Blast Your Biceps

Blast Your Biceps

“How To Add 2 Inches Of Muscle To Your Arms In Just 8 Weeks!”

By Lee Hayward

www.LeeHayward.com

www.BlastYourBiceps.com

Version 2.00 July 2010

Copyright © 2010 Lee Hayward

Copyright © 2010 Lee Hayward All Rights Reserved. www.LeeHayward.com

All Rights Reserved

http://www.leehayward.com/

http://www.blastyourbiceps.com/

Copyright © 2010 Lee Hayward

All Rights Reserved

Lee Hayward’s Total Fitness Bodybuilding

www.LeeHayward.com

No part of this book maybe reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Published by Lee Hayward in Newfoundland, Canada.

A WORD OF CAUTION: DISCLAIMER

This book is for reference and informational purposes only and is no way intended as medical counselling or medical advice. The information contained herein should not be used to treat, diagnose, or prevent a disease of medical condition without the advice of a competent medical professional. This book deals with in-depth information on health, fitness, and nutrition. Most of the information applies to everyone in general; however, not everyone has the same body type. We each have different responses to exercise depending on our choice of intensity and diet. Before making any changes in your lifestyle, you should consult with a physician to discover the best solution for your individual body type. The author, writer, editors, and graphic designer shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any damage or injury alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.



AAbboouutt tthhee AAuutthhoorr

Lee Hayward (Your Muscle Building Coach)

www.LeeHayward.com

Lee Hayward is a competitive bodybuilder, muscle building coach, and one of the most sought out fitness professionals online.

For over 10 years he has committed his life to helping aspiring bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts build lean muscle, burn off stubborn body fat, and develop a lean, athletic muscular physique that they can be proud of.

Lee’s Total Fitness Bodybuilding website has been online since January 1999 and has become one of the Internet’s most popular bodybuilding and fitness websites which averages over 100,000 visitors each month.

Whether your goal is to make a complete physique transformation, or just lose a few pounds of stubborn belly fat; Lee Hayward can help get the results you want!

For a limited time Lee is giving away a complete 10-Part Muscle Building Tips e-Course where he shares some killer training and nutrition tricks that will help you pack on solid muscle mass, strip away excess bodyfat, and transform your soft mushy body into a ripped powerful physique in record time!

This 10-Part Muscle Building e-Course has a real world $47 value, but right now you can sign up and download it for FREE at: www.LeeHayward.com






TTaabbllee ooff CCoonntteennttss About the Author............................................................................... 4

Table of Contents............................................................................... 5

Chapter 1 - How The “Blast Your Biceps” Program Came To Be ......... 9

Genetics For Building Big Arms .........................................................................14

We Need To Play By A Different Set Of Rules .................................................... 15

SNAS – “Spaghetti Noodle Arm Syndrome” ......................................................16

Chapter 2 - The First Step Towards Bigger Arms...............................18

Goal Setting – How Big Do You Want Your Arms To Be? ................................ 20

Your First Homework Exercise.......................................................................... 22

Chapter 3 - Stop Wasting Your Time With Artificial Workouts ........ 23

More People Working Out, But Fewer People In Shape, Why?........................ 24

How To Make Your Workouts More Productive ............................................... 26

Real Strength Is 3D .............................................................................................27

“Hard-Core” Gyms verses “Powder Puff” Fitness Centers ................................ 28

Chapter 4 - Adapt & Grow: The REAL Secret To Fast Muscle Gains .. 29

What If I Run Out Of New Workouts? ...............................................................31

Blasting The Biceps From All Angles................................................................. 32

Positions Of Flexion ........................................................................................... 34

Mid-Range Power Exercises .......................................................................................34

Fully Stretched Exercises ............................................................................................34


Peaked Contraction Exercises.....................................................................................35

Chapter 5 - The Best Arm Exercises ................................................. 36

Squats, Chins, & Dips......................................................................................... 36

The Top 18 Arm Isolation Exercises .................................................................. 38

Mass Building Mid-Range Bicep Exercises ....................................................... 38

Standing Barbell Curls ................................................................................................38

Standing Dumbbell Curls ............................................................................................ 41

Hammer Curls .............................................................................................................43

Mass Building Mid-Range Tricep Exercises...................................................... 45

Close Grip Bench Press ...............................................................................................45

Tricep Cable Push Downs............................................................................................47

Reverse Grip Smith Machine Bench Press .................................................................50

Fully Stretched Bicep Exercises ......................................................................... 52

90 Degree Angle Preacher Curls .................................................................................52

Myoatic Reflex .............................................................................................................53

Incline Bench Dumbbell Curls ....................................................................................55

Hand Positioning.........................................................................................................56

Low Pulley Cable Crossover Curls .............................................................................. 57

Fully Stretched Tricep Exercises........................................................................ 59

Decline Bench Skull Crushers .....................................................................................59

One Arm Overhead Dumbbell Extensions ................................................................. 61

Overhead Rope Tricep Extensions..............................................................................62

Peaked Contraction Bicep Exercises.................................................................. 63

Dumbbell Concentration Curls ...................................................................................63

Overhead Pull Down Cable Curls................................................................................65

Seated Low Pulley Concentration Curls .....................................................................66


Peaked Contraction Tricep Exercises .................................................................67

Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks ........................................................................................67

Reverse Grip Tricep Cable Pushdowns.......................................................................69

Tricep Rope Cable Pushdowns.................................................................................... 71

Arm Exercises Recap...........................................................................................72

Chapter 6 - The Blast Your Biceps Workouts ....................................73

Phase 1 – Total Body Blast Preparatory Workout ..............................................73

The 20 Rep Squat Routine (aka Squats & Milk)......................................................... 73

Training To Failure...................................................................................................... 75

Upper Body Bodyweight Circuit Routine ...................................................................76

Phase 1 Recap ..............................................................................................................79

Something Extra On Your Off Days From The Gym ..................................................84

Phase 2 – The Meat & Potatoes Bicep Blasting Workout.................................. 86

POF Arm Workout A – Lighter Weights & Higher Reps...........................................89

POF Arm Workout B – Heavier Weights & Lower Reps........................................... 91

Upper Body / Lower Body Split Routine ....................................................................93

Phase 3 – The Partial Power Program............................................................. 100

What Is Partial Range Of Motion Training?.............................................................100

How Partial Range Of Motion Reps Can Help You Build More Muscle.................. 101

Power Rack Lockouts ................................................................................................ 101

The Drawbacks Of Partial Range Of Motion Reps ................................................... 102

Partial Range “Burn” Reps ........................................................................................ 103

A Warning About Partial Range Of Motion Workouts ............................................104


The Partial Range Of Motion Workout Routine....................................................... 105

Chapter 7 - The Blast Your Biceps Workout Charts .........................126

Phase 1 – Total Body Blast Preparatory Workout Charts ................................ 127

Phase 2 – POF Blast Your Biceps Workout Charts ..........................................128

Phase 3 – The Partial Power Program Workout Charts................................... 131

Other Great Resources To Check Out..............................................138

The Anabolic Kitchen Cookbook.......................................................................138

Home Made Supplement Secrets......................................................................139

Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle........................................................................140


CChhaapptteerr 11 -- HHooww TThhee ““BBllaasstt YYoouurr BBiicceeppss”” PPrrooggrraamm CCaammee TToo BBee

Hey Lee,

I just finished your “Blast Your Bench” program and the results were amazing. I started out benching 220 pounds and now after going through the bench press portion of the program my new one rep max is 275 pounds. I’ve also gained a solid 10 pounds of muscle in the process.

All the guys at my gym have really noticed how much my bench and size have increased. They’ve accused me of taking steroids because I’m growing so fast and my football coach even had me tested. I’m loving it!

I’m getting ready to start "Blast Your Squat" and I’ll keep you posted with my results. These programs are incredible. For once, I feel confident that I am doing the right workouts that will bring me results. I simply love how you have everything laid out and easy to follow.

Do you have anything for building up the arms like a “Blast Your Biceps” program that works as well as “Blast Your Bench”?

Thanks again Lee, you're the man!

Corey H.

I’ve received countless e-mail over the years similar to the one above. And if you have been following along with the online bodybuilding and fitness world for any length of time then chances are you have run across my world-famous “Blast Your Bench” program (www.BlastYourBench.com).


This controversial workout program has helped literally tens of thousands of guys from all over the world set new personal records in the bench press along with all their other major lifts as well.

http://www.blastyourbench.com/



My buddy Steve Cook from Newfoundland Canada said it best:

“…Even though it is a bench press specialization routine, I made solid gains all over. In just 3 weeks my bent over barbell rows went up by 30 lbs, squats went up by 30 lbs, and my bench press went up by 40 lbs…”

Bottom line, the original “Blast Your Bench” program is so much more than just a bench press workout. It is a total body size and strength building system that delivers solid predictable results every time. In fact I’ll go so far as to say that when you follow the program to the letter it is impossible to not come out on the other end bigger, stronger, and more muscular.

It all started back in the late 1990’s with blasting your bench press, then in the early 2000’s we added to it by blasting your squat, and recently I created a deadlift program to go along with the “Blast Your Bench” training system as well.

So now the 3 major muscle-building power lifts have their own unique specialization training program, and folks from all over the world are making crazy muscle and strength gains as a result of implementing these highly effective programs in their workouts. But I still get e-mails on a regular basis asking for a bicep specialization program. After all what guy wouldn’t want a bigger set of guns?

This is something I’ve pondered and wrestled in my mind for years. I knew my website visitors and personal coaching students wanted me to create a “Blast Your Biceps” program. And I knew that from my past experience that I could help people get better results and pack on more muscle by following my unique specialization workout programs then they could get on their own, or by following the typical re-hashed and outdated programs that clutter most of the books, magazines, and websites.

So why didn’t I create an arm specialization program before now? Because I honestly didn’t feel that I was qualified enough to create such a program.

Not qualified you may ask? When I first told my friends and colleges about this they were shocked to say the least…


“Lee, your website has been one of the top bodybuilding and fitness sites for over a decade! Heck, you are one of the pioneers to the whole online bodybuilding & fitness industry. How can you NOT be qualified to create a program?”

While I could understand where my friends were coming from, my insecurities about this project stemmed from my own personal integrity. I try to hold myself to some pretty high standards. If you have followed along with my website or any of my other training programs in the past, then you know that I’m a straight shooter.

I won’t ever promote anything that I don’t stand behind and believe in 100%. Every program and workout that’s on my website is something that I’ve personally researched and that I believe in whole-heartedly. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I was promoting a junk BS program that didn’t deliver solid results.

I have a personal motto that I like to follow in life and in my training business, and that is to:

“Leave people better off then you found them”.

So whenever someone visits my website, watches one of my videos, or reads one of my books (like you are doing right now), I want to leave them better off than they were before. Even if it is just with a simple workout tip, a new perspective on things, or re-enforcing the belief that they can achieve their personal muscle building and fitness goals. I always want to leave them better than I found them.

And that’s why I’ve struggled with the idea of creating a “Blast Your Biceps” program. You see with my own physique the arms, specifically the biceps, have always been the most stubborn bodypart for me to develop. And I wondered:

“How could I ever help anyone build big arms when I have trouble building big arms myself???”


Just look at the picture on the next page and you’ll see what I mean…

This picture was taken back when I was 17 years old and competing in my very first bodybuilding competition. The 1995 Newfoundland Provincials.

My first bodybuilding contest. The 1995 Newfoundland Provincials.

I’m the guy in the middle with the skinny arms and imaginary lat syndrome…

If you look closely at that pic you can see that I had decent torso and leg development, especially for a 17 year old. But look at those spaghetti noodle thin arms. It seemed like no matter what I did my arms just would not respond like the rest of my body.

Now while my arms have definitely improved considerably over the years. They are still a weak and lagging bodypart for me, one that I have to constantly work on to try and keep them in proportion with the rest of my body. And because of this genetic flaw in my physique I kept thinking that I was not qualified enough to write a specialization program about arm training. After all I hadn’t walked the walk and built myself a set of killer 20 inch guns.


I kept putting this project off and never did create such an arm program. But I’ve always been fascinated with studying different training methods, especially anything that had to do with arm training in particular.

That’s the unique thing about how we as humans are hard wired, we are always hungry and longing for what’s lacking or in short supply. So if your arms are lacking then you’ll be searching for everything you can about arm training. And that’s probably the very reason you are reading this book right now.

I was no different so I studied everything I could get my hands on; from the Weider Principles, to Arnold’s high volume 20 set bombing routines, to Mike Mentzer’s high intensity 1 set to failure Heavy Duty workouts, to Dorian Yates’ Blood & Guts routines, to Tom Platz’s ridiculously high rep squatting, to Louis Simmons’ West Side Barbell powerlifting programs, to Matt Furey’s Combat Conditioning, to Static Contraction, Dogg Crapp, Sandbag training, and at least a dozen or more different things that I can’t even remember the name of right now.

If anything showed promise, I’d study it and test it out on myself as well as my personal coaching students.

In addition to reading everything I could get my hands on, I’d talk to the guys I knew from bodybuilding, powerlifting, and strongman competitions who had the biggest arms. Everyone from local gym rats to seasoned national and professional level athletes.

Now while I certainly learned a ton of valuable training tips, tricks, and techniques from all my research and conversations. One thing that really stood out in my mind, and was quite shocking, was that the guys with the best arm development were more often then not the LEAST knowledgeable when it came to effective arm training!

This sounds totally ridiculous doesn’t it? I mean how can someone have a massive set of sleeve stretching pipes and not be knowledgeable when it comes to effective arm training?


Genetics For Building Big Arms

Yes, that ugly “G” word that skinny hardgainers the world over hate to hear. But it’s so true. Most of the guys you’ll see at your gym, on the bodybuilding stage, or in the magazines who have huge arms, have them because they are genetically gifted for big arms.

Now don’t get me wrong, these guys will certainly pay their dues in the gym by training hard and heavy, but the main difference for them is that their arms will respond like crazy to whatever training stimulation they receive. Unlike you and I who have to bust our ass for every millimeter of muscle size we gain.

To show you a prime example of this, I remember several years ago when I was competing at our local bodybuilding competition here in Newfoundland, Canada. The bantamweight class winner, Scott Gillam, and myself were chatting back stage, shooting the breeze, and talking about contest prep, working out, and all the usual stuff that bodybuilders gab about backstage at a competition.

Scott had a crazy set of arms, I don’t know exactly what they measured, but they looked bigger than my arms and I outweighed him by almost 40 pounds, and that’s in ripped dehydrated contest shape!

I remember asking him;

“Scott, what in the world do you do for your arms? They look amazing, heck they look as big as the heavyweight competitors arms!”

Scott then told me about his workouts and you know what, he didn’t even train his arms directly! The only training stimulation they got was from doing his upper body workouts for chest, shoulders, back, etc. He didn’t do a single arm isolation exercise!

Scott went on a few years after that to win his class at the Canadian National Bodybuilding Championships and no doubt those amazing arms of his helped him claim the title.

Now I’m not saying that he didn’t work hard to get to the level he is at. Obviously he paid his dues, busted his butt, and trained hard in the gym. However, as you can see his training situation is a unique one and he is genetically gifted for having big arms.


After that conversation with Scott backstage at the local bodybuilding competition I started to notice that his particular situation was a common theme among guys with genetically good arm development. Very often their arms take over and do a lot of the work when it comes to the major compound pressing and rowing exercises for the chest, back, and shoulders.

So for example, when a guy with huge arms does barbell rows for his back, his biceps will usually perform a lot of the workload and he’ll end up getting more of a muscle pump in his bis then his lats. The same applies when doing bench presses for the chest, his triceps will take over and he’ll end up getting more of a workout for his tris then his pecs.

In some cases this can even cause the arms to grow out of proportion to the muscles of the torso. If you have ever seen a guy with a killer set of arms and a thin chest or narrow back than this is most likely the case.

In my personal training situation this rarely happens, when I do rowing exercises for the back, I feel it all throughout the back. The same with pressing exercises for the chest, I feel it all throughout the chest. While this is great for building the muscles of the torso, it’s not so great when trying to stimulate arm growth.

To take it to another level, very often guys with genetically weak arms even find it hard to feel their arms working when doing arm isolation exercises. I know in my early days of training when I would do bicep curls I’d feel the movement more in my forearms than my biceps. And doing close grip bench presses, a tricep movement, would only pump up my pecs and front delts. I found it very difficult to get any appreciable muscle pump throughout my biceps and triceps.

Now picture the average beginner in the gym who desperately wants to build a big set of arms. What’s he going to do? He’s going to follow what the genetically gifted guys are doing, thinking that this is the best approach, and while this will produce some results initially (any training is better then no training). It will eventually lead him down the path of headaches, frustration, and maybe even to quit working out all together because he is trying to play the same game, but he was dealt a bad hand of cards in the genetics department.

