August of Arms 2015: Update #1

With yesterday being August 10th, it was my first Re-Measure Day for August of Arms.

I was PSYCHED to report about a 1/4 inch improvement on each arm, especially since the first 7 days of the month I was on family vacation.

As a review, I started out at roughly 19 inches per arm and now I am at 19.25 inches. The still shots are in the video below.

On Saturday, I was driving back from the beach, so I was only able to get some high-rep band work in and missed the planned workout, so on Sunday I combined both Saturday’s and Sunday’s workouts and got a great session in.

Here’s a video of one of the exercises I did, called Arm Wrestler Dumbbell Curls. It was part of the Fame of Arms workout in the August of Arms program.

Arm Wrestler Dumbbell Curls

As you can see, Arm Wrestler Dumbbell Curls is all about strength. The dumbbell used was pretty heavy and the isometric hold at the half-way point was very demanding and produced a different kind of pump in the arms.

The way I see it, it’s still early in the month. Plenty more time to produce add size to the guns.

Being home, I will be able to get better quality workouts than when I was on vacation, so I’m really looking forward to the next 2/3 of the month!

It’s not too late to pick up your copy of August of Arms. So what if you’re late to the ball game.

Your month of August of Arms starts RIGHT NOW!

Pick up your copy of August of Arms TODAY.

All the best in your training.

Jedd

There are a ton of crazy workout gadgets out there that are absolute wastes of time.

Curling with Globe Gripz

I am sure you have tried a few now and again and can name some that were totally useless.

Well, one item that you might have seen at one time or another that is NOT useless, is the Globe Gripz handles.

I have been training with Globe Gripz off and on since 2012. I immediately was impressed by their packaging and the quality of the product.

For the last few weeks, though, Globe Gripz have been a weekly part of my training. In fact, I have had a resurgence in my Biceps training, especially in the Barbell Curl.

For several years, I did not do Barbell Curls because they hurt my wrists and forearms so intensely sometimes that I would feel the leftover pain for several days down the line.

However, with Globe Gripz on the bar, I feel ZERO pain in these areas when curling. I have been able to put several good, solid weeks of training in and have upped my 1-Rep-Max in the Barbell Curl to 160-lbs and have been increasing my repetitions with 135-lbs on the bar on a near weekly basis, nearly hitting 10 reps just yesterday.

Barbell Curl Training

Here some clips of some of the recent Bicep Curl training sessions…

Barbell Curl: 135-lbs X 10 (Almost) + Attempt at 170-lbs Barbell Curl with Globe Gripz

Strict Barbell Curl: 155, 157.5, 160-lbs

If you feel the same kind of pain in the Barbell Curl that I do, I strongly encourage you to check out Globe Gripz. Naturally, there are LOTS of other ways Globe Gripz can be used, just like Fat Gripz and the other Instant Thick Bar Handles that are on the market. Barbell Curls is simply what I use Globe Gripz for the most. Actually, that’s all I really use them for.

You can get Globe Gripz here => Globe Gripz

I am sure the Form Police will show up and say these curls ARE NOT STRICT. That’s fine. My response is “Show me your video with stricter form and comparable weight.”

Now, I am also aware that there are strict curl competitions, where people stand against a wall or some other structure to prevent swaying back or using the delts and back for assistance.

Awesome! I am all about competition and comparing my lifts against others, ESPECIALLY when there is a standard, so I tried them too.

I have seen a few clips of these competitions and an EZ-Bar is often used. So I gave this a try using an EZ Bar in an attempt to match the competition standard as closely as possible. Here is the video…

Strict Curl with Back Against Door: +/- 158-lbs

I really do not know where this would put me in the established competition lifts that exist. I am assuming that for my bodyweight (about 235 on the day of that lift), this would be pretty low, as I am sure the competitors have a much better grasp on the proper technique of the lift. For instance, I noticed some substantial stress on my lumbar during the first rep and had to adjust where I had my feet to reduce it. It’s definitely not just a vacation performing this lift, especially when you are going for a near-max.

So, here’s the deal. Some people think Curls are stupid. If you feel this way, that is fine.

