A great place to start is to not only think of arms as biceps and triceps, but elbow
flexors and extensors. There are many more muscles involved in performing these
movements that are often neglected. Here are five tips on how to train the elbow flexors more efficiently for better, and faster arm development.
- Rotate our grip from neutral (palms facing each other), supinated (palms up), and pronated (palms down). Each elbow flexor is trained throughout these different grips. This will lead to a more complete arm development and even improve the health of our elbows.
- Perform our arm exercises supported, meaning having our back against the bench. The reason for this is because it limits the amount that we use other muscles such as our lower/upper back to perform the movement and will put more focus on the elbow flexors.
- Use a thick grip implement. These can be in the form of Fat Gripz, thicker bars, and thicker dumbbell handles. This will force more recruitment of fibres throughout the movement and develop the wrist flexors/ extensors. This will lead to a great increase in grip strength and will increase neural drive.
- Train arms with intensity. Often, within our program, arms are left as the last thing to do in our workout and usually involves a lot of volume from 12-20 reps. Although this is great for creating damage to the muscle, we still need to train them heavily for lower reps in order to tolerate the volume at higher loads. If arm development is the goal, set specific days within your program to train them with volume and intensity.
- Manipulating the strength curve. The arms can be trained through three positions: the shortened, mid, and lengthened. An example of the shortened position would be a scott (preacher) curl, mid would be a seated curl, and lengthened would be an incline curl. Training through these different positions will make a huge difference in proper arm development. Implement these and enjoy the gains!