How to Get Toned Abs

In order to have defined Abs, you need first to reduce your body fat levels to around 10–12% for most people. And you will need to do it the right way.

So, How Do I Lose Bodyfat Properly?

This is one of the most questions I usually hear as a Personal trainer and Strength Coach.

People seem to be overwhelmed by the amount of information spread all over the Internet. Various techniques and methodologies had been shared by many experts all over the years, and while some of them are great, others were a complete scam and that left people lost in terms of what is the right way to do it.

How To Lose Bodyfat:

First of all, fat loss can be achieved through various methods. However, some are faster than others, and Faster doesn’t always mean better, especially when we are talking about fat loss, because the truth is, the faster the process the less healthy it is. I mean DIETS like the original PSMF or Protein Sparing Modified Fast can make you lose up to 10 lbs in one week, of course, most of those will be water weight but you still can lose up to 3 maybe 4 lbs of pure fat in one week which is crazy.

But the charm end there, because this type of Diets will only give you diminishing returns in the long run and they may cause some serious health issues, so what i am going to discuss here is the proper way to reduce bodyfat. instead of the fastest way to do so.

So, I will try to give you a comprehensive guide on how to set your own fat loss plan:

1-Establish a Caloric Deficit:

After establishing a caloric deficit, the most important thing is to get an adequate amount of protein, because you don’t want to lose your hard earned muscles alongside your bodyfat, unless you love being skinny then you don’t need much protein.

But even if you are not interested in looking muscular, losing muscle is a bad move because muscle is active metabolic tissue that will increase your BMR at rest.

Generally, try to get at least 0.8 gram per lb of lean body weight. This should be a good starting point for most people. But, if you are in a very huge deficit you may need to up it to something like 1.5 gram per lb of bodyweight.

Best protein sources include Eggs, Chicken and Turkey Breasts, Beef, Fish and Whey protein supplements. If you are vegan then try pea protein powder.

3-Choose your Cardio Wisely:

There is basically two types of cardio: LISS cardio or Low-Intensity Steady State Cardio and HIIT or High-Intensity Interval Training. Both can get you shredded.

However, choosing which cardio you need will depend on so many factors like:

-Your current fitness level.

-Daily caloric intake: is it high or too low.

-Gym routine: is it moderate or draining.

-Your preferences because those play a role as well.

Generally, people will use HIIT at the beginning of the cut to quickly deplete glycogen levels. Then they will switch to LISS in the final weeks when their energy level is at all time low.

4-Get Enough Sleep:

It may seem like an outdated advice but trust me it is crucial. I can tell you by experience that the most roadblock I had to overcome when trying to get shredded is to adopt good sleeping habits.

Sleep deprivation will do basically two things:

1-Increase Cortisol production:

which is your stress hormone and it is a catabolic hormone, unlike testosterone. Also, high Cortisol levels will inhibit testosterone production since they are both made from the same enzymes. Also, cortisol is the hormone responsible for you holding fat on your lower abs.

2-It decreases Insulin Sensitivity:

Decreased insulin sensitivity will make the process of burning stubborn bodyfat nearly impossible. heck some people may even get leaner by just improving their Insulin Sensitivity. Because it improves fat distribution.

5-Eat A Lot Of Vegetables and greens:

I think I don’t need to clarify why it is so important to eat enough veggies every day. Eeveryone, even the regular folks, know how vital they are in the process of building a healthy body.

And they are even more important when you are in a caloric deficit and your body is struggling with a lot of stress and deprivation. So make sure get at least 3 cups of veggies per day. Also, try to vary your sources as much as possible to get a wide spectrum of micronutrients.

GOOD LUCK.

Intermittent Fasting

Can intermittent fasting help with weight loss and how can one go about it?

Ah Intermittent Fasting…one of the newest popular routes to weight loss.

Yes, intermittent fasting (IF) can help with weight loss.

But…

While most pedants will insist that you normally fast intermittently when you sleep, IF is usually defined as maintaining a longer fast than normal. The most commonly used IF strategy is a 16 hour fast with 8 hours of eating. Others include eating every other day or simply occasionally fasting for a day or even going as far as an 18–20 hour window or even One Meal A Day (OMAD).