We Need To Play By A Different Set Of Rules

Guys like you and I need to play by a different set of rules. Now while the gains will come slower than they do for the genetically gifted folks, they will come if you are persistent. Regardless of what level you are at now progress is always possible when you train smart and follow a proven plan of action rather then simply trying to wing it day by day.


SNAS – “Spaghetti Noodle Arm Syndrome”

If you can relate to what I’m talking about here then you may be suffering from a case of SNAS “spaghetti noodle arm syndrome”. But don’t worry you are not alone. I’ve been in your shoes before and I’m here to help. What I once considered to be my genetic flaw and the reason why I should NOT write this book, actually turned out to be the very reason that I HAD TO write this book.

Because of my piss poor genetics for building big arms and struggling year after year in effort to add any appreciable size to my guns, I was forced to dig deep, look outside the box, and come up with some unconventional arm training methods. But now I can proudly say that I have finally discovered a cure for the “spaghetti noodle arm syndrome”.

By using the training methods, tips, and tricks that I’m going to share with you here in this book I’ve been able to take my scrawny thin arms and pack on several inches of solid muscle mass to them so now I can actually fill out my shirt sleeves with a decent set of muscular arms.

Granted they are still not mind-boggling pythons, but they are in proportion to the rest of my body and I actually get comments from people now about how muscular my arms look. Rather then the way it used to be a few years back when people used to comment about how skinny my arms were.

My goal now is to share with you what I’ve learned so you can take this information and use it to transform your own physique and pack on several inches of solid muscular mass to your arms.

Let me tell you, it’s a great feeling to be able to wear a T-shirt with confidence and have your arms fill out the sleeves. And who knows, if you follow this program to the letter, then chances are you’ll even out grow your current wardrobe and have the unique pleasure of going shopping for bigger shirts to match the size of your growing arms.


So with that being said, the next step that I want you to take right now is to read through the rest of this book and get a good general overview of the ideas, training principles, theories, and workouts that you’ll be doing. Familiarize yourself with all this stuff. Than jump right into the actual “Blast Your Biceps” workout programs.

Start with Phase 1 and progress through all 3 unique training phases. Each one is there for a reason and they all build on each other. If you follow and apply this program, then you will come out on the other side bigger, stronger, and more muscular. That I can guarantee you!


Once you complete the “Blast Your Biceps” program please e-mail me and share your results. There is nothing I love to hear more then success stories from guys like you who have followed my advice and have transformed their physiques. So please make sure to write me when you are finished the program.

all the best, Lee Hayward (Your Muscle Building Coach)

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

CChhaapptteerr 22 -- TThhee FFiirrsstt SStteepp TToowwaarrddss BBiiggggeerr AArrmmss Depending on how hardcore and serious you are about your workouts, the first step towards building your arms bigger may actually be the hardest for you to take. Most of you reading this right now will actually want to skip this very critical “training” phase. I know this was the toughest part for me personally and I hated every minute of it…

Now you maybe thinking that you’re going to have to kick things off with some crazy high intensity superset power workout. Maybe you are thinking I’m going to have you doing 100 rep “death” sets to totally trash your biceps and blast them into growing. Or maybe you think I’ll have you lifting so dam heavy that your eyes will pop out of your head. (Note: I’m exaggerating just a tad little bit here in case you can’t already tell ;-)

However, the first phase of the “Blast Your Biceps” workout program is to do nothing! That’s right, nada, zero, zilch, no workouts what so ever for an entire week (Gasp!). Why in the world would I want you to stop working out for a week you may ask!? Well the reason is quite simple actually.

If you have been hitting the gym regularly for the past few months (or more) than chances are your central nervous system, adrenal glands, muscles, tendons, joints, etc. have all been stressed and need a mini break to fully rest and recover. Even if you don’t feel like you have been overtraining in your workouts, very often a forced break away from the gym will do the body good in helping you maximize your muscle growth.

I know from personal experience that I hate to take time off from working out. Going to the gym is like an addiction for me and it’s almost like I go through withdraw symptoms when I’m away. But when I do force myself to take a mini break I always come back to the gym feeling refreshed, energized, and make better gains then before.


Now please don’t take this the wrong way and think that going on a long-term vacation from the gym is the way to go either. In bodybuilding a lot of people seem to have an “All Or None” mentality. Moderation is the key with all things, so simply taking a week off from the gym every few months will be plenty.

During your time off you can focus on some other things that you may have been neglecting in other areas of your life. If you are a student then this will be a great time to buckle down and work on that term paper that needs to be finished. If you play a musical instrument, then take this week off to learn a new song. You could use this time to visit with family and friends that you normally don’t get to see that often. Or if you are a business owner like myself then you can use this time to really focus on a particular project that you may be working on, like writing a book about Blasting Your Biceps ☺

I would recommend that you keep your physical activity during your week off from the gym pretty low intensity. A week off from the gym to go white water rafting or rock climbing would not be considered “time off” from working out. In fact that would probably be more intense then the workouts you’ve been doing in the gym. You need to give your body a physical rest to let all your metabolic systems recover fully.


Goal Setting – How Big Do You Want Your Arms To Be?

During your mini break off from the gym would also be a good time to set some personal goals for yourself. When I set goals I like to break things down into physical fitness goals, personal goals, business / financial goals, and education goals.

Plan out one major thing that you would like to achieve in each of these areas of your life within the next 100 days. Don’t just shrug this off, but actually take the time and write it out on paper so you have a real plan of action. Just think about how cool it would be to wake up 100 days from now and have the personal satisfaction of achieving 1 major thing in each area of your life.

The key to goal setting that makes the whole process work is reviewing your goals on a daily basis. A lot of people will set goals, but very few review them on a daily basis. The benefits to reviewing your goals daily is that it keeps the goals fresh in your mind. Then when you go about your normal daily life, your reticular activating system is on full alert and working to help you achieve your goals.

To give you an example of this that you can probably relate to, just think about the last time you bought a car. Did you notice that once you got that car you started seeing that exact make and model of car everywhere on the road?

Why is that? Did this particular car all of a sudden become more popular since you bought one? No, it is just that your brain is unconsciously looking for that car. This is your reticular activating system at work. So what we want to do is consciously direct your reticular activating system to help you achieve your goals.

By reviewing and visualizing your goals daily you will be consciously and unconsciously looking for ways to achieve them. When an opportunity presents itself you’ll be able to notice it and take action on it, whereas before it may have slipped your mind. Trust me with this, there is magic in goal setting. There will be people and events show up that you are not even aware of yet. Opportunities will present themselves if you put positive focus on where you want to go in life.

For your physical fitness goal, it may be to add a solid inch of fat free muscle mass to your upper arms. Now just in case you are thinking that an inch doesn’t sound like much, trust me an inch of lean solid muscular size will make a big difference in how your arms look. Plus it is a very realistic and achievable goal if you follow this program.


Sometimes people set totally absurd goals that they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving. When you do this you are just messing with your head and setting yourself up for disappointment.

For example, if Johns sets a goal to be a millionaire in the next 100 days, but he is currently in debt up to his eyeballs, and doesn’t make more than $25,000 a year, that’s an unrealistic for such a short time frame. So is wishing for 19-inch guns if his arms barely stretch the tape to 13 inches.

You need to find that ideal balance of setting a goal that is realistic, but at the same time causes you to dig deep and work hard to achieve it. Something that will excite you enough so that you will do whatever it takes to get it, and that will give you a great deal of personal satisfaction when you finally do achieve it.

With an extra inch of solid mass on your arms your friends and family are going to take notice and make comments about how much bigger you look when you are wearing a snug fitting T-shirt. When you are in the gym other gym members will be curious as to how you made such great gains and will be looking to you for training advice. When you are out to a nightclub or party you’ll have girls come up to you and grab your arms and ask you to “make a muscle”. Having big arms can be a lot of fun ☺

Now you may want to gain a lot more then an inch of muscle on your arms and that’s fine. But to keep things realistic and achievable I’d suggest you just focus on gaining 1 inch at a time. After all that’s the only way you can grow.

Like I mentioned before if John has 13 inch arms now and he hopes to build them to 19 inches it will be very hard for him to stay motivated because it’s going to take at least a few years to achieve. But going from a 13 inch arm to a 14 inch arm can be done in the matter of weeks with the “Blast Your Biceps” program. Then he can re-set his goal to go from a 14 inch arm to a 15 inch arm, and so on until he reaches his ultimate goal.


Your First Homework Exercise

(Do This Right Now Before You Read Any Further!)

Right now grab a pen and paper or open up a new word processing document on your computer and jot down some goals that come to mind. Don’t put any limits or restrictions on your goals, for now just go nuts and get the ideas that are kicking around in your head out on paper.

If you are having trouble with this, just think about bodybuilders and athletes whose physiques you really admire. Imagine how cool it would be to have a body like that. How would your life be different? What would you do? Where would you go? How would you act? How much more confident would you feel?

Once you have your “ultimate goal” written down, work backwards and break that big goal down into smaller stepping stone goals. And then focus on what you honestly think you can achieve within the next 100 days. Write that goal down and write out a detailed paragraph about why you are absolutely committed to achieving that goal within the next 100 days.

Then each day review this goal, tweak it, edit it, and refine it so that you have a crystal clear image in your mind and written out on paper of exactly what kind of physique and muscular strength you are going to have 100 days from now.

If you want to take it to an even higher level, share this with some close friends, family members, or someone who will support you in achieving your goals. Broadcasting your intensions helps hold you accountable to follow through and do what you say you are going to do. After all, no one wants to look like an idiot for not following through on his commitments.


CChhaapptteerr 33 -- SSttoopp WWaassttiinngg YYoouurr TTiimmee WWiitthh AArrttiiffiicciiaall WWoorrkkoouuttss Just think about this for a moment. There are more gyms then ever before, more people working out then ever before, more people are taking supplements then ever before, and more people are “health conscious” then ever before. It all sounds good doesn’t it? Well than why in the world, despite all these advances in health and fitness, are more people fat and out of shape then ever before?

When I started working out as a kid in 1990 gyms were few and far between (compared to today’s standards). In the town I grew up in, there was a Gold’s Gym, the YMCA, and the university gym and that was about it. These places were pretty crude and hardcore. But the lifters that trained there… well they looked like lifters and were built like a “brick sh!t house”! And in case you are not familiar with that saying, it means they were built very strong and solid, unlike most modern gym members.

Today in this same town there are a lot more gyms, now granted the population has grown quite a bit, but nowhere near in proportion to the number of gyms that have sprouted up.

Years ago there were a lot less gyms, and a lot less people working out, but those that did train were very serious about it and they actually looked like they worked out. Compare that with the majority of people you see in the gym today. For the most part if you didn’t actually see the typical gym member in working out, you would never tell by looking at their physique that they even exercised a day in their life. As crazy as it sounds, it’s actually rare to see a well-built muscular physique IN THE GYM these days.


More People Working Out, But Fewer People In Shape, Why?

How can this be, why are more people then ever working out, but less people then ever are actually in shape? It has to do a lot with the gyms themselves. Years ago a gym had a power rack, squat rack, benches, barbells, dumbbells, and a few basic machines. Just the raw essential exercises that built real strength.

Compare that to the gyms of today where there are so many fancy padded and ergonomically correct machines scattered all over the place that people are getting away from the basic meat and potatoes type of exercises that made going to the gym and working out so effective in the first place.

Most of the new gyms today even have stupid powder puff rules that actually try to discourage serious lifters from joining. Things such as: no chalk allowed, no grunting, no dropping weights or making noise when working out, and some places even go so far as to say no deadlifts because it makes a noise when the bar hits the floor. It’s almost getting to the point where you are looked down upon if you want to go in and train hard with some real lifting.

The rules seem absurd from a serious lifter’s point of view. But they are understandable from the business owner’s point of view. I personally know several gym owners who have outright admitted to me that they purposely try to discourage hardcore lifters from joining their gyms.

They want the average Joe to come in and play around with the machines 3 times per week and pay their membership fee on time. They don’t want the serious hard-core lifter who is going to come in and dust up the gym with a bit of lifting chalk, rattle the bar with the clang of 45’s, and let out a grunt as he grinds out his last rep in the power rack.

From the gym owner’s point of view, serious lifters put more wear and tear on the equipment, they intimidate the average out of shape person from joining the gym, and this is bad for business. Whereas if the average Joe comes into the gym and sees a bunch of other average Joe’s doing an easy workout on pretty looking machines, that’s not intimidating at all, and this could help encourage him to join up to the gym as well.


When you look at this from the perspective of getting lazy people off their butt and doing some form of exercise, this is actually a good thing. But for those of us who are past this beginner’s phase with the goal of simply “going the gym” and actually want to pack on some real muscle mass from our workouts, this kind of atmosphere can really limit your progress.

Gyms today are designed to make people to feel good about themselves and to think that they are getting fit because they go to the gym. But the cold harsh reality is that most average gym members do the same workouts day after day, week after week, month after month, and even year after year.

The next time you are at the gym just take notice of how many regulars look exactly the same now as they did this time last year. Once most of them get past that initial beginners growth spurt, they fall into a permanent training rut and never progress past this level.

A major cause of this no growth problem is with all the fancy machine exercises that you can do when you go to the gym. You can literally spend 2+ hours pumping, pushing, pulling, and squeezing away with a couple dozen different machine movements and actually get LESS results then you would if you spent just 20 minutes doing a few sets of barbell squats and bench presses.

Now I’ll admit that going to the gym and working out with easy machine exercises is not all bad, heck it’s a better hobby than hanging out down at the local pub drinking pints of beer, or sitting home on the couch watching TV. But from a bodybuilding point of view and actually building a lean, muscular, and athletic physique your time in the gym could be better invested by getting back to the basics.

In my opinion the perfect example of a good old fashion hardcore gym can be seen in the movie “Pumping Iron” with the original Gold’s Gym and the Muscle Beach weight pen in Venice, California. This movie is a classic and every bodybuilding enthusiast has to watch at least a dozen times, if not more ☺

These old fashion gyms were based around basic hardcore barbell and dumbbell exercises with some cable and pulley machines added in for supplemental exercises. The workouts shown in the movie had the guys doing squats, benches, rows, curls, etc. And the physiques that they had built were a true testament to the effectiveness of this kind of simple, but effective training.


How To Make Your Workouts More Productive

After reading the previous section you now need to stop and do an evaluation of your own workouts up to this point. Has your training been primarily focused around the basic exercises such as free weight squats, benches, deadlifts, rows, shoulder presses, dips, chins, etc. Or have you been guilty of doing too many machine movements like leg extensions, pec deck flyes, lat pull downs, etc.

Be real honest with yourself when you do this personal workout evaluation. I have to admit that I’ve screwed this up on several occasions in my own workouts. I’ve often fell into the trap of doing easy machine exercises in favor of the harder more demanding free weight exercises.

The gym that I train at has a full line of Hammer Strength® equipment. Now while I love this particular line of machines and think they are among some of the best “machines” on the market. They are no substitute for good old fashion barbell and dumbbell exercises. I’ve gone months on end using these machines for my workouts and even made good strength gains with the machine exercises, increasing my weights weight week after week.


But when I eventually went back to doing basic free weight exercises, I found that my strength actually went DOWN and I was weaker then before. Just to let you know, strength gains made on machine exercises “usually” does NOT carry over into free weight exercises. However, gains made on free weight exercises will ALWAYS carry over into machine exercises.

Real Strength Is 3D

When you do free weight exercises you are in 3 dimensional training environment. Not only do you have to lift the weight of the barbells and dumbbells, but you also have to balance and keep them in position from all angles. Compare this with a machine exercise where everything is perfectly balanced and aligned for you and all you have to do is push or pull.

To see a prime example of this, just watch a beginner do a set of dumbbell bench presses for the first time. He will wrestle and struggle to just get the dumbbells in position. Then he will shake and wobble around so much you’ll swear he’s having a seizure fit. If this same newbie guy did a machine bench press there would be no shaking, no wobbling, and he would “look like” he was working out properly. But he is really cheating himself out of a lot of the gains he should be getting.

Now I’ll admit, watching newbies fumbling around with free weights looks really bad and I feel their pain every time I see a beginner struggling with benching, squatting, or whatever… But I’m also very dam proud of him for having the guts to do it!

All that struggling, shaking, wobbling, etc. is stimulating and activating so much more muscle growth then all the machine exercises in the gym combined. He is building real muscle with those free weight exercises that will have the strength to perform in the outside world, be that moving furniture, chopping wood, pushing a stuck car, or picking up a hot chick… and I mean literally picking her up ☺

Now with that being said. Before you go off and bash the crap out of all machine exercises let me clarify a few things. There are some machine movements that are worth doing because they can’t be effectively duplicated with free weights. So machine exercises are actually beneficial in these cases. Again, think back to the hard-core gyms they had in the movie “Pumping Iron”, they did use some basic machine exercises in their workouts.

For example, you can’t effectively do tricep push downs, lat pull downs, or cable crossovers with free weights so cable machines are helpful in these cases. Other machines that are really helpful are leg machines such as leg press, leg extension, leg curl, and calf raises because these can be tricky to try and duplicate with free weights as well.


