What to do if your arms don't grow? The most important thing is not to let them down. According to sports science, the lag in the development of a muscle is dictated by the genetic weakness of one or another of its bundles. A weak triceps is always a weak long bundle.
A weak biceps is a weakened internal bundle. Eliminate the imbalance of muscle bundles and you will have a direct path to building extreme mass in a previously “difficult” muscle. But not earlier!
However, it is not enough to fervently bomb “weak” beams. Think for yourself, because they are deprived of growth potential. A dashing cavalry charge will immediately choke here. How to be? Let's figure it out. To do this, we will use the advice of some pros in this matter and structure our article in the form of a question and answer. Go.
Unbeknownst to you, you are eating too little
Too few calories is mistake #1. A person may be sure that he eats a lot, but if the muscles do not grow, despite training, it is still not enough.
Research shows that overweight people underestimate their calorie intake by 30-50%. This is the classic “I eat little, but I don’t lose weight.” But the opposite is also true: people who have difficulty gaining weight usually overestimate the amount they eat. They remember days when they ate a lot, but forget days when they ate too little. Also, “a lot” is a subjective concept: some people eat a very small amount of food (and thin people, in principle, are not inclined to overeat).
Some people simply don't have the appetite to eat enough to grow muscles. They may force themselves to eat a lot, but the metabolic control mechanisms strike back, and the person unnoticed eats less in subsequent meals or days. The dream of losing weight with a slow metabolism becomes a problem for those who want to gain weight.
Stages of arthrosis of small joints
There are three stages of the disease.
- The first stage of the disease is accompanied by periodic pain in the joints of the fingers or toes during active movement or work. The pain subsides after rest. The joints may begin to crack, and swelling may form near them.
- Second stage of arthrosis. The disease progresses, the pain intensifies and becomes constant. Moving your fingers causes pain. Heberden's and Bouchard's nodes form in the joints. Their appearance is accompanied by burning and pain. After a few months, the redness and swelling disappear, and the nodules become hard.
- The third stage of arthrosis of small joints is the most serious. The fingers and toes become deformed and are almost impossible to move. The area around the affected joint becomes red and swollen. Sharp pain in the joints is felt not only when moving, but also at rest. A person walks with difficulty, going up and down stairs becomes a challenge for him.
Are you afraid of gaining fat?
Here people already know that they don't eat enough. But their fear of gaining at least some fat is so great that they physically cannot force themselves to eat more. They continue to diet, do a lot of cardio, but are sincerely surprised why the muscles are not growing.
But in order for muscles to grow, you must not only load them correctly during training, but also give the body a sufficient amount of protein - building material, as well as enough calories - money that will pay for all construction work.
Muscle growth always comes with some fat gain - no one gains 100% of their weight from muscle. But anyone who is afraid of gaining weight should know: muscle growth does not require a large excess of calories. This is a slow process, especially for women. Therefore, with a proper diet, little fat is gained.
Level 2: choosing exercises for the lagging group
Everything is simple here: if in an exercise for a certain muscle group you do not feel how it contracts, then you need to select a different movement.
Even if this great exercise was recommended to you by your best friend, the biggest hunk in the room, or a scientific expert, it may not be right for you. People differ not only in their personalities: some have long limbs, some have short ones, some have more activated deltoids in bench presses, some have more active deltoids, some have quadruple dominant muscles, and some have stronger posterior muscles. surfaces.
When we lift weights, the body looks for the easiest (that is, effective) way to do it, loading the muscles that it knows how to use better.
So at this level, analyze all the exercises for the lagging group - do you feel how the target muscle works in them? If not, then find a replacement.
No matter what anyone says, there are no “mandatory” exercises for everyone. Do what helps you personally.
You're not eating enough protein
Some people find it difficult to eat a lot of protein. And some people call everything meat protein, so they can’t bring themselves to eat a lot of it.
The starting point is 2 grams per kilogram of body weight. Eating more protein to gain muscle doesn't make any sense. Protein comes from a variety of products: meat, fish, seafood, eggs, cottage cheese, protein powders, legumes, soy.
Vegetarians may have trouble growing muscle due to protein restriction, but if they include eggs and dairy in their diet, it will be much easier for them. And although there are people on the Internet who have built a lot of muscle on a purely plant-based diet, it is highly likely that they turned to veganism after they gained muscle mass on a regular diet, and all the photos are from those times.
Rules for training muscles during specialization
So, I’ll note a few basic rules for training muscles during specialization.
- Specialization can only be carried out ON ONE MUSCLE GROUP ! We need to cut this down on the nose. If you feel like you're lacking in several muscle groups, it's likely that you're simply lacking in overall lean body mass.
- A couple of weeks before specializing on the lagging muscle, REDUCE THE LOAD ON IT ! A rested muscle responds to specialization much better than a tired one.
- The main specialization lasts on average 2-3 months . Then the load should be reduced and train according to the usual program.
- DO NOT CARRY OUT TWO SPECIALIZATIONS IN A ROW ! At least every other time, this will give the best effect.
- Specialize in the OFF-SEASON! Here you don’t have to worry about increasing your caloric intake and belly fat.
- To grow small muscle groups, you need to grow large ones (legs, back, chest).
- Specialized training should be done NO MORE FREQUENTLY than every other day (except for calves and abs). Otherwise, they simply will not have time to recover.
These are the most basic rules to understand what we are talking about.
You're doing too much cardio
There is a lot of controversy regarding cardio while gaining muscle. Some people don’t do it at all, because it “steals” energy from the muscles. Others do hard intervals every day because it was said somewhere that they have an anabolic effect. Who is right?