Now, your body does change things up after fasting for a while. In some studies, HGH and Testosterone levels elevate after around 16 hours of fasting. Additionally Adrenaline may be released around this time elevating your metabolism after this time as well. Now, don’t get too excited, these boosts are not extreme or long lived. It’s thought that this happens to spurn you into action to go get food.

After 36–72 hours, though, your metabolism crashes as your body tries to maintain what energy stores it has for famine protection.

These hormonal changes aren’t actually the big deal about IF. I’m not sure they’re really significant enough to make a difference.

IF is just an eating pattern. You can actually gain weight on IF if you eat too much.

So what is it good for?

One thing about people is that we are terrible at controlling our eating. If we allow ourselves we’ll graze and eat more without being able to track it (because we’re also terrible at remembering how much we’ve eaten).

IF sets a hard boundary around when we can eat and if you can set that in your head, you’ll most likely eat much less.

I did IF for about 6 months, only eating between 12 and 8. I lost about 6% body fat (I’m at 14% now). Most of that was at the beginning, but I was able to maintain around 13.5% for most of the time.

Even with IF, how much you eat is very important

It’s just with IF you have better controls over this since you can only eat between particular hours of the day.

With even shorter eating windows you may also run into some other benefits since you’re getting all your food in such a short amount of time that you can’t eat too much and your body can’t digest the food enough to use it all.

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I wouldn’t bank on the metabolic benefits, but you can definitely control your eating much better with IF allowing you to lose and control your weight better.

I wouldn’t bank on the metabolic benefits, but you can definitely control your eating much better with IF allowing you to lose and control your weight better.

UPDATE:

I’ve had a few submissions to this question that address how it “helps you get into a low insulin state.” While this is true…it’s kind of redundant when you address it in terms of fat loss since in order to burn fat you have to be in a low insulin state, generally.

I say generally, because when you eat, your insulin levels spike because your glucose levels increase, particularly with a meal heavy in simple glucose. In between meals your body will maintain strict controls over your glucose levels and it will continue to do so for 36–80 hours before you go into ketosis.

What this means is that by intermittent fasting you’re avoiding those spikes for as long as possible, keeping yourself in a fasted state for a longer amount of time giving your body more time to get rid of those fat stores…

But like I said, if you eat too much, you’re not going to burn off as much fat during your fasted time as you’re adding back to them during the eating time.

It’s like if you had a funnel that drains at 10 mL/s but you fill it up at 15 mL/s, it’s never going to completely empty. Even if you optimize the funnel and it starts draining at 14 mL/s it will still fill up.

IF helps…but it’s still not magic.

17 natural ways to boost fertility and get pregnant faster

Here are 17 natural ways to boost fertility and get pregnant faster.

1.Eat Foods That Are Rich in Antioxidants.
2.Eat a Bigger Breakfast.
3.Avoid Trans Fats.
4.Cut Down on Carbs.
5.Eat Less Refined Carbs.
6.Eat More Fiber.
7.Swap Protein Sources.
8.Choose High-Fat Diary.
9.Try a Multivitamin.

10.Get Active.
11.Take Time to Relax.
12.Cut the Caffeine.
13.Achieve a Healthy Weight.
14.Increase Your Iron Intake.
15.Avoid Excess Alcohol.
16.Avoid Unfermented Soy Products.
17.Natural Supplements.
Anything Else?

Good nutrition is vital for a healthy body and reproductive system.
In fact, studies have shown that eating a nutritious diet and making positive lifestyle changes can help boost fertility and prepare your body for pregnancy.
What's more, how you choose to live and eat today will influence sperm and egg quality 90 days from now.
If you're trying to get pregnant, it's important that you begin making healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices today.

The secret to long-term weight loss

The secret to long-term weight loss is doing the same healthy things over and over again.

Have you noticed that some people who have a personal trainer and consistently workout do not look any look different?