So the ideal workout situation is to have your foundation based around basic bread and butter free weight exercises, with machine movements added in for supplemental exercises. But if you can do an exercise with free weights, then do it. You’ll make much better gains with free weight presses and rows then you ever will with the machine versions of these same movements.

“Hard-Core” Gyms verses “Powder Puff” Fitness Centers

(Hard Core Vs. Powder Puff)

You’ll make better strength and muscle gains training at a “Real” gym where the other members will motivate, push, and encourage you to get bigger and stronger. Rather then a “powder puff” Fitness Center, where the members shun the idea of training hard.

So right now you should do an evaluation of the gym you are currently training in and see if it has the right atmosphere to help you achieve your muscle building goals. If you have any doubts about your current gym, then I suggest you go around and try out a few different gyms in your local area and see which ones you like the best. Choose the gym that best fits the ideal training criteria of lots of hard-core free weights along with the basic machine exercises for your supplemental work.

Another good sign of a productive gym is where do most of the local bodybuilders and powerlifters train. Working out around guys who are bigger and stronger then you will help pull you up to their level. On the other hand, if you workout around “average” people who are smaller and weaker, then they will unconsciously hold you back from really pushing yourself to the highest level.

While a hard-core gym maybe a bit intimidating at first, and you’ll probably even have to go through a bit of an “initiation” phase before you get respect from your fellow brothers of iron, the end results and muscle gains that you’ll make from this type of serious training atmosphere will be well worth it in the long term.


Ask around at the local gyms and bodybuilding supplement shops if you don’t already know where to find the “hard-core” gyms in your area. From my experience, I always get a better workout and make better gains training at a gym that has a bunch of big guys chalking up their hands and slapping 45’s on the bar, rather then trying to get a workout done in a powder puff gym where everyone is afraid to work up a sweat and looks at you funny when you do deadlifts off the floor.

CChhaapptteerr 44 -- AAddaapptt && GGrrooww:: TThhee RREEAALL SSeeccrreett TToo FFaasstt MMuussccllee GGaaiinnss Adapting and growing - that’s the secret to building muscle. Whenever you do a new workout routine, or a new exercise it is a total shocker to your body. That’s why you very often feel awkward and uncoordinated when doing new exercises and you usually experience delayed onset muscle soreness that lasts for a few days afterwards.

However, each time you do a new exercise it gets easier and easier. You start to feel more comfortable with the movement, your body gets more coordinated, you feel stronger, and eventually you no longer get sore from doing that exercise. In other words your body adapts to the exercise and your muscles grow from it.

But the problem with this is that once you adapt to the exercise, your muscle growth slows to a snails pace and you reach a training plateau. This is where 99% of all gym members are stuck. Most of the regulars you see in the gym day after day look no different now then they did this time last year. And chances are they’ll probably look exactly the same this time next year (if they are still working out by then).

Now while you can try to constantly increase the weights you lift with progressive overload and make progress. This is usually the hard and slow way to go about it. Now don’t get me wrong, progressive overload is important and does provide new muscle stimulation. But the easiest and fastest way to stimulate growth is with new training stimulus in the form of new exercises.

Whenever you do a new exercise you’ll progress really fast with that exercise. To show you a prime example of this, just think back to the first time you did deadlifts.

(Note: I hope you are doing deadlifts, and if you aren’t, then now would be a good time to start :-)

When you did your first deadlift you may have worked up to 135 pounds on the barbell. Chances are you struggled and felt awkward doing them as it does take some practice to get the technique and coordination down pat. And most likely you were sore throughout your back, hips, and hamstrings for a few days afterwards. As a lot of novice lifters say “I worked muscles I never knew I had”.


The next time you did deadlifts chances are the weights felt much lighter and you probably worked up to lifting at least 20+ pounds more then the first time you did them. And they probably felt less awkward to perform the second time around as well.

The third time you did deadlifts you probably added another 20+ pounds to the bar and performed them with even better form again. This kind of rapid progress and strength gains could literally carry on for a few more weeks and it is only possible from doing new exercises.

Granted some of the fast strength gains will come from improved lifting technique, but a lot of it also comes from the unique muscle stimulation provided by the new exercise. So if you want to make the fastest muscle gains possible you must go through the process of selecting new exercises and then letting your body adapt and grow over and over again.

But one very important point that I want to bring up about is that you must NOT change your exercises too frequently. One problem that a lot of people will run into when they first hear about the benefits of changing your workouts is that they go to extremes and will always be changing things around. They will have no pattern or consistency to their training what so ever and end up running around the gym from exercise to exercise like a chicken with its head cut off.

The key trick to the whole thing is “Adapt & Grow”. You have to pick some new exercises, then stick with them long enough so that your body will adapt and grow from those exercises. After your progress slows down, then you can change to some new exercises and start the rapid growth process all over again.

Typically you’ll be able to stick to a set routine for about 4-6 weeks before you need to change things up. Please realize that this time frame is just a broad generalization. You may find that you personally can stick to a program for longer and make great gains. Or you may have to change things up sooner. It is an individual thing based on your conditioning, past training experience, the workouts themselves, etc. But most people will fall between the 4-6 week time frame of making good muscle and strength gains before needing to change their workouts around.


What If I Run Out Of New Workouts?

Now if your smart young lad (and I’m sure you are since you are reading this book) than most likely you’ll have spotted a slight flaw with this training philosophy. You are mentally counting up all of the exercises you can do in the gym and are thinking that eventually you are going to run out of exercises. And that once this happens your muscle gains will stop forever because there are no more exercises to do… “Gasp!”

However that’s not the case, because the cool thing about this whole changing up your exercises thing is that if you haven’t done a particular exercise for while and then return to doing it, your body will respond with the whole adapt and grow process all over again, just like it would to a brand new exercise.

So theoretically speaking, if you have a dozen killer arm exercises, you could cycle through them over and over again and make new muscle gains each time through.

Now if you are thinking that you don’t even know a dozen arm exercises, don’t sweat it. Because in the next section I’m going to provide you with 18 of my all time personal favourite muscle stimulating exercises for building big arms, many of them you probably never even heard of before. But this will increase your exercise library and really help you to blast your biceps and triceps into growing from all angles.


Blasting The Biceps From All Angles

Most people like to categorize different exercises by “Compound Exercises” or “Isolation Exercises”.

The definition of a compound exercise is a movement that works multiple muscle groups across more then one joint.

So a prime example of this is with the bench press, when you bench you are working your chest, shoulders, and triceps with a compound exercise across both the shoulder and elbow joints.

(Compound Exercise)

The definition of an isolation exercise is a movement that works the muscles across a single joint.

So the dumbbell fly is a good example of a chest isolation exercise because it works the chest from across the shoulder joint.

Granted there are more muscles groups involved for stability and balance, but the main training emphasis is just on the chest itself.

(Isolation Exercise)


In the case of bicep exercises, technically they are all “isolation exercises” because the main action is curling your arms at the elbow joint. But most guys consider standing barbell curls and standing dumbbell curls to be the “compound moves” for biceps because these exercises allow for heavier weights to be lifted compared to smaller bicep exercises like concentration curls.

(Standing Barbell Curls & Concentration Curls)

Now a point that I want to clarify here is that with all compound and isolation exercises there is some generalizing with the definitions because technically you can’t fully isolate or limit the number of muscle groups that come into play when you do any exercise. When you stand up to do a barbell curl there are literally hundreds of muscles, right from the tips of your toes to the top of your noggin, that come into play just to balance and stabilize your body during the exercise.

Even when you lay down to do bench presses there are a lot more muscles working then just your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Your forearms have to grip the weights, your legs are pushing into the floor for balance, all the muscles along your core and mid-section come into play to stabilize your body, etc.

So technically every exercise is a total body movement. But for our definitions we will only focus on the major muscle groups being targeted during any particular exercise.


Positions Of Flexion

While classifying movements into compound exercises and isolation exercises is good. There is an even deeper level beyond this, and in my personal opinion is the best way to categorize your exercises.

Positions Of Flexion or POF is a concept that Steve Holman first originated and it is a brilliant way to organize the exercises in your workouts. I’ve been using POF as the foundation for a lot of my own training and program designs and it just flat out works.

The idea behind POF is that you work the muscles from 3 different ranges of motion: the mid-range, fully stretched, and peak contraction.

Mid-Range Power Exercises

A mid-range exercise is what most would consider a big basic compound exercise. Again the bench press would be a prime example of a mid-range exercise because most of the stress is on the muscles in the mid-range of the movement. When you are at the bottom of a bench press you don’t really feel much of a stretch, and when you are at the top of a bench press you can lock it out and get a little mini-break, but in the middle of the bench press is where the most stress is on the muscles.

Mid-range exercises also tend to be the big power movements where you can handle a lot of weight. Bench press, squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, and leg press are all examples of mid-range exercises.

Fully Stretched Exercises

A fully stretched exercise is usually an isolation exercise. So in the case of our above examples, the dumbbell flye is a fully stretched exercise. When you do dumbbell flyes the most stress is on the muscles at the bottom of the lift in the fully stretched position. As you lift the weight up the stress is gradually reduced all the way to the point where you can lock it out at the top and hardly feel any stress on the muscles.


Some examples of fully stretched exercises are movements like: preacher curls, pullovers, stiff leg deadlifts, overhead tricep extensions, and sissy squats. In all of these exercises most of the stress is at bottom of the movement in the fully stretched position.

Peaked Contraction Exercises

A peaked contraction exercise is usually an isolation exercise as well. But it works in the reverse of the fully stretched exercise. So for example, a Pec-Deck flye machine is an example of a peaked contraction exercise. When you do the pec-deck flye most of the stress is right at the top of the movement and you have to fight to hold the handles together. You can’t lock it out at the top and get a break.


Some examples of peaked contraction exercises are movements like: concentration curls, tricep kickbacks, leg extensions, leg curls, side lateral raises, and cable crossovers. In all of these exercises most of the stress is at the top of the movement in the peaked contraction position. You have to flex and contact the muscles hard in order to hold the weights in the top position.

CChhaapptteerr 55 -- TThhee BBeesstt AArrmm EExxeerrcciisseess In this section I’m going to outline some of the all time best bicep and tricep exercises that are going to help you build an impressive set of sleeve stretching arms. I’m going to start with the basic meat and potatoes type of exercises that every successful workout should be based around. And then I’m going to dive into some of the more unique exercise variations that will really help you take your arm development to the next notch on the tape measure!

Squats, Chins, & Dips

Squats… Chins… Dips…

“WTF… did you make a typo Lee? I thought this was supposed to be arm exercises…”

Don’t worry, you are reading this right. Some of the very best arm building exercises are not even direct arm movements, and this is the case with squats, chins, and dips.


First off, these movements are bodyweight exercises, meaning that you are moving your entire body through space, not just moving your arms or legs. When ever you move your entire body through space you are activating a lot more muscle mass and stimulating a higher level of neuromuscular activation.

Bodyweight movements create a 3 dimensional exercise environment and this triggers the brain, central nervous system, and everything else to be more alert. After all moving your entire body under resistance is more stressful and the body senses a greater risk then it would if you were sitting on a nice padded exercise machine and lifting the handles up and down.

Because of this higher level of muscular activation you’ll get the most bang for your buck with bodyweight exercises. That’s why squats are arguably the most effective muscle building exercise there is. It’s a big basic compound exercise that allows for heavy weights to be lifted and moves your entire body through space. Squats are a lot more exhausting then leg presses, even though you can lift a lot more weight on the leg press, squats are still harder and more productive for building muscle.

While squats are primarily a leg exercise, they stress and stimulate the entire body. When you make gains in the squat this has a progressional muscle building effect all over, and literally forces your entire body to get bigger and stronger. Not only that, but doing big basic compound exercises like squats stimulates your body to release higher levels of anabolic hormones, like testosterone and growth hormone. This will spur on new muscle growth more so then doing smaller easier isolation type exercises.

Now don’t take this the wrong way, you still need to train your arms directly, but the foundation of your workouts should be based around big mid-range compound power moves first. This will allow you to get the most benefit out of the direct arm specialization training that is to follow.

In the case of chin ups (or pull ups) this is a fantastic upper body exercise. While the main emphasis is on the back, the biceps come into play heavily as a secondary muscle group. And the fact that you are moving your entire body through space and you are lifting a lot of weight (your entire bodyweight) it makes for one of the best bicep exercises you can do.

The same applies for dips, these are awesome for working the chest. But the triceps come into play heavily as a secondary muscle group. And because it is a bodyweight exercise where you are lifting your entire bodyweight through space, they will really help to pack on some meat to your triceps.


Just as an extra note here. All compound rowing exercises for your back will heavily work the biceps as secondary muscle groups. And all compound pressing exercises for your chest and shoulders will heavily work the triceps as well. So getting stronger on all your rowing and pressing moves will also help you quickly pack on size to your arms.

The Top 18 Arm Isolation Exercises

These are 18 of the all time best arm exercises that have helped iron game veterans from the past 100+ years pack on inches of sleeve stretching muscle to their arms. I’m going to start with some of the more basic well know movements first and then cover some unique special exercises that you may not have even heard of before.

Mass Building Mid-Range Bicep Exercises

Standing Barbell Curls

(Standing Barbell Curls)


This is the most basic bread and butter bicep exercise there is. Simply grab a barbell with both hands and curl that sucker up. It’s pretty simple, but it works. One major problem that we are facing these days is that with so many new fancy exercise machines in the gym, a lot of people are getting away from the basic free weight movements that have stood the test of time and have been proven to be the most effective movements for building real size and strength.

With the standing barbell curl you are better off using a straight barbell rather then an EZ curl barbell. The act of twisting your hands all the way so your palms are facing up in the supinated position, will fully activate the bicep muscles. Granted it may feel a little more uncomfortable on the wrists at first, but the little bit of discomfort is worth it in terms of fully stimulating your bicep muscles.

The biceps is made up of 2 muscle heads, hence the name “bi-cep”. The outer head is a shorter and is responsible for giving the arms that nice peaked look you see when hitting a bicep pose. The inner head is longer and bigger and it adds size and fullness to the biceps.

You can also target the different muscle head of your biceps by varying the width of your hand placements. A wider grip will tend to focus more of the stress on the inner head of the bicep, and a narrow grip will tend to focus more of the stress on the outer head of the bicep. And of course, a medium width grip will target the entire bicep equally.

Mistakes To Avoid…

A big mistake that a lot of bodybuilders make when doing bicep curls is lifting too heavy and swinging and using momentum to get the bar up. Don’t bring your ego in the gym, just leave it at the door. When you are in the gym all your focus should be on making improvements in your physique, not showing off or trying to impress anyone. Besides no one cares how much weight you can lift. In fact you’ll look like more of an idiot and get more people laughing behind your back if you use too much weight and crappy form, then you would if you used lightweights and good form.

Now with that being said, some people are so picky and anal over their exercise form that it actually limits their potential muscle gains. There is a time and place to use what I like to refer to as “Body English” when lifting. As you progress to more advanced levels in your workouts and get familiar with how your body reacts to training and this stuff will come naturally to you.


But for the purposes of this program, I’ll do my best to explain how you can incorporate “Body English” into your workouts…

Beginners should focus on simply learning proper exercise form. The easiest way to do this is to use light to moderate weights and really focus on feeling the muscles flexing and contracting with each rep. The best way to do this, especially at the beginner stage is by using slow and controlled form all the time.

However, as you progress with your training you will most certainly notice the naturally tendency to use more force and momentum as you try to complete your reps with heavier weights. This is something you want to pay careful attention to. Used in the right way it can help you work the muscles harder. Used in the wrong way it will take stress off the targeted muscles and increase your risk of injury.

My advice here is to start with a weight that allows you to maintain strict form for at least 6 reps. Then if you want to use a little bit of momentum to power out a few more reps then that's fine. This will allow you to perform a few extra reps that you normally wouldn't have otherwise been able to do if you were “too strict” with your form.


Again, the more experienced you get, the more natural this will become. You’ll develop your own personal training groove that works best for you and your individual body type.

Standing Dumbbell Curls

(Standing Dumbbell Curls)

This is another fantastic bicep exercise. The thing I like about dumbbells is that they force both sides of the body to work equally. Meaning both your left and right arms have to handle an equal workload. Most people have one arm stronger then the other. Usually your dominant side, so if you are right handed, more often then not your right arm will be bigger and stronger then your left arm.


When doing barbell or machine exercises you can unconsciously carry more of the workload on your dominant side. For example, it is quite likely that when doing a barbell curl that 55% of the weight could be lifted by your stronger arm and only 45% lifted by your weaker arm. But when you use dumbbells you are forced to have an even 50/50 split between both arms.

When doing dumbbell curls start with your hands facing your sides at the bottom of the exercise. Then as you curl the dumbbells up twist or supinate your wrists so that the palms of your hands are facing up at the top of the exercise. This twisting of the wrists will help to fully engage and contract the bicep muscles.

