres the thought process we used to designed our Biceps 28s protocol:We begin with the most difficult part of the range when youre most fresh.

The first 7 reps serve as a nice pre-fatigue before we hit 7 full range of motion reps. Plus, getting some movement started from the bottom can help you power through the end range you just focused on in the first 7 reps.

Muscle mechanics dictate that our muscles are strongest in their mid-range. Thats why we do an isometric hold in this range for 7 seconds. Plus, isometrics are a great way to increase time under tension. And, help bodybuilders better hold flexed positions, which is what they have to do when they pose in competition.

We finish with the easiest part of the exercise at the end, when youre at your weakest and most fatigued from the previous 21 reps.

Now, what I've just explained is certainly not the one and only magic order. Occasionally, to create training variety, well mix up the order a bit and perform our Biceps 28s like this:

7 reps half way down curls w/ Pronated (palm down) grip

7 reps half way up curls w/ Neutral grip (palms facing each other)

7 reps full ROM supinated grip (palms up)

7 seconds midrange isometric hold (any grip you wish)

Of course, these are all done in the same manner as the above, back-to-back, without putting the weight down.

5. Constant Tension, Mid-Range Biceps CurlsOne of the fundamental concepts in muscle physiology is the length-tension relationship, which is: how much force a muscle can generate relative to its length.

As you can see in the chart below, muscles tend to have the lowest potential to generate force when they're either fully elongated (stretched) or fully shortened (contracted). And, as I stated above, muscles tend to generate the highest possible force in the middle halfway through the range of motion (aka. The mid-range).

Not only are muscles able to produce the most force in the midrange, they also have the potential to activate the highest percentage of motor units. (A motor unit is a nerve cell and the set of muscle fibers it's responsible for activating).

Put simply, more motor unit recruitment means youre able to bring more muscle into the game on each rep, provided the effort is high enough, as shown in the following graph.

Now that you understand that muscles produce the most force in the midrange, where they also have the potential to activate the highest percentage of motor units, you can better appreciate how to exploit these concepts and transform exercise science into practical exercise application with what we call Constant Tension Mid-Range Biceps Curls.

Instead of doing full range of motion biceps curls (standing with Dumbbells, a Barbell for an EZ-Bar), we begin from a 90 degree elbow bend (i.e. the mid-range) and perform partial rep curls in the middle of the range.

In other words, with elbows by your sides, you perform biceps curls without ever fully going to the bottom or the top of the range of motion.

We prefer to do our Constant Tension Mid-Range Biceps Curls for time instead of for reps, as it doesn't matter how fast you move because youre always under tension and using a timed interval ensures that you get our desired time under tension, which is 40 to 60 seconds, regardless of the tempo you perform each mid-range curl at.

Closing CommentsThe traditional biceps exercises we all know and love are still just as great and effective as ever before. Heck, most of the biceps training strategies I shared above are simply new twists on classic biceps building concepts. While we embrace old-school wisdom, as you've seen, we also use some new school biceps building protocols, which you can now to add to your own biceps-training toolbox.