That’s because it’s what we do between exercise that really makes the difference. That being said 70% of weight loss comes from changes in diet.

There are three "ingredients" to weight loss.

1. Eating right (or Diet)
2. Exercising
3. Consistency

The third ingredient: Consistency is easily the most important, and the most difficult to accomplish. It takes accountability and a measured pace.

There’s a huge difference between knowing what to do, and actually doing it.

Diet:
The right diet will can help anyone lose weight for a few weeks. The problem with most diets is that they a) become boring b) are seen as temporary c) don’t actually change your habits and behaviors. We view a diet as something we will do until we reach our goal—and then quit, and go back to “old ways”. Most people never stick to their diets.

Instead of talking about your "diet", start talking about it as a way of life. The best “diets” are the ones you can truly stick with. It has to be a way of life, otherwise, you’re going to revert back to your old ways, and regain the weight.

Ultimately, the key to this is changing your relationship with food. If the only thing we’re changing is the food we’re eating from one “diet” to the next, we’re not going to change for the long term. If you have trouble sticking to a diet and/or exercise plan, it may because of an unknown fear related to losing weight—people are often as afraid of success as they are of failure.

Exercise:
One of the biggest problems with exercise is "binging and purging." (Note: This has nothing to do with food, bulimia, or anorexia.) As an example, "John" will decide he needs to lose 15 pounds before his wedding. He buys a gym membership and starts working out every day for 2 hours (binging).

By the end of the first week, he is completely exhausted. He decides to take a day off to recuperate and that day turns into a week (purging). When John feels sufficiently guilty, he will goes back to the gym and repeats the process. Again, like your diet, it has to be sustainable. But keep in mind: no one gains weight from not exercising. People gain weight from overeating.

Why do so many people struggle with their weight?

Consistency:
People aren’t staying consistent with their diet and/or exercise.

It’s all about consistency. It's easy to start a diet, but it’s very hard to stick with it. Same for exercise.

The real key to losing weight is not a magic diet, pill or exercise contraption. Rather, the key is finding ways to be consistent with diet and exercise. 

Remember, there's a huge difference between knowing what to do, and actually doing it.

What are the benefits of keto diet?

Over the past several years, I have performed in-depth research on different diets that are popular for their claimed health-boosting and weight-loss benefits. The keto diet is among them.

To give you a quick overview, the keto diet is short for the ketogenic diet. In general, the keto diet is composed of 75% good fats, 20% protein, and 5% carbs. There are a few variations of the keto diet (like high-protein keto diet), but this is generally the standard macronutrient ratio needed in order to achieve ketosis.

Ketosis is the key to the keto diet. Ketosis is a normal metabolic process characterized by increased ketone production. Ketones are a form of energy that is alternative to carbohydrates. Carbohydrates break down into glucose, which are easy for the body to use, but can also be problematic when over-consumed, like they are in the Standard American Diet (SAD).

To understand if the keto diet is considered healthy, first, let’s take a step back to understand ketosis - since misunderstandings are often the root of the criticism of the keto diet.

This is what I have found in my research about the potential health benefits of the keto diet with links to relevant research:

1. Promotes weight loss: While a low-fat diet is often recommended for weight loss, but research shows that a high fat, moderate protein, and low-carbohydrate diet is much more effective at promoting weight loss, thanks to the beauty of ketone bodies.
2. Lowers risk factors for disease: These risk factors include high blood sugar and insulin levels, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides, among others.
3. Protects from muscle loss: a very low carbohydrate diet with adequate amounts of protein are likely protective against the loss of muscle mass.
4. Lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes: Excess fat is linked to metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes, and weight loss spurred by the keto diet can help to lower risk factors..
5. Helps to control type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders: If you have diabetes, you may be turning to the ketogenic diet as a way to control your insulin and glucose levels. Early research shows that the ketogenic diet can help you significantly improve insulin sensitivity levels. One study even shows that some diabetes patients were able to stop taking their diabetes medication altogether while on the keto diet.
6. May help slow tumor growth for certain types of cancer: Early research shows that a calorically-restricted ketogenic diet is an effective alternative therapy for malignant brain cancer). Since high levels of circulating glucose in the blood are needed for tumor growth, the glucose-reducing effects of the keto diet help to slow tumor growth.
7. Improves symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease: The ketogenic diet may help to reduce the symptoms and slow the progression of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
8. Helps treat factors causing polycystic ovarian syndrome (POS): POS is the most common cause of infertility among women. One of the aggravating factors of POS is high levels of insulin. The ketogenic diet can help reduce insulin and glucose levels in the blood as a dietary therapy for POS.
9. Boosts recover from brain diseases: Initial animal studies show that the keto diet may boost the recovery of young people who have experienced traumatic brain injuries).
10. Reduces the severity of acne: One of the factors that can increase your risk of acne is high insulin levels in the blood. Since the ketogenic diet doesn’t allow you to eat sugar or processed foods, which up insulin levels, it may help to improve the appearance of acne.
    