I personally like to keep track of things like this. I have an idea of my PR in lots and lots of lifts and I like to push myself in this nature.

Plus, I love competition. Ever since I was a child and played baseball, I have loved the field of competition.

Over the years, that field turned from a diamond of dirt and grass with a fence around it to the Strongman and Grip Strength Platforms.

If I can find a Strict Curl competition nearby, I might add that to my Competition Portfolio as well. If anyone is familiar with them, I’d love to hear about them.

Now, if you are not into competition, but just want to get bigger and stronger arms, then be sure to check out Call to Arms, an ebook I put out last year with Joe Meglio.

Check out Call to Arms => How to Get Bigger Stronger Arms

Naturally, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you are not training your biceps with some intensity on a regular basis, then they could be your weakest link. At the least, they might hold you back on other lifts. At worst, you could run the risk of tearing a bicep and be out of competition and training for a while, waiting for it to heal.

Intense Arm Training, like what we cover in Call to Arms can help you erase that weakness.

Also, if you are Grip Enthusiast, you should consider adding Arm Training of some sort to your routine. Both Paul Knight and Steve McGranahan have made mention of the relationship between Grip Strength and their overall arm strength.

All the best in your training,

Jedd

Armaid: The Best Lower Arm Therapy Device on the Market Today

Superstar Billy Graham
Former WWWF Champion and
Partner of Arnold

Some of the classic bodybuilding pairings for the upper body are Chest and Triceps, Shoulders and Triceps, and back and Biceps.

These are time-tested methods, of course, BUT sooner or later, you’ve got to mix your training up a bit.

Do the same stuff for too long, and you’re sure to become stagnant in your results.

Before you know it, your training split is actually holding your training results back.

And if you’re anything like most people, you get sick of doing the same stuff like that all the time.

Today, I am going to show you how you can mix your training split up. The guys who have tried this with me have loved it, and I think you will too.

Reverse Muscle Building Workouts

Here’s how I do most of my upper body workouts with a “bodybuilding/muscle building” style workouts.

• Chest and Biceps (or Chest, Shoulders, and Biceps)
• Back and Triceps

What you end up with is some of the most ridiculous pumps you have ever felt.

Chest and Biceps day blows up your chest and biceps until your shirt screams in agony. Throw in some shoulder work and its even more phenomenal.

On Back and Triceps days, your lats, posterior delts and traps get smoked, and when you throw in triceps along with it, you get the most interesting pre-exhaust sensations.

Here is an example Chest, Shoulders, and Biceps day that JT Straussner and I recently did.

Example Reverse Muscle Building Workout:

Note: Each letter signifies one training block, either a single exercise or a pairing. Each number shows the order of exercises done in pairings.

Example Reverse Muscle Building Workout

A. Bench Press: We worked up to 275 and hit it for 3 sets of 6 to 8.

B. Seated Dumbbell Military Press: We worked up to 70’s and we to failure or near failure on these, since we didn’t pair them with another exercise.

C1. Rock Front Raise: I saw the Rock doing these in a recent issue of Men’s Fitness. Good for an occasional use now and again, but I prefer Kneeling Landmines to be honest.
C2. Farmer’s Shrugs: This is my favorite way to work shrugs. Perfect way to go with heavy weights without straining the back. Find out more here: Heavy Shrugs Without Hurting Your Back.

D1. Push-ups : This is a great pushing exercise that builds your chest, delts, and triceps. We did a slight variation of the push-up with the feet elevated, since we also did Flat Bench Press.
D2. Pull-aparts: This is often used with a light band to work the smaller muscles that abduct the shoulders, BUT we used heavier bands here to work the bigger muscles and the triceps.

***Note: For the D1/D2 combination, we focused on 20 reps per exercise and for some sets, we had to do Rest Pauses in order to get the target reps.

E. Reverse Curls Stare-down: This was just plain INSANE. We loaded the EZ Curl Bar and hit set after set until our arms were about to blow up.

Left: Superstar Billy Graham Right: Arnold

So, the majority of the workout was Push & Biceps. I added in Shrugs because I like to get those in a couple of times a week. Same with the Pull-aparts.

