Ultimate Arm Workout To Get Ripped & Big

The ultimate arm workout to get ripped and big stimulates muscle growth in as much of your upper body as possible, while emphasizing arm development. The National Federation of Personal Trainers recommends heavy weightlifting exercises that exhaust your muscles with four to six repetitions for maximizing muscle growth. Heavy training within this repetition range causes the most damage to contractile tissues in your muscles, which forces them to adapt by getting stronger and bigger.

Weighted Dips

Launch your arm workout with eight sets of a compound exercise that affect as much muscle tissue as possible, and maximizes arm-muscle activation. Unlike isolation exercises, which only involve a single joint movement, compound exercises activate more muscle groups with multiple joint articulations. Weighted chest dips are among the best exercises for your triceps, according to a February 2010 article by strength and conditioning specialist Bret Contreras. Chest dips are the ultimate triceps exercise for getting big and ripped, because they are also a top exercise for the larger pectoral muscles.

Freeweight Sets

Perform 10 freeweight exercise sets that target your biceps followed by six sets for your triceps. Freeweight exercises may include barbells, dumbbells, cable pulleys or even your body weight. According to electromyography analysis, which measures the electrical activity generated by muscle contractions, weighted chinups are the best freeweight exercise for your biceps. Chinups are the ultimate bicep exercises for getting big and ripped, because they activate nearly all of the muscles in your back. Freeweight exercises that maximally activate your triceps include tricep extensions with a rope or cable on a pulley machine.

Brachialis

The brachialis is a deep upper-arm muscle, which lies beneath your biceps. The primary function of the brachialis is flexing or bending the elbow joint. Training your brachialis must be part of your ultimate arm workout, because a bigger and stronger brachialis pushes your biceps and triceps farther apart and maximizes the overall size of your upper arm. Complete four sets of any exercise that targets the brachialis. The best brachialis exercises include dumbbell hammer curls and concentration curls, which bend your elbows from the greatest angle of resistance while minimizing bicep-muscle activation.

Machine Sets

Finish your workout with four tricep sets, followed by four bicep sets using machine weights. Performing a few sets with machine weights at the end of your workout helps you get ripped and big, because machines allow you to completely exhaust the target muscle group by minimizing pressure on your joints. Complete exhaustion forces your arms to adapt by getting bigger and stronger. Tricep machine exercises include extensions, dips, pushdowns and incline extensions. Machine exercises for your biceps include curl, incline curl and preacher curling machines.