    

For most people, the ketogenic diet could offer significant health benefits.

The two main worries of health and nutrition specialists are the following:

1. People follow the keto diet without consulting a specialist first
2. The keto diet has not been around long enough to understand its long-term effects

There are logical responses to both of these concerns and they are directly connected. Research, even if it is relatively new, is on the side of the ketogenic diet. But it is true that an unbalanced keto diet (or any unbalanced diet, for that matter) could have detrimental effects.

For that reason, it is important to:

1. Get a general medical check-up to make sure you are in good health to follow a restrictive diet.
2. Consult with a registered dietician who is a specialist in the ketogenic diet to guide you on how to build a well-balanced ketogenic diet that fills all of your nutrient needs.

Once you check these off of your list, you will very likely be able to reap the benefits of the ketogenic diet for your health.

What are the best ways to lose weight?

1. Give up sugar. 
2. Easy on foods that turn to sugar (breads, pastas, pizza, fried potatoes).
3. Start your day with warm to hot water with lemon. Helps get liver, gallbladder and digestive system releasing.
4. Drink at least half your weight in ounces of water/day (best between meals).
5. Chew food to a liquid. Will help you be satisfied with less, and help your body digest, absorb and eliminate faster.
6. Use smaller plates, helps with portion control.
   
   
   
7. Consider a side of probiotics with each meal (kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, lassi, kefir) or unsweetened ginger tea. All help your body digest food.
8. Cook from scratch, at the minimum go for premade meals that are real/few ingredients. Even Costco has pretty incredible looking family meals.
9. Plan a weekly menu, then buy ingredients for that and those alone.
10. Shop outer four walls of grocery store. That's where most of the real food is.
11. Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. Shop with your own bag or basket. NOT a shopping cart. Helps to buy no more than you can carry.
12. Pack your own snacks AND water each and every time you will be gone, especially past mealtimes.
13. Eat during hours that serve your body best (10-11am to 6-7pm).
14. Know what foods are weight gainers for your blood type. For B+ corn is one. For O's it's wheat and dairy.
15. Coffee enemas do more than help with pain and clean blood, they are INCREDIBLE for weight loss and natural healing of cancer. They are how Jack Osborne lost lots of weight, won in kickboxing AND beat his addictions. They are also what some holistic cancer clinics use. To the tune of FIVE/day. We crave what is in our blood, coffee enemas take that away. Be it food, drugs or alcohol. They are how I helped one get off three hardcore drugs. And what I use for pain.
16. Sweat and movement. Excellent way to keep puffiness off and toxins out.
     
    
17. Save treats for a special occasion (wedding, party, social gathering). They are not a treat if we are having daily.
18. Treat everyday like a special occasion. Meaning, aim to look and feel your best every day instead of for an event of sorts. Many mind their “P's & Q's" to look their best for a one day event, when it should be the other way around.
19. Ask yourself how a certain food or drink will make you look and feel. For better or worse? Helps tremendously! That and a mirror.
20. In time consider seasonal detox. It'll help what ails you, free you of cravings and keep toxic disease producing weight out and off.
21. Key to keeping weight off is by having at least one daily bowel movement. Like babies and pets that poop shortly after. Constipation is not a disease but WILL INDEED lead to one. Diet can make or break us, while detox is a win-win.
22. Eat healthy most hours of day and days of week.
23. Losing weight and keeping it off is easy with self respect alone.
24. Lastly, do inventory of your kitchen (cupboards and fridge) at least twice a year. Warmer months and colder.

