Looking for ham hocks for arms? – Use my three keys

This article is going to be weird as it comes from a guy with arms the size of … wait … Pee Wee Herman on a diet. Still, I can only work with what I got and what I got is the genetics of a beetle. Information and ideas are still good and will work for you, unless your initials are PWH. In which case, sorry, but keep trying.

First of all, I think that in order to develop big arms, you have to think about building a big, strong body. That should go without saying, but it always has to be said. People are always prioritizing and focusing on big biceps with hilly peaks. The truth for most of us is that good-sized, good-looking arms will come as the overall body gets bigger and stronger.

I always use the strongest adjective because that should be the measure of progress for most of us. Yes, it is beautiful to be able to show off those strong abs and pecs, but what matters most is that we become stronger and healthier as the end result. Maybe that’s the bias of someone who has had to fight for every gram of muscle (I define the hard winner). I measured my progress by how much more I could press on my head than my measurements were.

And for me that is real life. Real life is strong. It’s about moving furniture for your wife without pulling her back, not walking with a permanent flexion.

Still, walking around with a pair of ham hocks dangling from your polo shirt, stretching across your shoulders to the width of the door, is pretty cool. I understand. Now let me help you get it.

Since I’m not a rocket scientist, I just need to keep it simple. Your arm consists of triceps, biceps, and forearm. Why is it called by those names, look it up on the web. Again, keeping it simple, the biceps are at the front of the upper arm with the triceps at the back of the upper arm. The forearm group is the entire forearm.

The biceps brachii is the smaller of the two arms groups and has basically two functions. Rotate your forearm and bend your arm toward your shoulder. The triceps brachii is almost two-thirds the volume of the upper arm. Its main function is to extend the arm.

The first key to getting big arms is to get strong. The second key is to build the muscle that is bigger, obvious again, right? It is the triceps that will determine the size of your arms, not the biceps. More specifically, the ham hocks that hang from your shoulders, as you walk along the boardwalk, are all triceps. Seriously, how often do you walk into a bicep pose?

When building muscle, all the principles of weight training remain the same. Heavy weight with compound movements stimulates most of the muscle growth. You need to rest and give the muscle enough time to recover and of course feed it nutrient-dense foods.

And therein lies the biggest challenge to build great weapons. Yes, you need heavy compound movements. However, you will never use triceps extension weights that come close to what you do on the bench press or standing press. In the same way, it will never curl as much as it will paddle. However, in all those chest, back and shoulder movements; the arms are directly involved.

In fact, some suggest not doing straight curls or extensions.

Well, you need to do triceps and biceps work. All pressing movements will make your triceps explode, but that movement relies on the movement of the elbow. The extensions keep the elbow immobile. The same is true for back movements in front of curls. Therefore, it is necessary to perform arm movements that keep the elbow immobile.

So the third key is to understand the blows these smaller muscle groups take when they work the torso and don’t over-train the arms. After 3 chest movement exercises and 2-3 shoulder movements, you only need one quality exercise to finish your triceps. As an example, I would suggest the following:

-Inclined pressure with dumbbells
-Bench Flyes
-V-bar dip
-Sitting dumbbell pressure
-Tight grip vertical rows
Lying EZ Bar Triceps Extensions.

For biceps, I would suggest:

-Wide grip throws
-Fold over rows
-One-arm dumbbell rows
-Standing dumbbell curls (together or alternate)

There you have it, my three keys to building big arms. I did not speak of forearms, as it is a story for another day.