You can curl both dumbbells at the same time or curl them one at a time in an alternate fashion. It is harder to curl both arms simultaneously and easier to curl one arm at a time. So what I suggest you do is start the exercise curling both arms, and then as you fatigue you can grind out an extra couple reps by switching to curling one dumbbell at a time in an alternate fashion.

(Doing Alternate Dumbbell Curls – curling one arm at a time.)


Hammer Curls

(Hammer Curls)

The hammer curl is quite similar to the standing dumbbell curl, but rather then twisting your wrists and supinating your biceps as you curl the dumbbells up, you simply keep them straight up and down. As for the exercise technique itself, everything is pretty much the same as the standing dumbbell curl.


Again, just like with the regular dumbbell curl, you can curl both dumbbells at the same time or curl them one at a time in an alternate fashion. Curling one arm at a time will allow you to lift even more weight because you can focus all your effort on each arm individually. This is best for heavy lower rep power style training.

The main benefit of doing hammer curls is that you will work more of the brachialis and forearms with this exercise position.

The brachialis is the small muscle in between the biceps and triceps and it really helps to add mass to the entire upper arms. It also helps to push the bicep peak up even higher, so if bicep peak is something you struggle with, then you’ll definitely want to include hammer curls in your workouts.

The brachialis is that little “bump” of a muscle that’s between the biceps and triceps.

As you can see in the picture to the left the brachialis muscle looks awesome when developed because it adds more lines to the arms and just makes them look even more impressive when flexed.

Power Hammer Curls…

Here is a killer trick that you can do with hammer curls, a little technique tip that will take them from a simple “light shaping exercise” and turn them into a mass building power move.

When you do the curls perform them one arm at a time in an alternate fashion. This allows you to focus all your strength and energy on each arm individually.

Then as you curl your arm up, purposely keep your elbow close to the side of your body, and even a little bit to the back, don’t let your elbow flair up to the front. Also purposely keep your torso leaning just slightly forward, rather then leaning backward as most people do when curling.

What this will do is make it easier to curl your arm up so that your elbow flexes at a 90 degree angle and you will be able to handle more weight then you normally could.


This will take a bit of practice and trial and error to get down pat, but once you do you’ll notice the difference immediately. This little tip here could literally allow you to curl an extra 25% more weight and still use strict exercise form. This kind of training overload will really help stimulate maximum muscle growth throughout your arms.

Mass Building Mid-Range Tricep Exercises

Close Grip Bench Press

(Close Grip Bench Press)

The close grip bench press is one of the best basic compound mass building tricep exercises that you can do. In fact all compound pressing exercises such as shoulder presses and benching from all angles (i.e. incline, flat, and decline) will heavily work your triceps. Compound pressing exercises allow for a lot of weight to be lifted and perfectly fit the definition of a mid-range power exercise.

Using a closer grip on the bench press bar will place more stress on your triceps and less stress on your chest and shoulder muscles. I recommend grabbing the bar with your hands placed with width of your torso. For most guys this will be with your index finger touching the smooth part of the standard gym barbell.

During the exercise your forearms should be pointing straight up and down and not out to the sides (too wide) or pointing inwards (too narrow).


- Too Wide - - Just Right - - Too Close -

A big mistake that guys make when doing close grip bench presses is gripping the bar way too close, sometimes with their hands only a few inches apart. While this does place more of the workload on the tricep muscles, it also places a lot of excess strain and discomfort on the wrist joints. This will limit the amount of weight you can lift and thus reduce the muscular overload you place on your triceps.

When setting up for close grip bench presses simply lay flat back on the bench with your feet braced into the floor for balance. If you have studied any of my “Blast Your Bench” training material then you know I’m very picky about bench press technique with proper set up, arching your upper back, pulling your shoulder blades back, etc. but that’s for a power bench press for the chest. Not a close grip bench press for the triceps.

Another point that I want to make about close grip bench presses for the triceps is to make sure that you fully lock out each rep at the top when you do this exercise. The act of locking out the weight will fully contract and engage your tricep muscles. Sometimes more advanced lifters will like to pump out reps in a faster fashion and keep their elbows slightly bent at the top. While this is ok for regular benching for the chest, it is not the best when maximizing growth in the triceps.

And of course, just like with any bench press variation, you should always use a spotter when close grip benching. It’s no fun being stapled to the bench and screaming for help like a little schoolgirl because you can’t get the weight off your chest. So play it safe and always use a spotter or at least do your benches in the power rack with the safety pins set to catch the weight if you fail to lift it.

(Power rack bench presses with the safety pins set at chest height.)


Tricep Cable Push Downs

(Tricep Cable Push Downs)

While free weight exercises are the king of the gym for building muscle, there are some exceptions to the rule. The tricep push down is one of those exceptions. Push downs are to triceps what curls are to biceps. They are a good mid-range exercise that allows for fairly heavy weight to be lifted.


When setting up for tricep push downs, you can use a straight bar or an EZ bar attachment. Generally the EZ bar attachment will be more comfortable on the wrists, but both of them will work the triceps equally as well. Unlike bicep exercises where you’ll get a better muscle contraction with a straight bar, your triceps will contract hard regardless if you use a straight bar, EZ bar, V-bar, or any of the available bar attachments that you have at your gym.

Tip To Help You Lift More Weight When Doing Push Downs…

(Notice the dumbbell hanging from the waist)

With practice and consistency you can work up to handling some heavy weights with this exercise, I know several guys who can max out the weight stack for tricep push downs.

When you do get up to lifting heavy weight a unique problem arises and that is keeping your body down and in position.

One way to overcome this and make you feel more solid as you do the exercise is to wear a weight belt (one that you use for adding wfor dips, chin ups, etc.) and hang a dumbbell or weight plate from yowaist. This will help keep you down and in position. As shown in the picture to the left.

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This little trick right here could help you maintain better form and grind out an extra 2-3 muscle building reps that you otherwise may not have been able to do.


Single Verses Double Pulley Cable Machines…

One important point that I want to make about cable exercises is that there can be a big difference from one cable machine to another. The number of pulleys greatly impacts the level of resistance.

A single pulley cable (the kind that is often used for lat pull down machines) is much harder and feels a lot heavier then a double pulley cable machine (the kind that is often used for cable cross over stations). You can pretty much use twice as much weight with a double pulley cable set up as you can for a single pulley cable set up.

So keep that in mind when doing your workouts. Don’t think because you switched from a single pulley cable machine to a double pulley machine that you instantly doubled your strength.

Another thing I should mention as well is that different brands and styles of machines can vary greatly in the resistance they offer, despite the listed weight on the machine. So if from time to time you train at different gyms it is quite likely that the weight stacks will not feel the same and you may have to increase or decrease the weights accordingly.

Single Pulley Cable Set Up…

Double Pulley Cable Set Up…


Reverse Grip Smith Machine Bench Press

(Reverse Grip Smith Machine Bench Press)

(Notice the hand position in the picture. Grip the bar with an underhand grip.)

This is a killer tricep mass building exercise that most people have never heard of before. But it will work your triceps harder and allow for very heavy weights to be lifted compared to using a regular grip.


The way you set up for this movement is to slide a flat exercise bench into a smith machine. Line up the bench so that the barbell touches the top of your abs when you are lying on the bench and the bar is all the way down.

Pressing From The Bottom Up…

Set the height of the safety pins so the barbell is few inches higher then your torso when lying down and in position. Start the lift with the bar resting on the safety pins, you will be pressing from the bottom up, rather then un-racking the bar and starting from the top like you normally would. This will allow you to avoid the need to twist your wrists for racking and un-racking the bar in the smith machine.

Using a reverse grip, grab the barbell with a fairly wide grip. The nature of the reverse grip will force you to keep your elbows tucked and place most of the stress on your triceps. Press the bar up until your arms fully lock out at the top, then lower the bar back down to the safety pins and repeat.

With practice you’ll be able to really pile on the weight here and work your triceps hard. I’d suggest that you avoid trying this exercise with free weights as racking the bar is very difficult and the risk of injury is just too high. Stick to the smith machine and you’ll reap all the tricep building results with less risk of injury.


Fully Stretched Bicep Exercises

90 Degree Angle Preacher Curls

(90 Degree Angle Preacher Curls)

Preacher curls are my all time favourite stretch exercise for the biceps because they are super strict and give me a crazy muscle pump throughout the biceps. Most people like to do preacher curls on the angled side of the pad, but I prefer to do them on the opposite side where your arms can hang straight down.


Not all preacher curl benches allow you to do curls on the back side of the pad, so if the one at your gym does then by all means take advantage of it. But if you only have a standard preacher bench with the 45 degree angle pad then you use this variation instead. It will still stretch out your biceps, but it will limit the myoatic reflex action, which can help you stimulate even more of those dormant muscle fibres in your biceps.

Myoatic Reflex

This is basically a stretch rebound that will really hit muscle fibres that you can’t reach with standard exercises. In its simplest definition it is just a slight bounce out of the bottom to help you rebound the weight back up. Now while I know this may sound like an injury waiting to happen, it’s not as dangerous as it seems and it is actually quite common in real world activities.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about just picture a baseball player swinging a bat or a golfer swinging a club. What do they do first when they set up? They swing back and then once they get to the fully stretched position they reverse it and swing forwards. Why don’t they just start in the middle and swing forwards? Because it limits the stretch rebound or myoatic reflex.

(Golfers swing the club back before hitting the ball to get the stretch rebound.)


This is a very neglected aspect of bodybuilding training that most muscle head gym rats totally ignore. But it can really help take your muscle growth to the next level when you take advantage of it.

When you do 90 degree angle preacher curls you can go all the way down and slightly rebound out of the bottom because your arms are pointing straight down and there is not a lot of strain on your elbows or tendons, you’ll just feel a light stretch in the muscles. But if you tried this on a 45 degree angle preacher bench then you could NOT bounce out of the bottom or else you would tear something or pop your elbow out of socket.


I also recommend you do this exercise with the close grip of an EZ curl barbell. The angled grip and width works really well for this movement and the close grip will target the outside head of the biceps and help build more shape and peak.

Incline Bench Dumbbell Curls

(Incline Bench Dumbbell Curls)

This exercise was a favourite of the great Arnold Schwarzenegger and his bicep development was incredible. You can see him doing this and other fully stretched exercises in the Pumping Iron movie.

The key here is to use an angled incline bench at about a 50 degree angle. Sit on the bench with your back to the pad and let the dumbbells hang down by your sides. Curl them all the way up to the top and then lower them back down.

Don’t have the bench angle too far back and over stretch the biceps in the bottom. Again, just like with the preacher curls you want a light stretch so you can rebound out of the bottom position. Not so much of a stretch that you are going to risk pulling or tearing a muscle.

To help keep more tension on your biceps and get a better stretch as you do this movement, keep your palms facing forwards at all times. Most people let their palms turn in at the bottom when they do this exercise and this actually takes the stress off the biceps. But if you keep your palms forward in the bottom you will really work your bicep muscles to the max and get more benefit from the exercise.


Hand Positioning

When doing incline bench dumbbell curls, or any dumbbell curl variation for that matter, you’ll get more muscle stimulation and feel the movement more in your biceps if you keep your palms facing forward the entire time during the exercise. This is harder and keeps more tension on the biceps compared to letting the dumbbells turn in with your palms facing each other at the bottom.

(Palms in takes tension off the biceps – Palms facing forward keeps tension on the biceps.)


Low Pulley Cable Crossover Curls

(Low Pulley Cable Crossover Curls)

For the most part any bicep exercise that you can do with barbells and dumbbells can also be done with cables. However, I personally do not think that cables are as effective of a muscle building movement as free weight exercises. As was already mentioned earlier, machines make the exercises easier. So most of the time I’ll utilize basic free weight exercises, but occasionally I’ll incorporate cable machines for variety.

The good thing about cables is that they tend to be easier on the joints and tendons then free weights. So if you have any elbow tendonitis, doing cable exercises maybe more comfortable and allow you to work around your nagging injuries.

The low pulley cable crossover curl is a movement that I stumbled upon by accident not too long ago when myself and fellow fitness trainer Vince DelMonte were on vacation down in Las Vegas. We were training at a small hotel gym and the only piece of equipment that we had was a small cable cross over station. So during our stay we figured out dozens of unique cable exercises that could be done on this machine, and the low pulley cable crossover curl was one of them.


Note: If you would like to see videos of the actual workouts that we did you can go to my YouTube channel at: http://www.LeeHayward.com/youtube-workout.htm and check them out.

http://www.leehayward.com/youtube-workout.htm

How you set up for the low pulley cable crossover curl is first attach a single pulley handle to each cable and then step forward a couple feet so that your arms are being pulled down and back behind you. This pre-stretches the biceps at the bottom. Then strictly curl your arms up and then lower down again until you feel a good stretch throughout the biceps.

Even though I primarily recommend this movement for a fully stretched exercise, the fact that you are using cables also makes it a good movement for a peak contraction exercise as well because you have constant tension right up to the top of the exercise.


Fully Stretched Tricep Exercises

Decline Bench Skull Crushers

(Decline Bench Skull Crushers)

This exercise goes by a lot of different names, lying tricep extensions, tricep presses, French presses, nose breakers, skull crushers, etc. But hopefully you’ll never suffer from any of those injuries. Basically it’s doing a tricep extension, usually with an ez curl barbell, and lowering it to just above your forehead.


This is a great exercise as is, but a way to make it even more effective and stimulate more muscle growth is to do this movement on a decline bench. The decline position will provide a much greater range of motion, allow you to fully stretch out your triceps and rebound out of the bottom of the exercise.

(The decline version provides more range of motion and better stretch in the triceps.)

With practice you can work up to handling fairly heavy weight in this exercise and really hit your triceps hard. In fact this is probably the one key exercise that has really helped take my arm development to the next level and now my side tricep pose one of my stronger poses in bodybuilding competition.

When doing the decline bench skull crusher you may want to get a training partner to help hand you the barbell at the beginning and end of your set. This will prevent you from straining and over stretching by trying to pick it yourself.


One Arm Overhead Dumbbell Extensions

(One Arm Overhead Dumbbell Extensions)

This is another favourite tricep exercise of mine that allows you to work each arm individually and really get a good stretch throughout the triceps. You’ve probably seen guys doing a variation of this exercise with both hands holding the end of the dumbbell at the same time, now while that makes for an ok mid-range exercise, it doesn’t allow for the deep stretch that you’ll get from only using one arm at a time.

A cool thing about single arm bicep and tricep exercises is that you can self spot yourself and help pump out some extra reps. Sometimes when I’m feeling extra energetic I’ll go and train past the point of failure by using my free hand to assist my lifting hand with a couple extra reps.


If you find that you have one arm stronger than the other (i.e. usually we are stronger with our dominant side). Then you should always start with your weaker arm first, and make sure to do the exact same number of reps with your stronger arm afterwards, even if you have to stop short of muscular failure with your stronger side. What this will do is allow your weaker arm to catch up and overtime help balance out your muscle development in both arms.

Overhead Rope Tricep Extensions

(Overhead Rope Tricep Extensions)

This cable exercise with the rope attachment really hits the tricep with a good stretch. Start off by attaching a rope to the low pulley cable. If you are using a cable cross over station with adjustable pulley heights it will make it easier to get into position. As you can see here in the picture the adjustable pulley is set to about hip height.

Grab the rope facing the machine and then twist yourself around so that you are facing away from the machine with your elbows pointing overhead and your triceps fully stretched out behind your head. It’s a bit awkward to explain on paper, but play around with light weights and you’ll get the hang of it fairly quickly.

Extend your arms all the way overhead for a full contraction, than lower them back down for a deep stretch throughout the triceps. The cables should have a springy feel to them, especially if you are using a double pulley set up, so you should be able to lightly rebound out of the bottom and really take advantage of the myoatic reflex when your triceps are stretched.


Peaked Contraction Bicep Exercises

Dumbbell Concentration Curls

(Dumbbell Concentration Curls With Elbow Braced Against The Knee)


(Dumbbell Concentration Curls With Elbow Hanging Freely.)

This movement is another favourite of the great Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can see him doing concentration curls in the movie Pumping Iron. In fact this was the exercise he was doing when he talked about how getting a pump was as satisfying to him as having sex with a woman and cumming...

(One Of The Most Famous Pumping Iron Quotes: “…getting a pump is as satisfying to me as cumming is… you know having sex with a woman and cumming…”)

There are a couple different concentration curl variations that you can do. One with your elbow braced against the inside of your leg, and the other one where you are just bent over letting your arm hang down freely.

The first variation is a bit stricter and the second variation will allow for a bit more body momentum and heavier weights to be lifted. It’s up to you which one you choose, both work equally as well as a peaked contraction bicep exercise.

Again start with your weaker arm first and do the exact same number of reps for your stronger arm afterwards. And if needed you can self spot yourself with your free hand.

