Arnold's Arm Workout

Arnold’s Arm Workout
Arnold’s guns were his calling cards, and his mental visualization of his biceps as mountain peaks reflected his larger-than-life approach. Arnold frequently did up to 20 sets for biceps, split evenly between mass-builders and those he did for definition.

He commonly supersetted biceps and triceps movements, which served to flush his arms with blood. Combined with his high-volume approach, his shirt-sleeve-busting routine included movements that sought to isolate the three triceps heads, which he achieved by manipulating arm position.

Here are some of Arnold’s best arm-training tips, culled from the many articles he wrote and interviews he gave over the years.

Arnold ranked the standing barbell curl as the top mass builder, but often did the incline bench dumbbell curl as well, which emphasizes the long head a bit better. For Arnold, a mass-building movement meant three things: He could push heavy weights; he’d ensure the movement was taken from full extension to full contraction; and he’d use a weight at which he could barely do 6-8 good reps.
Definition-building movements, on the other hand, were done with lighter weights for sets of 8-12 reps. Here the 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 here.
While “The Oak” took his curls to 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.
Arnold’s approach to triceps was a bit different. Because his chest was always a strong point, his triceps were already at an advantage. More often than with biceps, he allowed his rep range to drift up to 20 per set in an effort to hyper-pump the muscle.
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, over either the top or bottom half of the movement.
Arnold frequently supersetted biceps and triceps movements, which meant that an enormous amount of blood was flooding the muscle. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients critical for growth, and enabled him to achieve his ultimate training goal: the pump. And you’ve no doubt heard about Arnold’s insatiable thirst for a good training pump.