Should I remember more, I will add to this list. In the meantime, CHEERS!

How does a Ketogenic diet change your life?

Where to begin! When I first read about the diet, I thought it was absurd. How can a high fat diet help me lose weight? However, this absurd diet is the only thing that has worked for me! I’ve been overweight for a lot of my adult life and have tried many different ways to lose.

Before I go on, I want to mention that I am definitely not one of those “carbs are our enemy” and “destroy ALL THE gluten’ people but Keto is something that works for me and has changed my life for the better in many ways:

1. I have lost 30 pounds so far which is the most I have lost in years. I had previously been losing and gaining the same five pounds over and over.

2. I have tons of energy all day. I still drink coffee because I like to, but I don’t need it like I did before.

3. I drink way less alcohol and way more water. I don’t have room for the carbs on most days and that has brought my drinking down from pretty much every night to only a couple times a month.

4. My skin is better. I have a lot of skin issues like eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, blepharitis, you name it. And while all of these things are chronic and may never fully go away, it is much more manageable now. My patches are smaller and I have to use far less of my prescription creams and such.

5. Part of my keto day is fasting and I have found that my mental clarity has improved. I am far more productive at work and I’m more motivated in my down time to work out or do something useful with my time. I used to be a Grade A Couch Potato and while I still enjoy hanging out on the couch, it isn’t my main source of entertainment anymore.

6. My chronic depression/anxiety, which I’ve had some form of since I was a kid, is more manageable than it’s ever been. I will say, during the keto flu, I was actually more anxious, but again I’m prone to it and it’s pretty common due to Pseudohypoglycemia which you can read more about here. It could be a combination of the things I mentioned (weight loss, better skin, etc.) but I feel happier and less anxious which has led to me finding new opportunities and meeting new people. I still have anxiety but it doesn’t stop me from doing things anymore.

7. A combination of the keto diet and a book called Brain Over Binge, helped me overcome binge eating; another terrible habit I developed as a kid. I felt like I tried everything to stop bingeing and nothing helped. I was a couple times a week binger and it led to weight gain and feelings of shame, and more bingeing. When I’m doing keto I don’t feel deprived of anything, I can eat pretty much any time, and with the aforementioned happiness and energy, I haven’t binged in months.

8. I was a junk food junkie. I love sweets and would typically binge on cake or something equally as terrible for you. Keto allows artificial sweetener (if you really need it) but thankfully I hate artificial sweetener so it has really helped me break my sweet tooth. I don’t even crave it anymore. Now I’m like I want to “cheat” and eat a strawberry!

9. My fiancé and I cook a lot more now, which means we go out to eat a lot less. We were spending hundreds of dollars a month eating out before we started doing keto full time. We would house a whole pizza and breadsticks plus dessert, or Chinese food meant for 6 people (judging by how many fortune cookies we got) and now we have fun cooking together, we eat a lot less, and we save money.

We have been brainwashed to think of fat as bad, and once I let myself off the “low-fat, low-cal, sugar-free (but packed with all kinds of other crap)” bandwagon, I was able to jump into keto and eat high quality foods and gain a lifestyle that I’m happy with.

**Disclamer* This is my experience and is anecdotal. I am not a nutritionist or a trained medical professional and all research was done on my own. As always, check with your doctor if you are diabetic or have any other health issues that could make keto dangerous. Though a lot of doctors are still on the low fat, high protein kick and think of keto as a “fad” so it’s best to do your own research as well. **

What is the quickest way to lose fat without exercise?

I lost a lot of weight doing the keto diet.

I know how hard it is when starting out, it seems like so much research to figure out what you need to eat and do.

A keto diet can be especially useful for losing excess body fat without hunger.