Peak Contraction Exercise Tip…

To help maximize the effectiveness of a peaked contraction exercise, hold the top position of the lift for a second before lowering the weight back down. This will force your muscles to work harder and get a more “satisfying pump”.


Overhead Pull Down Cable Curls

(Overhead Pull Down Cable Curls)

This is a unique bicep exercise that chances are you have never seen done in the gym before. But it will hit your biceps from a totally different angle and really help you get a good peak contraction throughout the muscles.

Sit on the lat pull down station just like you would if you were going to do a set of pull downs, but grab the handle with a medium width underhand curl grip. Then keeping your upper arms motionless, curl the bar down behind your head and hold it for a second to really get a good contraction in your biceps. Lower the weight and repeat.

This is a fantastic exercise for helping to add more shape and peak to your biceps and a great way to finish off your bicep workouts.


Seated Low Pulley Concentration Curls

(Seated Low Pulley Concentration Curls)

This is a unique concentration curl variation that works the arms differently than the standard dumbbell concentration curl. Like mentioned before, cables tend to place less stress on the elbow joints, so if you have any tendonitis or pain that you are trying to work around then this exercise may help with that.

Attach a single handle to the low pulley cable row machine. Sit on the bench with your knees bent slightly and pointed outwards, grab the handle with one hand and then brace your elbow against the inside of your knee. Curl the handle towards your chest until you feel a good peak contraction in your biceps, hold it for a second, and then lower the weight back down.

Depending on how the weight stack is set up, you may not be able to lift much weight with this exercise. Generally the single pulley style weight stack is often used for low pulley row machines, and this is much harder and feels heavier then the double pulley weight stacks that are often used for cable cross over machines.


Peaked Contraction Tricep Exercises

Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks

(Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks)

This exercise gets a lot of negative flack from “hard-core” bodybuilders and muscle heads. Most experienced gym goers will tell you to skip this exercise, and that you would be better off doing a mass building compound tricep exercise instead of the dumbbell kickback. And you know what, if you were limited to just one tricep exercise I would agree with this advice wholeheartedly. But where is it written in stone that you are limited to just “one” tricep exercise.

When you do kickbacks at the end of your tricep workout, after you’ve already gone through mass building power movements and fully stretched movements, you can really hammer the triceps hard and get a blood gorging muscle pump like nothing else with a few sets of dumbbell kickbacks. In fact this is my all time favorite peak contraction movement for finishing off your tricep workouts.

Using strict form and really focusing on the “mind muscle connection”, which is simply focusing on squeezing and contracting your triceps hard as you do the exercise, is critical for maximizing the effectiveness of the dumbbell kickback.


How you set up for this exercise is first line up a flat exercise bench sideways with the gym mirror. Looking in the mirror as you do this exercise will help because it allows you to focus on the triceps more, you can literally watch them flex with each rep and get a better muscle contraction.

Kneel on the bench with one knee and brace your upper body with your free arm as shown in the pictures. Keeping your upper arm locked in close to your torso, just move your forearm back until your tricep is fully locked out, hold this position for a split second to really cramp and contract the tricep muscles, then lower back down and repeat.

Do the same number of reps for your other arm.


Reverse Grip Tricep Cable Pushdowns

(Reverse Grip Tricep Cable Pushdowns)

- Notice the palms facing up grip -

While doing tricep push downs with a regular overhand grip is a great mid-range mass building movement, switching your hand position to an underhand grip changes the movement completely and makes for a great peaked contraction tricep exercise.

When you hold the pushdown handle with an underhand grip, your muscles have to contract harder to hold the locked out position, you can’t lock it out and get that little mini break like you can with an overhand grip.


While you will have to greatly reduce the weight you can lift with the reverse grip to about 50% of what you can handle with an overhand grip, you’ll find that it actually contracts the tricep muscles harder, and will give you an awesome muscle pump at the end of your tricep workout.

You can also do this exercise with a single handle attachment and perform them with one arm at a time. The one arm variation generally allows for a harder muscle contraction in the triceps. This will allow you to really focus on each arm individually and is great for creating balance and proportion between the left and right arms.


(One Arm Reverse Grip Tricep Pushdowns)

Tricep Rope Cable Pushdowns

(Tricep Rope Cable Pushdowns)

The rope pushdown variation works in a similar fashion as the reverse grip tricep pushdowns, in that you can’t relax and get a rest pause break when your arms are locked out. There is tension on the triceps right through the entire exercise.

The rope also offers more freedom of movement with your wrist position and is often times more comfortable on the joints then using a solid bar attachment. Many people who suffer from elbow tendonitis (i.e. tennis elbow) usually find that the angle and positioning of the tricep rope pushdowns allows them to work around the injury pain free.

Again you won’t be able to handle the same weights as you can with a straight bar or EZ bar attachment, but you’ll get a much better peak contraction throughout the triceps which makes the rope pushdown a great finishing movement.


Arm Exercises Recap

These are the core arm exercises that you’ll be using in the “Blast Your Biceps” program. But if you don’t have access to a particular exercise or piece of equipment listed here then you can make substitutions within these guidelines. For example, switch up one stretched bicep exercise for another stretched bicep exercise, or switch up one compound tricep exercise for another compound tricep exercise. You have flexibility within the program to vary the exercises based on the equipment you have available.

In the next section we are going to dive into the exact workouts that you need to follow in order to start adding some serious muscle mass and stretch out that tape measure a couple inches around your upper arms.


(The Author: Lee Hayward hitting a twisting back double bicep pose)

CChhaapptteerr 66 -- TThhee BBllaasstt YYoouurr BBiicceeppss WWoorrkkoouuttss Now we are going to get down to business with the nitty gritty details of the “Blast Your Biceps” program. This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak. Everything up until this point has just been the theory, explanation, and the reasoning behind the program. This chapter right here is the actual “How To” portion of the program, the workouts themselves.

Phase 1 – Total Body Blast Preparatory Workout

Remember back at the beginning of Chapter 5 on page 36 where we talked about how the best muscle building exercises are bodyweight movements such as squats, chins, and dips because they stress your muscles in a real 3 dimensional training environment… Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to do for Phase 1 of the “Blast Your Biceps” program.

The 20 Rep Squat Routine (aka Squats & Milk)

(With a bicep stimulating twist…)

“Are squats the key exercise in this routine?” Eddie asked him. “Squats are the key exercise in any routine,” the gym owner said. “Your gains will be roughly proportionate to the effort you put into squatting. The heavier you squat the more you’ll gain, and without them you won’t gain at all.” (McCallum, 1971, p. 78)

The 20 rep squat program is a very simple yet effective mass building routine that will kick-start you into making some solid muscle gains throughout your entire body.


This is an old time workout routine that has been around for most of the 20th century, but it works awesome for fast muscle gains. The way it works is you will train 3 days per week (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) but if that doesn’t fit your schedule you could workout on any other 3 non-consecutive days per week.

The main exercise that you start each workout with is the full high bar squat.

(Full Squats)

Do 2-3 light easy warm up sets to get the blood flowing and to warm up your joints. Then take a moderate weight and do 1 set of 20 reps.

For each rep take a big mouthful of air, hold your breath, squat down and up, and repeat. The reason for holding in your air as you squat down is because this will stabilize your torso, tighten your mid-section, and make it easier to rebound out of the bottom of the squat.

As you progress through the reps you will need to take more breaths in between reps. During the first 5 reps you should get away with a single breath per rep. From reps 6-9 you’ll probably need to take 2 big gulps of air in between reps. At the half way point of rep 10 through 14 you’ll be huffing and puffing at full steam. And to finish it off and complete all 20 reps you’ll probably need to take 5 or more big mouthfuls of air in between reps. It usually takes me at least 2 minutes to complete 1 all out set of 20 rep squats.

It sounds pretty straight forward, and it is. But the real key here that will make or break your progress is using progressive overload and upping the weight by 5 pounds for each workout and still getting all 20 reps.


Start off a little on the conservative side and go light. This will build your confidence and allow you to ride the wave of momentum as you build up by adding 5 pounds to the bar each workout.

Trust me on this one, don’t be too eager to jump to maximum weights right from the get go, you’ll burn out too fast and won’t reap the benefits of the program.

The weights will really start to catch up to you quickly. At 3 workouts a week, you’ll be adding 15 pounds to your 20 rep squat each week. After 4 weeks that’s a full 60 pounds added to your 20 rep squat.

So just to keep the numbers simple, if your first workout you start with 100 pounds for 20 reps. Your second workout you would use 105 pounds for 20 reps. Your third workout you would use 110 pounds for 20 reps. And so on, just keep going up 5 pounds per workout.

Again, make sure to start conservatively when selecting your first workout weights so that you can up the weights on a regular basis without reaching muscular failure.

Training To Failure

There is a lot of controversy around the topic of training to failure. And like most topics there is no “right” or “wrong” answer. It all depends on the individual and their training situation.

In the case of the 20 rep squat program training to failure is actually counter productive because it breaks you down physically and mentally and prevents your from making those small steady 5 pound jumps in weight each workout.

I don’t know if you have ever squatted to failure before, but trust me it’s no fun. Just imagine you are at rep 18 of your 20 rep squat program, your face is red as a tomato from straining with effort, your heart is pounding out of your chest, you are gasping for air, your knees are shaking under the weight, your lower back is starting to cramp with a painful muscle pump, and you descend into another rep… But the weight is just too much and you are pinned helplessly down into the bottom of the squat. At this stage you either dump the bar on the safety pins of the squat rack or you get your spotter(s) to assist you in getting the weight up and racked.


How does this make you feel? No one in his right mind wants to go through that and it certainly is not going to build your confidence for your next workout. In fact just the opposite will happen, you’ll be dreading your next squat workout and probably even get nervous just thinking about how it felt to be pinned helplessly under that bar.

Rather then that, how about starting with a more conservative squatting weight and manage to get through all 20 reps. Yes, you will still be working hard and struggling a bit, but you’ll be able to finish your set and rack the weight knowing that if you really had to you could have grinded out another 2-3 reps.

This will leave you feeling strong, powerful, and confident in shooting for an extra 5 pounds on the bar for your next workout. And that’s exactly the way you want to feel after your squat workouts. Ride this wave of progressive overload momentum for all it’s worth. Yes, eventually the weight is going to catch up to you and you’ll probably reach failure at some point. But when you get to that stage, the program will have run it’s course and it will be time to move on.

I realize that the thought of squatting is probably not what you had in mind when you picked up the “Blast Your Biceps” program. But the strength and development that you gain from squatting will lay the muscular foundation that will lead to bigger arms faster then simply doing arm isolation routines.

Even though squats are primarily a leg exercise, they stress and stimulate the entire body to grow. High rep squatting has a progressional muscle building effect on the entire body. This will cause muscle growth in the arms, chest, back, and shoulders, and of course the legs. If you are able to handle heavy weights in the squat, it logically follows that the rest of your body will undoubtedly grow in proportion.

To give you a prime example of the effectiveness of this program, I did my all time personal best bench press of 445 pounds (more then double my bodyweight) after completing the 20 rep squat program. Even though my main focus wasn’t on benching, the strength and muscular development I made from high rep squatting carried over into my other lifts and helped me bench press a new personal record.

Upper Body Bodyweight Circuit Routine


After you finish the 20 rep squats move on and do an upper body, bodyweight circuit routine to complete the workout. Again, the reason for doing all bodyweight exercises with this workout is so you’ll get the most muscle-building bang for your buck. All these exercises move your entire body in a real 3 dimensional training environment. This creates a higher level of neuromuscular activation and stimulates the most muscle growth.

Start with a set of pull-ups for as many reps as you can do with good form. Pull-ups are great for working the back, biceps, and forearms.


(Pull Ups aka: Chin Ups. A lot of people will use both names to explain this exercise. But technically pull ups are done with the palms facing forward as shown here, and chin ups are done with an underhand grip. I’d suggest that you alternate back and forth between the two with each set to work the muscles from different angles.)

After your set of pull-ups, rest a minute, and then move on and do a set of dips for as many reps as you can do with good form. Dips are great for working the chest, shoulders, and triceps.

(Dips)


After the dips, rest a minute, and then do a set of decline bench sit ups for as many reps as you can do with good form. Decline bench sit ups are my personal favorite abdominal exercise that really work both the upper and lower abs.

(Decline Bench Sit Ups)

Once you complete the 3 exercises, pull-ups, dips, and sit ups. Rest another minute and then repeat the circuit again. Go through the circuit at least 3 times. As you progress with the workouts you’ll be able to do more reps on each set as well as do more sets of the circuit.

Phase 1 Recap

Here is a recap of the workouts you’ll be doing in Phase 1 of the “Blast Your Biceps” program. You’ll be training 3 days per week (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) or any non-consecutive 3 days that fit your schedule.

Each workout you’ll start with a general total body warm up of moderately intense cardio for 5-10 minutes. My personal favourite form of warm up cardio is the rowing machine because it moves all your major muscle groups.


After your cardio warm up you’ll move into squats. Do 2 or 3 progressively heavier warm up sets. Keep the reps low say between 5-10 reps. No need to burn yourself out with too many reps on your warm up sets. Save your strength for the main working set where it counts.

For example, let’s say you are going to start your 20 rep squat routine with 135 pounds and go up 5 pounds per workout. Your warm up sets may go like this:

- Empty bar (45 pounds) for 10 reps

- 95 pounds for 5 reps

- Then go to 135 pounds for your working set of 20 reps.

The stronger you are, and the heavier you’ll be lifting, the more warm up sets you’ll need to do in order to get up to your working weight.

*Optional Exercise

The traditional 20 rep squat routine as outlined in the book “Super Squats” by Randall J. Strossen, suggests that right after you finish your squats that you immediately do a set of 20 rep pullovers to stretch your rib cage and help with upper body growth.

Now there is some controversy between the “bodybuilding experts” about whether or not stretching exercises like pullovers help expand the rib cage or not. But just from my observation, guys that regularly do pullovers in their workouts tend to have bigger thicker chests and torsos then guys that don’t. Bottom line, doing pullovers anit going to hurt, and it may do you some good.

(dumbbell pullovers)

The way you would do them is take a deep breath, hold your air, do a rep and really feel your chest and rib cage expand in the fully stretched position, then return to the starting position. Take another deep breath and repeat. The deep breathing will aid in stretching and expanding your rib cage.


After the squats and optional pullovers move on to…

Upper Body Circuit

- Do a set of Chin Ups / Pull Ups for as many reps as you can do.

- Rest a minute.

- Do a set of Dips for as many reps as you can do.

- Rest a minute.

- Do a set of Decline Bench Sit Ups for as many reps as you can do.

- Rest a minute.

- Repeat the circuit at least 3 times.

After you go through the workout a few times you may feel that you can do more then 3 rounds of the upper body circuit and that’s good, it means you are progressing and increasing your work capacity. So if you want to work up to going through the circuit 4, 5, or more times then do so. But start off with 3 times through.


Most experienced gym goers can do bodyweight exercises like chin ups, dips, sit ups, etc. without the need for lighter warm up sets. But use your own discretion on this. If you feel that you need to do a warm up set first then you can use the assisted dip / pull-up machine or you can even do some machine exercises for the chest and back to warm up.

*Tip For Beginners

If you find Chin Ups, Dips, and Sit Ups too challenging at this stage in your workouts. Then you can opt for easier bodyweight exercises that target the same muscle groups.

Bodyweight Rows:

Push Ups:


Crunches:

These exercise variations are a lot easier because you are only lifting a fraction of your bodyweight, unlike chins and dips where you are lifting your entire bodyweight. But they still provide the same benefit of neuromuscular activation because you are moving your entire body through space.

The Entire Phase 1 Workout:

- Warm Up: - 5-10 minutes of cardio

- Squats: - 2-3 warm up sets, then 1 working set of 20 reps

- Pullovers: - 1 set of 20 reps

- Chin Ups / Pull Ups: - 3+ sets of as many reps as you can do.

- Dips: - 3+ sets of as many reps as you can do.

- Sit Ups: - 3+ sets of as many reps as you can do.

Stick with this 20 rep squat routine for at least 4 weeks. If you are making really good gains with the program you can ride it out for 6 weeks or more. But once you find that those 5 pound jumps in weight each workout has caught up to you, it will be time to move on to the second phase of the “Blast Your Biceps” program.


Something Extra On Your Off Days From The Gym

After reading through Phase 1 you are probably a little pissed off by the fact that I haven’t mention any direct bicep exercises yet. After all this is a “Blast Your Biceps” program, designed to give you bigger arms right? Well, don’t fear because I’ve got you covered.

One of the training tricks that I’ve used myself and with several of my coaching students to help bring up stubborn bodyparts is adding in “extra workouts”. Now the key to extra workouts is that they are to be done in addition to your regular training to help build you up, rather then break you down.

So for the biceps we are going to do rubber band bicep curls.


(Rubber Band Bicep Curls)

If you don’t already have a rubber fitness band, go to a sporting goods store and get one. They don’t cost much money and they will really help with your extra workouts.