This workout provides some of the necessary ingredients for growth: multi-joint movements, isolation movements, varied rep-ranges, and varied loads. When you mix the variables like this up on a routine basis, you can’t help but grow.

My suggestion is to try one thing at a time though. First off, try the switch to Chest and Bi’s and Back and Tri’s using some of the exercises, rep-ranges and loading you like. Once you get a taste of these two non-conventional workout set-ups, then you can start tweaking with some of the other adjustments.

Enjoy the crazy pumps.

All the best in your training.

Jedd

Want More Ideas on How to Grow Bigger Arms?
Get Call to Arms below:

Bicep Curls for Increased Performance and Injury Prevention

The first part of the title of this post might sound like the biggest oxymoron ever stated.

After all, what in the world can Curls possibly do for your performance?

I am about to line all that up for you right now.

You see, for the last few weeks I have been working on a project that will come out soon about arm training, and during all of the preparation, I have been trying out new things with my arm training, new lifts, new variations, and new modifications, etc…

Because I have been “studying” arms so much, I have been putting in more time training the arms, and also as a result, they have gotten stronger, and I have also seen excellent results in other parts of my training, especially my Pull-up work.

What Have I Been Doing

Now, I am not down there hitting arms for 2 hours straight, multiple times a week, but it is safe to say I am doing arm training at least once a week every single week for the past month and a half, AND on some occasions I have hit them twice in the same week.

Also, I am not just down in the gym banging away on Bicep work. The Triceps makes up far more of the upper arm than the Biceps, so a lot of my arm work has been Triceps based, but I am also getting my fair share of Bicep work in.

In addition to all of this experimentation and manipulating my arm training, there has been one additional training factor that seems to have been very beneficial, and that is, surprisingly enough, testing myself in the 1 Rep Max Dumbbell Curl.

I first started doing this when Josh Dale introduced the Rob Vigeant Dumbbell Curl Challenge, which was to lift 100-lbs in strict fashion on the dumbbell curl. I thought this would be fun, so I tried it out and to my surprise I was able to get a 75-lb Curl. It is hard to believe that it was almost a year ago when this challenge came out.

When my long-time friend Kyle trained with me earlier this summer, we tried out the Max Dumbbell Curl just for fun, and I was happy to see that I had retained much of my strength, even after several months where I did not try a max curl.

Two weeks ago, I tested myself again for a max lift, this time using a dumbbell with extra weight stuck to it with a magnet. During that workout, I was able to get 84-lbs left handed.

This week, I was able to move my mark up even further, hitting 85.5-lbs.

Other Improvements I Have Seen

Again, the 1RM Dumbbell Curl is not some kind of major focus in my training. There just happens to be a fun challenge list going on right now, and it has served well as a tester for my current Bicep strength.

However, the most important thing about this is not the amount of weight I am putting up in the Bicep Curl – oooh, woopty-doo, right?

The biggest benefit I have seen, and this is where the “Performance” aspect comes in that is reference in the title, has been my Pull-up Performance.

Now, we all know, or at least we should, that the Pull-up is one of the best exercises for building the upper back. It is a great bench mark of strength for athletes, students (scholastic fitness tests) and even the Military incorporates Pull-ups into their testing and training protocols. The Pull-up is or should be a major part of your training.

I have stated before that I do all kinds of versions of the Pull-up, and most recently I have fallen in love with training on the Rogue Dog Bone <= See some of my recent training here. This thing is just a sick piece of training gear. When I started out, I could barely get 2 reps with this thing, but I have been seeing great increases here.

Also, my regular Pull-ups are kicking ass as well (I do my conventional pull-ups on Perfect Pullup Handles).

I have been training my conventional Pull-ups with somewhat of a Ladder approach, especially when Kyle is here. He and I will start with one Pull-up apiece and follow one another, each time increasing our rep-count by one repetition, up to 5, and then back down. It looks like this:

Jedd – 1, Kyle – 1
Jedd – 2, Kyle – 2
Jedd – 3, Kyle – 3
Jedd – 4, Kyle – 4
Jedd – 5, Kyle – 5
Jedd – 5, Kyle – 5
Jedd – 4, Kyle – 4
Jedd – 3, Kyle – 3
Jedd – 2, Kyle – 2
Jedd – 1, Kyle – 1

Pretty basic, but also pretty demanding, given the fact that we only rest the amount of time that it takes for us to step away from the Pull-up Bar, and wait for the other guy to finish his reps.

