5 Reasons Why Your Arms Are Not Growing

Bigger arms usually mean you want bigger biceps and triceps. But why is this not happening yet? Here are 5 reasons why your arms are not growing.

The triceps are the biggest muscle in your arms and to have bigger arms, the most logical thing, would be to train your triceps. However, to have an overall balanced and big arm you need to work all your muscles and maybe there are a few mistakes you are doing right now that prevent that from happening.

The 5 reasons why your arms are not growing was shared by Jeff Cavaliere.

Jeff Cavaliere was the head physical therapist of the New York Mets for 3 years and is now a YouTube sensation. He delivers clear information without noise on his ATHLEAN-X YouTube channel.

5 Reasons Why Your Arms Are Not Growing

1. No Direct Arm Work

If you think you are doing enough work to grow your biceps and triceps by performing compound movements, think again. Doing pull-ups, rows, bench presses or dips will only get you so far. And if you want your arms to look bigger, you need to have exercises that focus solely on your arms.

Either add an arm day to your workout routine or separate your biceps and your triceps and put them into your training week.

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2. Not Applying Science to Exercise Selection

You need to know the strength curve of the exercise you are doing and what part of the muscle you are actually working on each exercise.

Jeff Cavaliere talks about the barbell curl having the most tension on your biceps during the middle of the exercise and the spider curl being the hardest at the end of the range of motion. Using both exercises will complement how much your biceps will actually grow.

3. One Dimensional Idea of Overloading

When it comes to getting bigger arms, overloading your exercises should not mean adding weight to your curls or your pulldowns.

One idea Jeff Cavaliere tells you to do is to do curls with a set of dumbbells to failure, and immediately follow with a lighter set of dumbbells to failure, and so on until you run the entire rack to very light dumbbell weights.

4. How To Actually Move the Weight

You should keep in mind that you must contract the weight through space, and not just move the weight up and down. Even if the weight is light enough for you, you can contract your muscles as hard as possible to get the best out of the exercise.

5. Using Only Light or Heavy Weight

Lastly in the list of 5 reasons why your arms are not growing is the fact that you are probably stuck using lightweight or heavyweight. To grow your arms, you need to do everything possible including using lighter weight and heavier weights.

Use a variety of exercises and don’t get stuck in the 8-12 reps, go higher and go lower depending on the weight you are using.

Read More: 7 Best Arm Workouts to Forge Strength, Size and Muscle