When shopping for your rubber fitness band, make sure to get one with a decent amount of resistance. Sometimes the cheap rubber fitness bands that you’ll see in the department stores don’t have much resistance. But, if this is your only option you can use 2 bands, one for each arm, in order to provide enough resistance.

The brand of fitness band I have is Body Lastics

Their website address is: http://www.BodyLasticBands.com

I find that they are one of the better brands of fitness bands. They allow you to adjust the resistance of the bands depending on your individual strength levels.

What you will do is on your off days from the gym (3-4 days per week) pump out 100 total reps of bicep curls with the rubber fitness band. This will pump your biceps like crazy and help to regularly flush blood and nutrients into your muscles and aid with overall muscle growth.

Now don’t get freaked out by the 100 reps, you don’t have to do all 100 reps in a single set. You can break it up over the course of the day. For example, do 2 sets of 25 reps in the morning and 2 sets of 25 reps in the evening to make up your 100 total reps for the day.

This kind of high rep training will really help to stimulate some unique growth in your biceps because most people never train this way. It will also prime you for Phase 2 of the “Blast Your Biceps” program.


http://www.bodylasticbands.com/

Phase 2 – The Meat & Potatoes Bicep Blasting Workout

This is the training phase you’ve been waiting for, the one where you actually get to specialize and prioritize your arm training and pump on some sleeve stretching muscle mass to your guns.

Now there is an important key element to successfully doing an arm specialization workout program, or any bodypart specialization program for that matter, and that is you have to compromise and cut back on your training in other areas in order to be able to focus more on your specialization training.

A big mistake that a lot of inexperienced bodybuilders fall into is trying to go on a “total body” specialization program. They try to do everything at once. They’ll look at themselves in the mirror and say:

“I’d like to gain a couple inches on my arms… I also need to beef up my pecs and add some width to my back… You know, I should also work more on my calves, I’ve been neglecting them… And I really need to get ripped six-pack abs for that beach vacation…”

Can you relate to this? Wanting to build everything at once and get ripped at the same time? If we are honest I think we can all relate because we are our own worst critics. One quick glance in the mirror and we can pick out a dozen things that we’d like to change with our physiques.

But to be successful and make real measurable progress you need to be able to focus on one thing at a time. As the old proverb says:

“A man who chases two rabbits catches none.”

To boil it down… to accomplish anything of importance you have to have focus. You can’t go in two directions at once.

Competitive bodybuilders cycle their training in accordance to this philosophy. In the off-season they will bulk up, gain mass, and focus on building up their weak bodyparts. Then for the months before a contest they will switch gears and focus on maintaining the muscle mass they gained in the off-season while trimming away all their excess bodyfat and getting ripped for the stage.


The ability to focus on one thing at a time and prioritize your training like this is a big reason why competitive bodybuilders look as big, lean, and muscular as they do. You can’t do everything at once. An experienced bodybuilder would never try to bulk up, get ripped, and do specialization workouts for every bodypart at the same time. Neither should you.

So with the Phase 2 workout you will be doing a specialization workout for your arms and a maintenance style workout for your other bodyparts. This is the same style of workout program I personally used in my contest training for the 2007 Heavyweights Classic Bodybuilding Championships where I won the light-heavyweight division and overall title.

I really needed to bring up my arm development and this kind of arm specialization training did the trick. Allowing me to add size and fullness to both my biceps and triceps. Now granted I’d still like to add more size to my arms, but they’ve come a long way from my first bodybuilding competition and I think I’ve cured my case of SNAS “spaghetti noodle arm syndrome”.

The pics below are from my very first contest and my most recent contest.


Here is the workout schedule that I followed:

Day 1: Upper Body Workout

Day 2: Arm Specialization Workout A

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Lower Body Workout

Day 5: Arm Specialization Workout B

Day 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

Repeat the cycle

You’ll notice that your arms will get 2 workouts per week and your other bodyparts will just get 1 workout per week. This is to focus your energy and recovery towards building your arms.

To keep it simple you can follow these workouts in order with the days of the week. So Monday will be Day 1, Tuesday will be Day 2, etc. but if that doesn’t fit your particular schedule you can change the days that you workout accordingly.

The main thing is that you just go through all of the workouts in this order, regardless of what day of the week the workout falls on. Upper body, arms, rest. Then lower body, arms, rest, and repeat.

For the arm workouts we are going to be using the Positions Of Flexion style of training as is outlined on page 34. So each arm workout will consist of a mid-range power exercise, a fully stretched exercise, and a peaked contraction exercise for both the biceps and triceps.

To help maximize your strength during your workouts we are going to alternate doing a bicep exercise with a tricep exercise. Rather then doing all your bicep exercises first and all your tricep exercises second. Working agonist and antagonist muscle groups back and forth in an alternating fashion like this will allow you to lift more weight during your workouts. While your biceps are working your triceps get a little break, and then while your triceps are working your biceps get a little break.


Not only will this allow you to lift more weight. But it’s an awesome feeling to have both the biceps and triceps pumped up at the same time. Getting a big muscle pump like this helps stretch the fascia and connective tissue surrounding the muscles and increases their potential for growth.

We are going to do two different arm workouts. The first one will be a lighter, higher rep workout to really pump blood volume into the muscles and stimulate the slower twitch muscle fibres, (i.e. The Type IIa fibres that are involved in lighter high repetition weight training).

The second arm workout will be a heavier, lower rep workout to help build strength and power and stimulate more of the fast twitch muscle fibres, (i.e. The Type IIb fibres that have the highest rate of muscular contraction and are involved in heavy low repetition weight training).

POF Arm Workout A – Lighter Weights & Higher Reps

Standing Barbell Curls: (Bicep Mid-Range Power Exercise)

Do 1-2 light warm up sets.

Then increase the weight and perform 3 sets of 10-12 reps.

Keep the same weight for each working set.

If you can complete all 3 sets of 12 reps with good form, then increase the weight by 5 pounds for your next workout.

Close Grip Bench Press: (Tricep Mid-Range Power Exercise)






90 Degree Angle Preacher Curls: (Bicep Fully Stretched Exercise)





Decline Bench Skull Crushers: (Tricep Fully Stretched Exercise)





Dumbbell Concentration Curls: (Bicep Peaked Contraction Exercise)

By this stage you can probably just jump to your working weight and perform 3 sets of 10-12 reps.




*Start with your weaker arm first, than make sure to do the exact same number of reps for your stronger arm afterwards.

Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks: (Tricep Peaked Contraction Exercise)

By this stage you can probably just jump to your working weight and perform 3 sets of 10-12 reps.



*Start with your weaker arm first, than make sure to do the exact same number of reps for your stronger arm afterwards.

POF Arm Workout B – Heavier Weights & Lower Reps

Alternate Dumbbell Hammer Curls: (Bicep Mid-Range Power Exercise)

*Curl one arm at a time in an alternate fashion.


Then increase the weight and perform 3 sets of 6-8 reps per arm.



Reverse Grip Bench Press: (Tricep Mid-Range Power Exercise)

*Use the Smith Machine For This Exercise.






Low Pulley Cable Crossover Curls: (Bicep Fully Stretched Exercise)





Overhead Rope Tricep Extensions: (Tricep Fully Stretched Exercise)





Overhead Pull Down Cable Curls: (Bicep Peaked Contraction Exercise)

Do 1-2 light warm up sets if needed.




Reverse Grip Cable Pushdowns: (Tricep Peaked Contraction Exercise)

Do 1-2 light warm up sets if needed.





Stick with the Phase 2 workouts for at least 4 weeks. However, if you are making really good gains with the program you can ride it out for 6 weeks. But once you find you’re your strength starts to plateau and it gets harder to make those 5 pound jumps in weight, it will be time to move on to the third phase of the “Blast Your Biceps” program.

Upper Body / Lower Body Split Routine

For your other muscle groups you will use the following workouts with this upper body / lower body split routine:

Upper Body Workout:

*Each exercise should be preceded with 1-2 lighter warm up sets. - Incline Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- One Arm Dumbbell Rows – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Barbell Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Lat Pull Downs – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Abdominal Crunches – 3 sets of 25+ reps

Lower Body Workout:

*Each exercise should be preceded with 1-2 lighter warm up sets. - Leg Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Stiff Leg Deadlifts – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Standing Calve Raises – 3 sets of 10 reps


- Abdominal Leg Raises – 3 sets of 15+ reps

With these workouts your main focus is simply on maintaining your strength and muscle mass throughout your body while you focus on building up your arms. However, you will most likely find that you’ll still make good gains with these exercises as well. So increase the weights by 5 pound jumps when ever possible.

You can follow the exact exercises that I’ve outlined for you here, but if you want to change some things around from time to time that’s fine as well. The only thing I want to caution you on is to not do too much training volume for your other bodyparts. Again, remember the whole purpose of this phase is to prioritize your arm training.

Exercise Pictures For The Upper & Lower Body Workouts


Note: These exercises are pretty basic exercises and most gyms should have this equipment available. But if for some reason you can’t perform a particular exercise then just do another exercise that works the same bodypart. Again the main focus here is simply on maintenance training so you don’t have to be overly strict with the particular exercises you do.

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press:

One Arm Dumbbell Row:


Barbell Shoulder Press:

Lat Pull Downs:


Leg Press:

Leg Extensions:


Stiff Leg Deadlifts:

Standing Calve Raises:


Abdominal Crunches:

Abdominal Leg Raises:


Phase 3 – The Partial Power Program

This training phase is going to help solidify the mass gains that you made in your arms from Phase 2 and it will help you gain even more size and strength in all your major muscle groups. With Phase 3 you’ll be training all bodyparts in equal proportion with the focus on increasing your overall strength and power.

One of the key training principles that we will be using in this training phase is the use of partial range of motion repetitions. There is a huge debate within the Iron Game about the topic of partial range of motion reps verses full range of motion reps, and like a lot of things there is no “right” or “wrong” answer.

There are some die hard muscle heads who swear by full range of motion reps, and they say that using anything less than a full range of motion on every single exercise is a complete waste of time and the lifts won’t count. Then on the other side of the coin you have some fitness gurus who go to the other extreme and say that as long as you lift the weight it doesn’t matter what range of motion you use, and they only advocate the use of short range of motion partial reps.

Well, as you can probably guess with my style of training, I could care less about these stupid debates and worrying about what such and such an expert thinks. I just look to real world results and make my decisions on that. If it works, then I’ll incorporate it into my workouts. It’s as simple as that.

One of the most important key principles when it comes to strength training and building muscle is that “Everything Works, But Nothing Works Forever.” And this philosophy fits in perfectly with partial range of motion reps.

What Is Partial Range Of Motion Training?


Before we go any further we need to clearly define what exactly is Partial Range Of Motion, because there is a lot of grey area here. Some people refer to partial reps as “burns” done at the end of the set as a way to train beyond failure. Others refer to it as strong range of motion “lockout training”, as in doing power rack lockouts. And then some others refer to partials as working in the mid-range of an exercise where you don’t go all the way down and don’t go all the way up, but rather just pump out short reps in the middle while keeping constant tension on the muscles at all times.

Which style of partial reps you do greatly depends on the exercise(s) you are doing and your training goals. For example, a lot of bodybuilders will use the “burns” and short mid range reps to help get a better muscle pump, while powerlifters will often do power rack lockout reps to help condition their bodies to handle maximum weights.

Within Phase 3 of the “Blast Your Biceps” program we will be incorporating all styles of partial reps in order to maximize your overall strength and muscle mass gains. I’ll cover all this in more detail when we get into the actual Phase 3 workouts.

How Partial Range Of Motion Reps Can Help You Build More Muscle

The whole idea behind partial range of motion reps is they allow your muscles to perform a bigger workload (i.e. lift more weight or do more reps).

Power Rack Lockouts

One of my personal favourite styles of partial range training is power rack lockouts. To perform these you would set the safety pins in the power rack so that you only have to lift the bar in the top ¼ range of motion. Starting with the bar resting on the safety pins you would lift it up, lock it out, then lower it back to the safety pins.

To show you an example of this, just look at the picture below of a Shoulder Press Lockout done in the power rack.


(Power Rack Shoulder Press Lockouts, notice the safety pins set above head height.)

If you look closely at the picture, you’ll notice that the safety pins are set so the bar is above head height at the start and you only have to press the bar to lockout. This type of set up can be used for several of the big basic compound lifts such as; bench press, squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, etc.

The reason for this is because you can “lockout” much more weight than you can lift through a full range of motion. It’s quite common for guys to literally handle as much as 50% more weight with a power rack lockout then they can lift in a full range of motion. Now as you can imagine lifting 50% more weight will place a tremendous amount of muscular overload on your body, causing it to adapt and grow in response to this new stress.

To put some real world numbers here as an example, if you can currently bench press 200 pounds, imagine how much more stimulation you would provide your muscles if you were to perform power rack lockouts with 300 pounds on the bar! Even though you are lifting in a shorter range of motion, your muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments are still lifting and supporting this much heavier workload.

The Drawbacks Of Partial Range Of Motion Reps

Now if this is your first time hearing about partial range of motion power rack lockouts then you may be wondering why everyone doesn’t do this style of training. If this is so great for stimulating muscle growth then why would we even bother doing full range of motion reps, why not just stick with partial range of motion reps?

While there are some “fitness experts” who think this way, the main drawback of doing only short range of motion partial reps is that the strength gains made do not always carry over into your full range of motion strength. Partial reps tend to overload certain muscles to a greater degree and place less workload on other muscles.

For example, in a squat the lower you go the more your hips, glutes, and hamstrings come into play. If you only do ¼ range of motion squats then you are not going to fully activate and develop these muscle groups.


With the bench press, the bottom half of the lift places more stress on your chest and the top half places more stress on your triceps. So if you only do top range of motion bench presses it’s good for overloading your triceps, but not so great for stimulating your chest.

So rather than thinking of partial range of motion reps as the bee’s knees or the “best” method for building muscle, think of them as simply another weapon in your training arsenal that you can use in your quest towards building your ultimate muscular body.

The good thing about partial range of motion reps is that with time and practice you can literally work a heavy partial range of motion rep into a legit full range of motion rep. But that’s a topic for another program... For now we are just going to focus on how incorporating partial range of motion reps in your workouts can help you quickly pack on some muscle to your guns!

Partial Range “Burn” Reps

Another method of using partial range of motion reps is to use “burn” reps to extend a set past the point of muscular failure. This method is more often used among bodybuilders and works great for smaller isolation type exercises. Whereas the power rack lockouts are more popular among powerlifters and tend to only work for big basic compound barbell lifts.

How this works is let’s say you are doing a set of dumbbell curls for your biceps and you pump out full range of motion reps to failure. At this stage you can’t perform another full range of motion rep, but have you gotten to the point where you can’t more the weight at all? Not really, chances are that you’ll still be able to continue pumping out short range of motion partial reps, only curling the weight about a 1/3 of the way up from the bottom and continue going for another 5 or 6 partial range “burn” reps.

The benefits of this style of partial range rep training is that you can extend your sets beyond the point of muscular failure and get that extra muscle stimulation in at the end of your set, when under normal circumstances you would have just quit when you couldn’t perform another full range rep.

Now while this is a great advanced training technique, it is a doubled edged sword that can cut both ways. Partial reps can be easily abused and cause you to over train and burn yourself out. This style of training is very stressful on your body because you are hitting failure twice in one set, once with the full range reps, then again with the partial range “burn” reps.


These should be saved for only one or two sets of an exercise, and even then this technique should be cycled in your workouts. It is not something that you would use all the time for every exercise because it would just be too demanding and hinder your recovery.

As with the power rack lockouts that we discussed earlier, the use of partial range “burn” reps are just another tool in your toolbox. You have them at your disposal to help you along in your muscle-building journey.

A Warning About Partial Range Of Motion Workouts

Before we get into the actual sets and reps of the workout, I have to issue a warning to you right from the get go. You are going to cause a lot of heads to turn in the gym when you do partial range of motion power rack lockouts. Basically people are going to look at you funny and wonder what the hell you are doing. Some young smart asses may even say something to the effect of:

“…look at buddy, he thinks is so cool because he can lift a lot of weight, but his form sucks and he’s only benching a few inches…”

If you train at one of those gyms where the personal trainers and fitness instructors feel the urge to butt in and interrupt your workouts so they can “show you the right way to train” then they are going to be all over you like butter on a bun… So you’ve got to know what to say in cases like this just so you can shut these people up and get on with your workout.

Say something along these lines:

“Thanks, I really appreciate your feedback…”

(Even though you don’t and wish they would just leave you alone and mind their own business).

“…But I’m purposely working in a short range of motion here to help strengthen my lockout strength. Yes, I realize that this is not the same as doing full range of motion reps. For most of my workouts I do use a full range of motion for all my exercises, but for a short training phase I’m going to be focusing on using some heavy partial range of motion power rack lockouts to help spur on new muscle growth. Then I’m going to go back to my regular full range of motion workouts.”