This diet is a lot of hard work, you have to really put in effort to get the results you want.

Find out what type of keto you are doing:

Standard ketogenic diet: This is a very low-carb, moderate-protein and high-fat diet. It typically contains 75% fat, 20% protein and only 5% carbs.

Cyclical ketogenic diet: This diet involves periods of higher-carb refeeds, such as 5 ketogenic days followed by 2 high-carb days.

Targeted ketogenic diet: This diet allows you to add carbs around workouts.

High-protein ketogenic diet: This is similar to a standard ketogenic diet, but includes more protein. The ratio is often 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbs.

DONT CHEAT!!! KETO IS LIKE MARRIAGE IT DOESN’T WORK IF YOU CHEAT

I’m just saying … Keep it real, never lie to yourself

I know how hard it can be to start something like this on your own, especially if you are alone in your quest to become “fit” it’s really hard. But…

Stick to it and you will see results very soon! They don’t happen overnight but give it a few weeks and you can start to see the real result.

I started with Keto diet because it’s been used and recommended by many doctors. Especially the 28 day Keto diet which helped me lose 10lbs in the first week.

If you are interested you can find more information here: Keto Diet Challenge - Instant Weight Loss - (Amazing results)

What is the most effective tip to lose belly fat in a month?

I am not an expert, but I will show you what my belly looks like without working out at all. Most people say “ You have good genes!”, no I just know how to eat well.

1. I never eat meals with more than two main ingredients (excluding spices). For example, some kind of meat with a salad.
2. I never eat heavy salad dressings, only olive oil and apple cider vinegar or balsamic.
3. I like salt, so I buy KCl, potassium chloride or what people call light salt. On the back of every packaged food, there is a table with nutrition facts. Buy stuff that have the least amount of sodium. Most companies advertise with “low fat”, or “low sugar”, but they almost never point out to the amount of sodium. Sodium makes your metabolism times slower by retaining water.
4. I eat my meals with at least four hours in between.
5. I never eat breakfast. In the morning, if I feel hungry, I would eat a fruit (only one kind, it can be two bananas, but not a banana and an apple).

The idea is that every time you eat, your digestive system dissociates different food with a different acid. So, if you mix food too much, you complicate the process, even if you only eat quality meals.

6. You feel like eating chocolate, eat it, but don't eat anything else. Then your digestive system has to take care of only one thing at a time.

7. I never eat carbs ( like bread, chocolate, beans and etc…) in combination with meat. This is the worst combination!!! This is why burgers make you fat : bread with beef. If you feel like eating a burger, do it, just take the bun out.

8. Forget about ketchup. It is NOT made of tomatoes, but of corn syrup. It is terrible for you. Same for mayonnaise and mustard.

9. No soda drinks, ever. They do not do anything for you and, believe me, once you stop drinking them, you will never miss them.

10. Green tea will make your metabolism much faster, try drinking two a day, but don't load them with sugar or honey.Try getting used to drinking it tasteless, in no time you will get used to it and you will start liking it.

11. Do not load your fridge with a ton of food. My grocery store is nearby and I try to go everyday. This way, I always buy what I feel like eating and I satisfy my appetites with fresh food.

12. Forget about this one month. Prepare yourself to do it for the rest of your life! This is a way of living, not a diet. Create habits and you will not have to worry about it again.

13. Work out not because you want to lose fat, but because it is fun. Precondition yourself to believe that this is an enjoyable activity not a punishment because you are chubby. I don't really have much time to work out but I try whenever I have time. I don't do it because I have to lose weight though, it just helps me being more concentrated, which is very important for my routine.

14. I almost forgot, think in advance where you will be during the day. For example, if you are invited at a friend’s house, you probably know that they will feed you and you also are probably aware with what. Try to combine this with the rest of your meal during the day. You know your friend likes to make mashed potatoes , try eating the same thing during the day or something compatible like veggies, not a steak.

What is the best way to build big arms naturally?

Arms are probably the most sought after muscle group after six-pack Abs. Having big arms is a sign of strength and power, and they are the first muscle group that people notice on your physique.

