While isolation exercises are an important part of your arm workout, you won't build giant arms with curls and extensions alone. Your body doesn't want to add muscle. Extra muscle means a higher calorie requirement. Heavy, compound exercises shock your body, forcing it to add muscle, while isolation exercises provide the direct stimulation to refine your arms.
Chin-Ups
You probably think of a chin-up as a back exercise, and you're right. It's one of the best exercises for widening your back. But throughout that wide range of motion, your back is weaker in some points and stronger in others, and it's your biceps that pick up the slack. That involves a lot more weight than you can curl. According to "Strength Training Anatomy," to best involve your biceps, perform chin-ups with a narrow, palms-back grip. This grip is a good way to burn out after you can no longer perform traditional, palms-forward chin-ups.
Curls
For total biceps development, you're going to need to perform curls. It's a simple exercise; the only joint that moves is the elbow joint. But there are a number of variations that will target different parts of your biceps. For a high peak, use a straight barbell. For wide biceps, build the brachialis with hammer-grip dumbbell curls. To spare your wrists, use an EZ-curl bar. To build your forearms, use a reverse grip. For consistent resistance, perform curls on a low-pulley.
Bench Press
The triceps are the largest part of your upper arm. To build big arms, you need big triceps, and to build big triceps, you need to make them work under heavy resistance. According to eight-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding," the heaviest upper-body pushing exercise is the bench press. Using a wide grip on a flat bench reduces the range of motion of the triceps, allowing you to use heavy weight which shocks the body into growth. But also perform bench presses on an incline bench with a torso-width grip that will use less weight, but take some of the emphasis from your pecs and put it on your triceps.
Triceps Push-Downs
The triceps is responsible for straightening your arm at the elbow, making it the support muscle during pushing exercises. To isolate the triceps, you perform exercises that maintain shoulder stability so that the arm only moves at the elbow with resistance against extension. The triceps push-down is the heaviest of all of these exercises. Unlike free-weight extensions, you don't need to worry about balance, so you can go all out. Another benefit of the pulley is that the resistance is the same throughout the movement, maintaining the same stress when your triceps are stretched as when they are fully contracted. To perform triceps push-downs, stand before a high pulley with a triangle or EZ-curl attachment. Grip the attachment with both hands, your palms facing down. Keep your elbows locked at your side as you push the handle down and slowly release it back up.
References
- "Strength Training Anatomy 3rd Ed."; Frederic Delavier; 2010
- "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding"; Arnold Schwarzenegger; 1998
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