Hopefully that will shut them up and let them leave you alone so you can do the rest of your workout without distraction.


Note: There is a reason why most powerlifters, Olympic lifters, and strongman competitors train in private hard-core gyms and not in the general “fitness gym”. And that is so they can avoid having the skinny runt Certified - Know It All - Personal Trainers bugging them and trying to tell them the “right way” to workout.

The Partial Range Of Motion Workout Routine

The training routine we are going to use for Phase 3 of the “Blast Your Biceps” program is going to be based around a basic 3 day per week bodybuilding split routine that focuses on building size and strength equally throughout all the major muscle groups.

The only difference is that we are kicking the training intensity up a notch by utilizing partial range of motion “Lockout” reps and “Burn” reps as we just discussed previously.

Ideally you would do these workouts 3 days per week (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). But if that doesn’t suit your schedule, then doing the program on any 3 non-consecutive days will be fine as well. The key here is to give your body at least a full day of rest in between each workout to allow for full recovery from the extra stress of the heavy partial reps.

The Workouts Split:

- Workout 1: (Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps)

- Rest Day.

- Workout 2: (Back and Biceps)

- Rest Day.

- Workout 3: (Legs and Abs)

- Rest Day.

- Rest Day.

- Repeat The Workout Cycle.


The actual workouts, exercises, sets, and reps that you will be doing are all outlined in detail in the next section.

Workout 1: (Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps)

Power Rack Bench Press Lockouts:

(Power Rack Bench Press Lockouts)

Ok, here’s where the rubber meets the road with the Phase 3 –Partial Power Program… And what better exercise to kick things off with then the bench press!?

Like I mentioned in my initial warning, this is one exercise that you’ll get some strange looks with, but don’t let that bother you because this is an awesome move for building up your upper body strength and really packing some size on your triceps.

It wouldn’t hurt to do a couple sets of push-ups before hand to fully warm up your chest, shoulders, and triceps and get the blood flowing before moving on to the power rack bench press lockouts.


You may need to experiment a bit to get the right rack and bench height for this exercise. Ideally you want to be able to press the weight up 4-6 inches. Your elbows should be wider then 90 degree angles when you are set up on the bench and the bar is resting on the safety pins. Grip the bar with a slightly wider then shoulder width grip, for most guys this will be with your pinky fingers on the rings of the standard gym barbell.

You can play around with different pin heights, different benches, and even place weight plates or a board underneath the bench legs if needed to get the appropriate height for your arm length. Just make sure that what ever you use is set up solid and will not slip during the exercise.

As you do your bench lockouts really focus on straightening out your arms underneath the bar, rather then thinking about pressing the bar up. I know this doesn’t seem like much at first, but this little shift in lifting focus will allow you to handle a lot more weight in the bench press then you normally could. Try it for yourself and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Note: To get more tips and tricks like this to help jack up your bench press you should get a copy of my Blast Your Bench program at: http://www.BlastYourBench.com if you do not already have a copy.

Go through your normal warm up sets just like you would if you were doing a full range of motion bench press, but do them with the weight starting from the bottom and pressing off the safety pins in the power rack.

After 2-3 progressively heavier warm up sets, you’ll move on to doing 5 sets of 5 reps, going progressively heavier with each set. Don’t count the warm up sets as part of your 5 working sets.

You should be able to work up to lifting much heavier then your personal best full range of motion bench press with the power rack lockouts. On average most guys should be able handle approximately 50% more weight in a power rack lockout then they can with a full range of motion rep. But take your time and progress up in weight gradually, extra caution is needed when handling heavier weights, even though they are partial reps.

Rest at least 2 minutes between each set. You don’t want to rush these workouts. Taking adequate rest times will help replenish your body’s Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) energy stores (this is the energy system used for heavy low rep power training) and it will allow you to handle maximum poundages.

Heavy training with longer rest periods between sets also helps to increase your body’s natural testosterone production as well. So that’s another added bonus of taking the longer rest times between sets with this power-training phase.


As with the other training phases you should strive to increase the weights you are lifting with each workout. But with power rack lockouts you’ll be able to make bigger jumps in weight. So instead of shooting for an extra 5 pounds each workout, you’ll most likely be able to go for 10+ pound jumps in weight each workout.


Power Rack Shoulder Press Lockouts:

(Power Rack Shoulder Press Lockouts)

A lot of what was said with the bench press lockouts can be applied here to the shoulder press lockouts as well. The safety pin height should be set so that the barbell is above your head at the bottom of the exercise. This is a good starting point because you can center the barbell over your body and have more pressing power, unlike pressing to the front or back of the head with a full range of motion shoulder press.

You should be pressing the bar about 6 inches up off the safety pins. Grip the barbell so that your forearms are vertical (i.e. straight up and down) when the bar is resting on the safety pins. This will place your body in the strongest position to press with your deltoid and tricep muscles.

As with the bench press, you can play around with different pin heights, different upright benches, and even place weight plates or boards underneath the bench if needed to get the appropriate height for your body. Just make sure that the set up you use is solid and secure so it will not slip or move during the exercise.

Do 2-3 light warm up sets and then jump into your working sets (5 sets of 5 reps) increasing the weight with each set.

Do your best to increase the weight when ever possible, but if you find that you can’t get 5 good reps on a set, then the weight is too heavy and you’ll need to lighten the load a bit.


Again, take at least 2 minutes of rest in between each set for full recovery.

Dumbbell Side Lateral Raises (With Burn Reps):

(Dumbbell Side Lateral Raises)

This exercise really targets the side deltoids. Simply grab 2 dumbbells. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Hold the dumbbells to your sides, and lift your arms out to the sides until they are about head height. Hold it for a second, and then lower back down.

Do 1-2 warm up sets and then jump to your heavy weight for 3 working sets of 8-10 reps. Side lateral raises are one of those isolation type of exercises that don’t work very well for heavy low rep sets. So use lighter weights and really focus on feeling the muscles flex and contract as you pump out the reps.


Once you reach “failure” after 8-10 reps and can no longer lift the dumbbells all the way up to head height. Pump out another 5-10 mini “burn” reps in the bottom range of motion, just lifting the dumbbells as high as you can. This will really pump up your delts like crazy and take them past the point of muscular failure.

To get a bit more “Body English” and momentum while doing side lateral raises so you can handle heavier weights you could start with the dumbbells out in front of your body, rather then starting from the sides like I’m showing in the pictures above.

However, there is one very important safety point that I want to mention about brining the dumbbells together in the front of your body, and that is to watch out that you don’t nip your “Johnson” between the dumbbells at the bottom of the rep.

I know this may sound a bit funny and make you giggle while reading this, but I seen a dude at the gym a while back do this and the poor bugger was it some major pain. I don’t think he did any serious damage down there, but let’s just say it messed up his workout, and most likely messed up any evening plans he may have had with his girlfriend.


Me personally, I’ll just stick to doing lateral raises with the dumbbells starting from my sides, thank you very much…

Power Tricep Push Downs (With Burn Reps):

(Weighted Tricep Push Downs – A Tricep Power Move)

This is your standard tricep pushdown, just like I described back on page 47. But if you really want to work it hard, you can hang a weight plate or dumbbell from your waist as shown here in the pictures.

The reason for the extra weight is to stabilize and support your body as you work up to handling maximum poundage. You’ll notice that I’m actually using the entire weight stack here and that extra 45 pound plate hanging from my waist helps hold me down solid in position.

Now of course, adding the extra weight from your waist is totally optional. But you’ll find that it really does help you lift heavier as you get stronger and more advanced. This will allow you to push yourself harder and handle maximum weights with tricep pushdowns.


For your workout you’ll start off with 2-3 progressively heavier warm up sets and then jump to your working weight for 3 sets of 8-10 reps. Again, just like with the side lateral raises before, you are going to pump out reps to “failure” and then when you can’t perform another full range rep and lockout your triceps, you’ll just perform another 5-10 mini “burn” reps just moving your arms as much as you can.

Push Ups:

(Push Ups)

Push ups are one of my all time favorite upper body exercises. Before I got involved with serious weight training I participated in martial arts and did lots of bodyweight exercises such as push ups.

In fact when I was a teenager I could bang out 100 push ups in a single set. All those push ups certainly helped give my chest development a boost and is one of the reasons why my chest is one of my best bodyparts today.

At the end of your chest, shoulder, and tricep workout you are going to pump out 3 sets of as many push ups as you can do. Start with a closer grip for your first set (i.e. hands the width of your torso apart), then with your second set move your hands out a few inches, and for your third set move your hands out even wider again.

The closer your hands are the more you’ll work your triceps and the wider your hands are the more you’ll work your chest. Most people find the closer grip harder then a wider grip, so that’s why we’ll start with a close grip and work our way out with each set.

Take a full 2 minutes rest in between each set in order to allow for adequate recovery. This will help you maximize the number of reps you can do with each set.


Keep track of your reps for each set and simply strive to perform at least one more additional rep for each workout then you did for your previous workout.

Workout 2: (Back and Biceps)

Power Rack Deadlift Lockouts:

(Power Rack Deadlift Lockouts – aka “Rack Deads”)

This is an awesome exercise that will help to pack on size and strength to your entire body. With deadlift lockouts you’ll be able to quickly work up to some heavy weights. This is one exercise where I’d recommend wearing a good weight lifting belt to help support your lower back and keep your core tight as you work up to lifting max weights.

Set the barbell up in a power rack with the safety pins set below knee height. Deadlift the bar off the safety pins just like you would deadlift the bar off the floor. You may need to use wrist straps to help re-enforce your grip as you build up to lifting heavier weights.

Regardless of how strong you are, start off light and pyramid up in weight with each set. Don’t be careless and lift too heavy, too soon. Most guys should be able to start with 135 pounds and go up from there.

After a couple warm up sets do 5 sets of 5 reps, going progressively heavier with each set. Don’t count the first couple warm up sets as part of these 5 x 5 working sets.


Rest at least 2 minutes in between sets and increase the weight when ever possible. Push yourself hard, but at the same time listen to your body and lift within your means.

Weighted Pull Ups (With Burn Reps):

(Weighted Pull Ups)

Like was mentioned back in Chapter 5, doing bodyweight exercises are some of the best muscle building movements you can do. And when it comes to building a wide muscular back, nothing beats pull ups.

Depending on your individual strength level, simply using bodyweight may be heavy enough for this exercise. But if you can bang out 10 or more reps with your bodyweight then you should add weight to your pull ups and make them an even more productive muscle building exercise.


How we’re going to do these is start with just your bodyweight for 5 reps as a warm up set. Then you are going to add weight with a weight belt as shown in the pictures. You could start with a 10 pound plate and progress from there.

Do 5 reps of weighted pull ups. If you can get all 5 reps with good form and feel like you can do even more, then up the weight for your next set. If you find that the current weight you have chosen feels hard enough then keep it for your working sets.

With your working sets you are going to do 5 or more reps of weighted pull ups to failure. Then when you can’t perform another full range pull up, simply pull yourself up as high as you can and pump out short mini “burn” reps from the bottom range of motion.

So for example, you may get 5 reps where your chin goes over the bar. Then you’ll do another 3-5 reps where you are just doing short partial reps from the bottom.

These short partial reps will really help to pump and stretch your lats beyond what you could do with regular full range of motion pull ups.

Do 3 working sets of weighted pull ups + partial reps at the end. You can vary your hand grips with each set to work the lats from different angles (i.e. wide grip, close grip, under hand grip, etc.).


Reverse Grip Barbell Rows (With Burn Reps):

(Reverse Grip Bent Over Barbell Rows)

The reverse grip barbell row was a favorite back exercise of former Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, and in his prime he had one of the best backs in all of bodybuilding.

The reverse grip will place more of the workload on the lower lats and help to add width and thickness to the back. It also places more stress on the biceps then the regular overhand grip.

To perform the exercise you’ll grab the bar with a shoulder width underhand grip. Keep your upper body at a 45 degree angle with the floor, and row the bar into your stomach, hold it for a split second to fully contract the lats, then lower back down and repeat.

Do 1-2 progressively heavier warm up sets to start with. Then up the weight and perform 3 heavy working sets of 6-8 reps. At the end of each working set, when you can’t perform another full range of motion rep, keep going with 3-5 partial range of motion “burn” reps, just rowing the bar as high as you can and really squeezing your lats hard.


Power Hammer Curls (With Burn Reps):

(Alternate Hammer Curls – A Bicep Power Move)

Dumbbell hammer curls are a killer power move for the biceps. When done properly they allow for heavy weights to be lifted with good form. This move is great for working the forearms as well as the brachialis muscle, helping to add size and peak to the biceps.

To handle the most weight do them in an alternating fashion so you can focus all your energy on curling one arm at a time. As you curl your arm up, purposely keep your elbow close to the side of your body, and even a little bit to the back (as shown here in the pictures) don’t let your elbow flair up to the front. What this will do is make it easier to curl your arm up so that your elbow flexes at a 90 degree angle and you will be able to handle more weight then you normally could.

Start off with 1-2 progressively heavier warm up sets. And then move into 3 heavy working sets of 5 reps per arm. Once you can’t do another full range of motion rep, just curl your arms up as high as you can and continue on with another 2-3 short range of motion “burn” reps from the bottom position for each arm.


Bicep Preacher Machine Curls (With Burn Reps):

(Bicep Preacher Curl Machine)

For the most part I don’t normally recommend weight machines to my coaching students, but there are some exceptions and this is one of them. At the end of your workout you can incorporate certain weight machines to safely train a muscle to total muscular failure and beyond.

With the bicep preacher curl machine you can safely curl away doing full range of motion reps and then continue on past the point of failure with short range of motion “burn” reps.

Just like with the other exercises, start off with a couple lighter warm up sets first, then jump into 3 working weight sets where you rep out to failure with full range of motion + partials reps.


Another thing you can do with the preacher curl machine to really take your biceps past the point of muscular failure, is select a moderate weight and curl it with both arms, but then slowly lower it down with one arm. Doing a few negative reps like this for both arms at the end of your workout is awesome for blasting your biceps, but you need to approach the negative reps with extreme caution, don’t do too much too soon or you’ll risk pulling or tearing your bicep muscles.

Workout 3: (Legs and Abs)

Power Rack Squat Lockouts:

(Power Rack Squat Lockouts)

This is an awesome exercise to really help jack up your squat in a hurry. One of the main benefits here is that you’ll be able to quickly work up to some heavy poundage. This is another exercise where I’d recommend wearing a good weight lifting belt to help support your lower back and keep your core tight as you do your working sets.

When I’m doing these I’ll often start with regular full squats for my initial warm up sets. I like going through the full range of motion to warm up and stretch out my knees, hips, etc. After 2-3 light full range warm up sets I’ll put the bar up on the pins as shown here in the pictures, and continue on with my heavy working partial lockout sets.

For the heavy sets you’ll do 5 sets of 5 reps, going progressively heavier with each set. Don’t count the full range warm up sets as part of these 5 working sets.


Start with your current max weight that you can do for reps in the squat. So just as an example, let’s say your current full range of motion squatting weight is 200 pounds. You would use that weight for your first heavy set of squat lockouts.

After that you would rest for 2 minutes and increase the weight by at least 20 pounds and do another set of 5 reps. Rest another 2 minutes and up the weight by another 20+ pounds, and keep going until you have completed all 5 sets of 5 reps.

Everyone’s strength levels will vary, but most guys will find that they can work up to lifting about 50% more weight with a partial range lockout then they can full squat. So if your max full squat is 200 pounds, it’s quite likely that you could literally work up to lifting 300 pounds for your very first squat lockout workout!

Of course, use your own discretion with this. Just because I said most guys should be able to lift 50% more, doesn’t mean that you have to. If anything doesn’t feel right or the weights feel particularly heavy for you, then go lighter. It’s best to take it slow and inch your progress along, rather then be a “gym hero” and slap on too much weight and risk an injury that could set you back weeks or even months in your workouts.


Leg Press (With Burn Reps):

(Leg Press)

Doing leg presses right after squats is one of the best ways to force your legs to grow bigger and stronger. The squat / leg press combo is a sure fire cure for skinny “chicken legs”.

Start off with a couple progressively heavier warm up sets, going through a full range of motion. Then increase the weight so that you have to work hard to grind out 10 full range of motion reps. Once you get all 10 full range of motion reps, rack the weight and then continue on with another 10 mini partial reps in the top range of motion. Do 3 working sets in this fashion.

Now depending on the set up of the leg press machine and the length of your legs it may be tricky to perform top range partial reps with the weight racked. I know in my case I can usually push the weight sled up at least 6-8 inches while the pins are set. This is perfect for top range of motion partial reps.

However, if you can’t perform partial reps with the pins set. Then get a spotter to stand with you, ready to assist, while you perform some mini partial reps at the end of your set. Just lock out your legs, lower the sled down 6 inches or so and press it back up.

For the most part you’ll be able to do the top end partial reps unassisted, but have a spotter close by just incase you do need help with racking the weight sled afterwards.