The first time Kyle and I did this, which was in May, I believe, I needed serious spots from him to finish out many of my sets once I hit the 3-rep mark, and up until I got back to the 2-rep mark in the Ladder.

Kyle missed about 2 solid months of training due to a job change, but when he did return, I had only trained this ladder a couple of times on my own, but the day we did this together again, I only needed spots on my last rep during my 4-rep sets and my last two reps during my 5-rep sets.

I’d estimate that within 3 weeks I will be able to finish this ladder all by myself without any spots. This is a huge improvement and I think the increased arm work has played just as big of a role in this improvement as my recent concerted efforts toward improving my Pull-up abilities.

I will branch off a bit here and say this. If all the arm work has helped my Pull-ups so much, what could also be the effects if I focused a bit more on Log Cleans or Stones (I honestly haven’t been doing those as much as I want). It is possible I could see improvements in other Biceps-involved lifts as well. It’s also possible that you could too! Something to think about for sure.

If You Are Not Training Arms Seriously…

I know there are a handful of people out there who either do not train their Biceps or do so half-assed. I know this because I have heard it said many times, especially by Strongman competitors and those who perform a great deal of Rowing movements. The reasoning, so they say, is that since they are constantly lifting Stones, Logs, and doing all the Rows, that they are getting enough Bicep work in already.

After these last few weeks of increased arm training and seeing the results it has brought, I encourage you to re-think your approach to arm training, especially if you have been skipping Bicep Training or if when you do it you only hit a few token sets just to “get some work in.”

Another Reason Why Direct Bicep Work is Important

If bigger numbers and more reps in Pulling movements is not enough to make you consider adding arm training back into your routine, I have two more things that I feel must be discussed about the benefits of specific arm training.

First off, even though Rows, Log Cleans, and other similar lifts work the Biceps through elbow flexion, you still are not getting the same intensity as if you are truly aiming for growth and strength increases in the Biceps.

Secondly, with Rowing movements and Log Clean, the forearm does not supinate, which is another movement pattern that the Biceps are responsible for.

My fear is not that if you neglect Biceps training that you will hold back your performance on Pull-ups, Rows, Log Cleans, or any other movement where the Biceps are involved (although to a degree, that will happen). Rather, I’m more interested in keeping all of you safe and injury free.

It Happened Right Before My Eyes

In August, I watched a Bicep tear take place right before my eyes during a Grip Contest, of all things. Competitor, John Wojciechowski, tore his Biceps Tendon performing a normally straight-arm-style event called the Adjustable Thick Bar Lift. I actually thought he ripped the seat of his pants, and it was so loud the camera even picked up the noise.

In no way am I saying the reason John got hurt due to lack of training the Biceps. I don’t know much about John’s past training except that he has put up some very nice general strength training videos as well as impressive gripper and bolt bending videos.

I am only saying that lack of training parts of the body, like the Biceps, can lead to weaknesses and imbalances. Weknesses and Imbalances can lead to injuries, and after watching Wojo tear his Bicep tendon, that was enough for me. I don’t ever want to see it again or learn that one of you had it happen either.

Conclusions

So, major take-aways from this post:

1. The Biceps assist in many other training movements, not just Curls. Pull-ups, Rows, Logs, Stones are all examples.

2. Having Strong and well-conditioned Biceps can lead to improved performance in other lifts which are very beneficial toward over-all strength and performance, especially Pull-ups, which I have seen in my own training.

3. Make sure to train the Biceps intensely. No need to go overboard, but don’t neglect them either. Although some of you may be turned of by “Show Muscles” or “Beach Muscles” remember to strengthen all links in the chain.

4. It’s not always about Strength. Sometimes Injury Prevention is even more important. My friend, Wojo, is going to experience some down time due to his injury. Down time SUCKS.

Keep these things in mind as you train. All the best with your training and stay injury free.

Jedd