So, developing a sleeve-busting Arms is a must to give the illusion of a muscular physique.

But, before we dive into the best exercises for Arms growth, let’s take a look at the Arms anatomy so we know how we should train them for growth.

Arms Anatomy:

The arm has two main muscle groups: the Biceps and the Triceps.

The Biceps:

The Biceps or Biceps Brachii is a two-headed muscle that origin from under the deltoid and insert below the elbow.

The basic function of the Biceps is to lift and curl the arm. Also, another function of the Biceps is to pronate the wrist.

The Biceps has two main head, the short head, and the long head. Also, another muscle group of the Biceps is Brachialis or the outer head of the Biceps.

The Triceps:

The Triceps or Triceps Brachii is a three-headed muscle group that works in opposition to the biceps.

It is also originating from under the deltoid and inserting below the elbow.

The basic function of the triceps is to straighten the arms and supinate the wrist.

As it name apply, the triceps has 3 main heads: the long head, the lateral head, and the medial head.

Now, after this brief anatomy lesson, let’s move to the fun part, the keys to develop sleeve-busting Arms.

So, what are the best exercises to gain Arm size?

As we already established, in order to gain size in your Arms you will need to work both Biceps and Triceps. Here are the best exercises for both muscle groups

The Best Biceps Exercises:

1-Barbell Curl:

This is the most basic Biceps exercise. It will target all your Biceps heads evenly and it will allow for increasing poundages and implementing progressive overload.

2-Hammer Curls:

This will target the Biceps brachiialis. The Brachiialis is that small muscle shaped like a golf ball between the biceps and the triceps. Although it is trained in every elbow flexing movement, the brachiiali muscle can become a weak link and derail your progress if not targeted optimally. Focusing on the Brachiialis will give you that thick arm looks from the front.

3-Incline Dumbbell Curls:

Due to improper execution, the long head of the Biceps is often a weak link for most bodybuilders. This head is optimally targeted when your elbows are behind the torso.The best exercise to target the long head of the Biceps is Incline dumbbell curls. Including this will tremendously improve your Biceps.

4-Preacher Curls:

This will work the first part of the range and give you that thickness in the lower biceps. Also, preacher curls will minimize cheating so they will directly put more stress on the biceps. That equals more growth.

5-Concentration Curls:

If you want a mountain like Biceps, then you need to work on improving your Biceps peak. The best exercise for achieving that is concentration curls in my opinion. They were Arnold favorite Biceps peak exercise and we all can agree that he had one of the best Biceps in all bodybuilding history.

The Best Triceps Exercises:

1-Close Grip Bench Press:

This is the main muscle builder of the Triceps. forget about Pressdowns and all those machine exercises, if you are not doing Close-Grip Bench Press you will never develop big Triceps. this exercise will allow the use of heavy weights and progressive overload and it will place a lot of stress on those Triceps. The good kind of stress that will lead to muscle growth.

2-Overhead Triceps Extensions:

Those will work the long head of your Triceps, one of the most neglected muscles. developing a big long head will give you that thick Triceps look from the back and it will widen your Arms. On this exercise, focus on maximum stretch rather than just lifting heavy weights. I personally prefer the cable variation over the dumbbell variation on this exercise.

3-Skull Crushers:

even though that their name is scary, but when done right this exercise won’t crush your Skull. Instead, it will grow the lateral head of your Triceps like no other Exercise. the lateral head is the biggest head of all the 3 and when properly developed, it will give you that horseshow Triceps look. Again, stress form rather than weights. use a full range of motion and play a good attention to your elbow placement.

4-Dumbbell Kickback:

You may think that this exercise is for girls, but in reality, it is one of the best exercises when it comes to developing the medial head of the Triceps. Arnold himself was a big fan of this exercise and he included it in all his Arms workout routines. Again, the key with this exercise is to stress a full range of motion and to fully extend your arms in every single rep.

You don’t need to do all of those exercises in one day, but try to do the majority of them within one eek so you hit your Arms from all angles and get them to grow!

GOOD LUCK.