For each working set of leg presses you’ll do 10 full range reps, followed by 10 mini top range “burn” reps to really work your thighs to the max.

Standing Calve Raise Machine (With Burn Reps):

(Standing Calve Raise)

This is probably the single best calve exercise you can do because it works the calves with heavy weight and through a full range of motion. The key to fully developing the calves is to get a good stretch at the bottom and a peak contraction at the top of each rep.

But here is the advanced kicker that we are going to add in for the Phase 3 - Partial Power Program. We are going to incorporate partial range “Burn” reps. So after you get to the point where you can no longer perform perfect full range of motion calve raises. You are going to keep going just with mini reps in the mid range. Not going all the way down and not going all the way up.


This is how most guys you’ll see in the gym with skinny calves do their calve raises anyway, just doing short little choppy reps in the middle range. But the difference is that you’ll be doing them at the end of your set, after you’ve already hit muscular failure with perfect full range of motion reps.

You should be able to pump out at least 8-10 more mini reps like this and really overload your calve muscles and spur on some new muscle growth.

So you’ll be doing 5 total sets of standing calve raises and this is how your sets will go…

You’ll start with a light set of 10 full range reps to warm up. Rest a minute and then increase the weight and do another set of 10 full range reps. Rest a minute and then increase the weight again and this time it should be a heavy weight that causes you to work hard to grind out 10 reps with good form. Keep the same heavy weight for your last 2 sets, grinding out 10 good full range of motion reps, then without putting the weight down immediately do 8-10 mini “burn” reps to really pump up your calves to the max.

Trust me this will be pure torture and your calves will burn like crazy, but they’ll also respond and grow in response to this type of training as well.


Weighted Decline Bench Sit Ups:

(Weighted Decline Bench Sit Up)

The standard decline bench sit up is one of my personal all time favorite abdominal exercises. It works the entire abdominal region; the upper abs, lower abs, and also brings the obliques into play as well. It really is an all in one abdominal exercise.

Adding weight resistance is the next progressional step with any exercise and your abs are no different. But what most people do is simply hold a weight plate to their chests. Now granted this is a harder variation of the decline bench sit up, but you are limited when it comes to progressive overload. It’s very hard to make those small 5 pound jumps in weight when holding weight plates to your chest.

But by using a barbell as shown here in the picture you can easily make small 5 pound jumps in weight every week by using the 2 ½ pound plates at your gym. Another benefit is that it will be much easier to get in and out of position for the exercise because you can use the actual decline bench press to hold the bar for you while you get in position. Rather then trying set yourself up on the bench while holding a weight plate at the same time.

For the workout you are going to do 5 total sets of decline bench sit ups. Start with just your bodyweight for 15+ reps, rest a minute, do another set with the 45 pound barbell, rest a minute, then keep going up in weight each set for a total of 5 sets.


Depending on your level of conditioning you may just be able to use the 45 pound barbell at first. But as you get going you can work up to some relatively heavy weights for this exercise. Shoot for at least 10 reps per set with good form. If you can’t get 10 good reps, then the weight is too heavy and you need to lighten it up.

Hanging Overhead Leg Raises:

(Hanging Overhead Leg Raises – Killer Abdominal Power Move)

If you are looking for the “Gold Standard” of abdominal exercises this one is probably it… The Hanging Overhead Leg Raise is probably one of the hardest and most effective core exercises you can do.

Regular leg raises where you just lift your legs half way up are hard enough. But once you lift your legs all the way up until they touch the bar you are hanging from, this engages your entire abdominal muscles like nothing else.

You’ll work the lower abs, upper abs, and the obliques, lower back, etc. all your core muscles come into play with this one. Plus you’ll build up good grip strength from holding yourself up as well.

Work your way up to performing 5 sets of 10 reps of this exercise. Resting 1 minute in between each set. Now unless you are in awesome shape right now, chances are you won’t be able to do 5 sets of 10 (i.e. 50 total reps) of this exercise right off the bat. So just do the best you can.

If you have to start with regular leg raises or even bent knee leg raises then do so. As you get stronger and more comfortable you can attempt the overhead leg raises, and then work up to performing the full 5 sets of 10 reps.


If you get really advanced with this movement you could add ankle weights to increase the resistance. But me personally, I prefer to do perform the exercise using slower and stricter form and increase the sets and reps, as this one is hard enough with just your bodyweight.

CChhaapptteerr 77 -- TThhee BBllaasstt YYoouurr BBiicceeppss WWoorrkkoouutt CChhaarrttss This is a recap of the actual workouts, exercises, sets, and reps for each of the 3 training phases of “Blast Your Biceps”. You can copy or print off these pages and take them with you to the gym to follow along with the workouts.

Make sure that you keep a training log of all your workouts in a notebook. This is one critical training tool that 99% of the people you see in the gym just totally ignore. But it can mean the difference between making good progress and no progress at all.

I’ve been working out for 19+ years and I still carry along my trusty training log and write down each one of my workouts. Yes, I get made fun of by a lot of the folks at the gym for writing everything down on paper. But the ones who make fun of me for being such a record keeping nerd are usually the same ones who are spinning their wheels and going nowhere in terms of building muscle or gaining strength in their workouts.

Keeping accurate records of your workouts gives you real feedback as to whether you are making gains or not. While most people you see in the gym just judge their workouts by how they feel (i.e. that was a hard workout, or that was an easy workout, etc.) that’s not an accurate way to monitor your progress because it’s subjective, you can’t measure it. However, the numbers in your training log don’t lie. You can go back over your past workouts and instantly tell if you are getting stronger and making gains by looking at your numbers.

Your training log doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a simple exercise note book like you’d use in school is fine. Then for each workout just write down the date, the particular workout you are doing along with the exercises, weights, sets, and reps that you do during your workout.


Every couple of weeks you can also take your bodyweight, bodyfat percentage, and measurements and record those in your training log as well. This way you’ll have some real world feedback as to your strength gains in the gym, as well as your body composition progress.

Phase 1 – Total Body Blast Preparatory Workout Charts

Workout 3 Days Per Week (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, & Friday).

Do this workout each day, strive to beat your personal best each time by lifting more weight in the squat and getting more reps in the bodyweight exercises.

Start each workout with 5-10 minutes of moderate cardio (i.e. rower, elliptical machine, etc.).

Squats:

2-3 progressively heavier warm up sets

1 working set of 20 reps

Increase the weight by 5 pounds each workout

Pullovers:

1 set of 20 reps (Keep the weight light and go for the stretch.)

Upper Body Circuit Routine:

Pull Ups, Dips, & Sit Ups. Do 3 sets of as many reps as you can do.

Strive to get at least 1 more rep each workout.

Follow this training phase for 4-6 weeks, or until you feel your progress starting to plateau.


Phase 2 – POF Blast Your Biceps Workout Charts

4 Day Per Week Workout Schedule

Day 1: Upper Body Workout

Day 2: Arm Specialization Workout A

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Lower Body Workout

Day 5: Arm Specialization Workout B

Day 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

Repeat the cycle



Upper Body Workout Routine:

*Each exercise should be preceded with 1-2 lighter warm up sets.

- Incline Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- One Arm Dumbbell Rows – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Barbell Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Lat Pull Downs – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Abdominal Crunches – 3 sets of 25+ reps

Lower Body Workout Routine:


- Leg Press – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Stiff Leg Deadlifts – 3 sets of 10 reps

- Standing Calve Raises – 3 sets of 10 reps


- Abdominal Leg Raises – 3 sets of 15+ reps

Arm Specialization Workout A (lighter weights, higher reps):


- Standing Barbell Curls – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

- Close Grip Bench Press – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

- EZ Bar Preacher Curls – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

- EZ Bar Decline Bench Skull Crushers – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

- Dumbbell Concentration Curls – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

- Dumbbell Tricep Kick Backs – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Arm Specialization Workout B (heavier weights, lower reps):


- Alternate Dumbbell Hammer Curls – 3 sets of 6-8 reps

- Reverse Grip Bench Press – 3 sets of 6-8 reps

- Low Pulley Cable Cross Over Curls – 3 sets of 6-8 reps

- Overhead Tricep Rope Extensions – 3 sets of 6-8 reps

- Overhead Pull Down Cable Curls – 3 sets of 6-8 reps


- Reverse Grip Tricep Push Downs – 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Phase 3 – The Partial Power Program Workout Charts

3 Day Per Week Workout Schedule

- Workout 1: (Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps)

- Rest Day.

- Workout 2: (Back and Biceps)

- Rest Day.

- Workout 3: (Legs and Abs)

- Rest Day.

- Rest Day.

- Repeat The Workout Cycle.



Workout 1: (Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps)


Power Rack Bench Press Lockouts:

Do 5 sets of 5 reps, going progressively heavier with each set.

Power Rack Shoulder Press Lockouts:


Dumbbell Side Lateral Raises (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of 8-10 reps, plus 5+ burn reps

Power Tricep Push Downs (With Burn Reps):


Push Ups:


3 sets of as many reps as you can do.

Workout 2: (Back and Biceps)


Power Rack Deadlift Lockouts:


Weighted Pull Ups (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of as many reps as you can do, plus 3-5 burn reps

Reverse Grip Barbell Rows (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of 6-8 reps, plus 3-5 burn reps

Power Hammer Curls (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of 5 reps, plus 2-3 burn reps per arm.

Bicep Preacher Machine Curls (With Burn Reps):



Workout 3: (Legs and Abs)


Power Rack Squat Lockouts:


Leg Press (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of 10 reps, plus 10 burn reps

Standing Calve Raise Machine (With Burn Reps):

3 working sets of 10 reps, plus 8-10 burn reps

Weighted Decline Bench Sit Ups:

5 sets of 15 reps, go progressively heavier with each set.

Hanging Overhead Leg Raises:


5 sets of as many reps as you can do.

CChhaapptteerr 88 -- WWhhaatt TToo DDoo WWhheenn YYoouu FFiinniisshh TThhee PPrrooggrraamm Well, I would like to congratulate you for making it this far! The reason I’m saying that is because I heard a statistic that on average only 10% of the people who buy a book ever read past the first chapter. It just blows my mind that someone would invest in a book that could help them in so many ways, yet never follow through and actually read the darn thing. But the fact that you’ve made it here to the end of the book means you are an above average person! So for that I tip my hat and salute you ☺

I know your first time through you are most likely just reading everything from beginning to end. And that is exactly what you should do so that you fully understand and grasp the concepts that we cover in the program. Now you need to go back and actually dig in and follow through with each of the training phases in order to use this information to help pack some solid strength and muscle mass on your body.

One thing that I’m sure you have noticed as you read through this program is that it is much more than “bicep blasting routine”. In fact it is a total body size and strength building program with special emphasis on brining up your arm development. So after you finish all 3 training phases I would suggest that you take a full week off from the gym entirely to give your mind and body a total break from the rigors of training.

Taking planned time off is one area of training that so few people actually do, but it can make a world of difference in your long-term progress. Heck, even former Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman used to take a planned layoff from working out after the Mr. Olympia competition every year. So if it’s good enough for Mr. Olympia, then it’s probably good enough for you and me as well.


During your week off from working out you need to re-evaluate your overall training progress up to this point and see where you stand. You also need to re-set your personal bodybuilding and fitness goals to determine what would be the next best thing for you to do in order to move you closer to your ultimate physique goal. This is going to be different for everyone so that’s why I can’t just offer a generic one size fits all answer here. It’s something you need to figure out for yourself.

If you would like to focus on brining up your arms even more you could go through the entire “Blast Your Biceps” program again right from the beginning. The second time through you would strive to beat your personal best lifts from the first time through. I know with a lot of my coaching students this is the option that many of them choose and it works really well.

A prime example of this is with one of my “Blast Your Bench” students, William Blackstone. He has followed the “Blast Your Bench” program 3 times a year over the course of 4 years to work up to a 500+ pound bench press! So if you really wanted to take your arm development to the borderline of freaky, you could do something similar to what William did and use the “Blast Your Biceps” program multiple times through.

Maybe you are a bit on the skinny side and would like to follow a “hard-core” muscle weight gain bulk up training system. If this is the case then I would highly recommend that you check out the “Bio-Genetic Weight Gain System” at http://www.DrugFreeMuscle.com This is an awesome program that combines muscle building nutrition, training, and supplementation into a kick ass mass building system. It has been around for several years now and it still continues to be a proven winner year after year.

Or you may feel that you need to change gears and instead of focusing on building mass, you should focus on trimming off some excess bodyfat and carving out a set of ripped six pack abs. Maybe you have a beach vacation coming up and you want to be able to take your shirt off and feel proud of how your body looks and even catch some attention from the opposite sex. I mean let’s face it, even if your arms are huge, it doesn’t look cool if you have an extra roll of belly fat hanging over your belt.

If fast fat loss is your goal, then I highly recommend my friend Jeff Anderson’s program “Combat The Body Fat” at http://www.CombatBodyFat.com Jeff used to work in the US Military as a Master Fitness Trainer and his primary job was to take out of shape soldiers and whip them into shape as quickly as possible so they could become lean, mean, fighting machines! And Jeff has taken all of his unique fat loss strategies and crammed them into his very informative “Combat The Body Fat” program.


Or maybe you have some competitive drive in you and you want to take it “all the way” and enter a local bodybuilding competition. I know for a lot of my more advanced students this is a goal that many of them like to follow through with after several years of progressive training.

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I can tell you from personal experience that competing in a bodybuilding contest is an awesome experience, one that is both challenging and yet very personally rewarding at the same time.

If this is the path you would like to take, then I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of my book and DVD set “Your First Bodybuilding Competition” at http://www.LeeHayward.com/bodybuilding This program goes into all the details about what’s involved with getting ready for a bodybuilding contest, starting 6 months out and guiding you step-by-step right up to the day of the show.

Obviously, there are numerous training options and paths you could take. It all depends on where you are right now and where you want to go with your bodybuilding goals. But hopefully these options that I just laid out for you here can help guide you in your decision of what to do in order to reach the next level of physical development. Remember, no matter how good you get there is always another level to shoot for. Improvement is always possible for everyone, so keep an open mind and enjoy the journey.


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OOtthheerr GGrreeaatt RReessoouurrcceess TToo CChheecckk OOuutt

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In fact, it's one of the best selling e-books on ANY subject in the history of the Internet -... And there's a reason why...

It's because thousands of women and men of every age are burning off BODY FAT - not muscle or water weight - and they're doing it naturally, without supplements, pills or "magic potions," simply by using the proven, scientifically-accurate and common-sense advice found inside this amazing diet and fitness guidebook.

Tom Venuto, a respected fat loss expert, natural bodybuilder, and personal trainer, has not just pumped out yet another "diet program" into an already over-saturated market. Tom's Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle Program can be more accurately described as a "Fat Loss Bible." It is quite simply one of the most complete, detailed, and precise guides to fat loss you will ever read.


If you were just going to read one book on the subject of nutrition, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle would be the one I’d recommend. And you can check it out for yourself at: www.BurnTheFatProgram.com

http://www.burnthefatprogram.com/

http://www.leehayward.com/burn_the_fat.htm

http://www.leehayward.com/burn_the_fat.htm

http://www.burnthefatprogram.com/

Take Your Personal Fitness To The Next Level With A “Done-For-You” Diet & Training Program!

I just wanted to thank you for reading the “Blast Your Biceps” program. I can guarantee that if you follow this program as outlined you’ll make impressive strength and muscle gains in your arms and all your major muscle groups.

But if you would like to work with me personally and get more in depth muscle building training advice and take advantage of my one-on-one phone and e-mail coaching services, then just visit my website at: http://www.leehayward.com/dietplans.htm

My Total Fitness Bodybuilding website has been online and helping people build better bodies since 1999. Those who follow what I teach get great results. But those who take the NEXT step and get personalized coaching with my customized training and nutrition programs - well, they're the people getting extraordinary results!

Not just because they are using the very best “cutting-edge” training and nutritional strategies, but they know that there is a helping hand, day-in and day-out to help them along the way. They know that one-on-one support is crucial to their success - and that they cannot succeed without it. As the saying goes, "No one succeeds alone."

You Can Have An Experienced Coach In Your Corner Helping You Every Step Of The Way...

I’ll personally help you get into your best physical shape ever with a personalized diet and training program, customized to your exact needs and fitness goals. Plus one-on-one coaching and support every step of the way to ensure that you maximize your physique transformation success.

I will tailor fit your personal program to target your exact needs and fitness goals, whether it be helping you lose bodyfat, build lean muscle, or a combination of the two. And I will guide you step-by-step along the path to achieving your own real life “before and after” physique transformation.

And the best part is that you do NOT have to learn or study anything. I will customize an exact nutrition, weight training, and cardio program based around your specific needs, time schedule, lifestyle, and fitness goals. All you have to do is follow the program. All the planning will already be done for you.

For more information about my personalized coaching services visit:


http://www.leehayward.com/dietplans.htm



Blast Your Biceps

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