For all but the most extreme hardgainers (guys who burn tons of calories when trying to gain weight), adding moderate cardio can only do good. This speeds up recovery between workouts, controls fat gain, and preserves your muscles' ability to use fat as energy. As soon as a person switches to a fat-burning cycle, weight loss will begin faster - the body will not have to restore this ability.
But as soon as there is too much cardio, as soon as it becomes very intense and long, problems begin. This not only increases energy expenditure, but is also quite stressful for the body, interferes with recovery and can interfere with muscle growth. Strength and endurance work require different physiological mechanisms, and the body is not good at developing both at the same time.
But you shouldn’t give up cardio completely: 20-30 minutes of good old low-intensity cardio 2-4 times a week is enough.
Mike Ergaz
- How do your hands grow?
It’s not enough to say that at first they didn’t grow at all. It took me many years to bring them into harmony with other muscle groups.
— What mistakes did you make at the very beginning of hand training?
From the first day I started training in a strength style. The most important thing for me was to overcome the weight, even at the cost of breaking my technique. This approach works well for large muscle groups, but it was fatal for my arms. The strength of the hands grew, but the volumes “froze” tightly. It seemed to me that the problem was the low intensity of the training and I increased the weight even more. I’m still surprised how I didn’t get seriously injured. As a result, I found myself in a dead end: my arms were monstrously strong, but their volume did not exceed 46 cm. However, I could not decide to change my training style.
— What helped you make a breakthrough?
Two years passed before I first did the usual 6-8 repetitions, as many as 12. It turned out that this number of repetitions gives me a much greater pump. I continued the experiment and eventually found the most optimal number of repetitions for myself - 15-20 per set. But the number of sets had to be increased. Now I have not 2-3, but 12 sets for biceps and the same number for triceps. Frankly, these were completely new sensations for me, because for the first time in many years of strength work, a “brain-muscle” connection began to form.
I began to feel the work of my arm muscles and this pushed me to new experiments. First of all, I realized that I needed to stop pumping up my arms with large muscle groups. I gave my hands a separate workout. Then I experimented with tempo, cyclic loads, negatives, forced repetitions and other principles of bodybuilding. In short, I got down to the main thing - I started searching for “my” methodology.
— How do you pump your triceps?
I do the exercise very slowly with full concentration of consciousness. As a result, I reach a severe burning sensation in my triceps. For me this is a sign of proper work. As for the exercises, I start with presses, then do close grip presses, French bench presses and dips. I agree that training should be varied, however, in my opinion, a variety of loads may well replace deep concentration on the exercise. This is what makes the movement effective. If there is no concentration, there is no return. I’ve been pumping triceps with the same complex for many years now and noticing the progress.
— How do you pump your biceps?
When pumping up your biceps, you need to avoid cheating. This is counterproductive. The biceps curl should remain an isolated exercise that is done with the strength of the biceps alone. What's the point of throwing the barbell up using your entire body? To avoid cheating, do your lifts extremely slowly. Here's my biceps routine: standing barbell curls, seated dumbbell curls, standing hammer, or one-arm hammer on a Scott bench. This selection of exercises is explained simply. Since two muscles bend the elbow at once - the biceps and the brachioradialis muscle, I load both muscles equally.
You're training wrong
The problem is that most of the recommendations came to ordinary people from the world of professional bodybuilding, not without steroids. Many people still try to follow the programs of elite athletes who train while taking hormones. 99% of training amateurs are not even close to the intermediate level, let alone the elite, although they try to follow programs aimed specifically at such people.
The typical advice to "kill a muscle group once a week" with an insane number of sets and exercises simply doesn't work for most beginners. There are those for whom it works - as a rule, they have good genetics and use hormones. There are many reasons why this type of training is not the best choice for most mere mortals.
Last but not least, if your weights don't grow, your muscles won't grow either. In response to stress, each muscle cell increases the number of contractile units within it to bear the load more easily. So if you don't add weight to the bar, you don't grow, you stay with what you have.
This doesn't mean you need to increase the weights every workout. But if you don't get stronger over time, you won't see results. This is why keeping a workout journal is helpful.
Training lagging muscles. How to make muscles grow
To eliminate the lag of a certain muscle group, you need to understand one simple thing: THE MORE WE TRAIN A MUSCLE COMPARED TO OTHERS, THE MORE DEVELOPED IT WILL BE COMPARED TO OTHERS. But the load should be sufficient for growth, NOT EXCESSIVE.
In other words, we must force our lagging muscle to work TO THE MAXIMUM , but we must not overtrain it.
That's why:
- We do MORE work on the lagging muscle.
- We do LESS work on the remaining muscles.
Regarding the first point. The work can be increased by:
- Training VOLUME (increase the number of repetitions, approaches, exercises);
- FREQUENCY of training (increase the number of training sessions per muscle per week);
- WASTING ENERGY in the approach (increase intensity through supersets, dropsets, negative refusal, etc.)
- TECHNIQUE of execution (larger range of motion, maintaining tension, peak contraction, etc.);
- TRAINING WEIGHT in the exercise (increases the load, BUT DO NOT GO FOR WEIGHT, as it disrupts the technique of doing the exercises);
It's all simple and I'm sure you're familiar with these things.
These are WAYS TO INCREASE THE LOAD on the lagging muscle.
But there is a second point - DO LESS WORK ON THE OTHER MUSCLE GROUPS. Why do so few people do this? Because it’s a shame to lose hard-earned results.
But in fact, often reducing the load is only beneficial, because the body perceives this as microperiodization.
But this is not the only point. Thus, the body will free up the RESOURCE of recovery abilities for the growth of the lagging muscle group .
