Want big arms? Train your legs!

Author: Timko Ilya - master of the whole project and fitness trainer.
2012-10-17

It is no secret that men spend about 50% to 60% of their training time in the gym focusing on their arms. Meanwhile, the arms make up only about 15% to 20% of total body muscle mass. Usually, such an imbalance in training provides results for the first couple of months. After that, arm growth simply stalls. Guys start doing 4 to 5 exercises for biceps and the same for triceps, thinking that their arms aren’t growing because they aren’t doing enough exercises. They train them 2 to 3 times a week, but still see no progress.

Sound familiar? It seems logical. If you want a muscle to grow larger, you have to train it. However, it’s not that simple. First, I’ll tell you that for arm growth, it is quite sufficient to perform 2 exercises per week for biceps and the same for triceps.

So, why should you train your legs?

Firstly, training the lower body significantly contributes to the production of testosterone, as more muscles are involved in these exercises. The more testosterone you have in your body, the more favorable conditions you create for muscle growth.

Secondly, our body is a unified whole. It strives to maintain certain proportions. If there is a large discrepancy in development between the arms and legs, the arms will simply stop growing.

Thirdly, to gain 1 cm in your biceps, you need to gain an average of 4 kg of muscle mass. It's unrealistic to gain this mass exclusively through arm training.

Fourthly, doing too many arm exercises does not allow them to recover properly. There is a nuance: training the arms does not require as much energy as leg and back exercises. As a result, solely training your arms does not lead to a strong sense of overall fatigue. This creates the illusion that you have not sufficiently loaded your biceps and triceps. This is dangerous because you might start to train them even harder without giving them time to rest.

Thus, the conclusion: stop punishing your arms! There is no point in doing bicep curls standing with a barbell, then immediately sitting with dumbbells, then sideways, bent over, or in any other position. Instead, try doing squats with a barbell or perform deadlifts.

Ideally, your total training time (over a week) should be distributed as follows:

Training Time Distribution Table

This means that if you are a man training 3 times a week for 2 hours each session (totaling 6 hours), you should spend 1.5 hours on legs and glutes, 1.8 hours on the back, 36 minutes on shoulders, 54 minutes on arms, 18 minutes on abs, and 54 minutes on chest. By “back,” I mean both the latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles, as well as the spinal extensors.

Here, I measure workload based on time rather than exercises. Generally, leg exercises take much longer than arm exercises. Therefore, it would be incorrect to compare workloads by the number of exercises or sets.

I hope I have convinced you to pay attention to your arms no more than they "deserve." If you liked this article, share it with your friends and subscribe for more updates. Good luck!