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Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms
by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill
Series: Anatomy
176 Pages
Delavier’s Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms is your guide to the massive biceps, triceps, and forearms you’ve always wanted.
Over 330 full-color photos and 130 anatomical illustrations allow you to go inside more than 100 exercises to see how muscles interact with surrounding joints and skeletal structures and how variations, progressions, and sequencing can isolate specific muscles to help you achieve targeted results. It’s like having an X-ray of each exercise!
Delavier’s Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms includes over 30 proven programs for strength, size, and sport performance. You’ll also learn the most effective exercises for your goals; how to determine weight, repetition, and frequency; how to prevent tendinitis, muscle tears, and forearm and wrist pain; and strategies for varying your routine to ensure constant gains and optimal results.
Whether you’re looking to quickly increase the size of your biceps or correct imbalances between the heads of your triceps, Delavier’s Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms provides serious training for serious results. It’s all here and in all the stunning detail that only Frédéric Delavier can provide!
The former editor in chief of PowerMag in France, author and illustrator Frédéric Delavier is a journalist for Le Monde du Muscle and a contributor to Men’s Health Germany and several other strength publications. His previous publications, Strength Training Anatomy and Women’s Strength Training Anatomy, have sold more than 2 million copies.
Part 1
What You Need to Know Before You Begin
1. Develop Your Program
20 Steps to Developing Your Arm Workout Program
1. How should you define your goals?
2. How many arm workouts should you do each week?
3. Which days should you work out?
4. Should you work the biceps and triceps separately?
5. What time of day should you work out?
6. How many sets of arm exercises should you do for each muscle?
7. How should you adjust the volume of work?
8. How many exercises should you do during each workout?
9. When should you change exercises?
10. How many repetitions should you do in each set?
11. How quickly should you do repetitions?
12. How do you adjust the range of motion in an exercise?
13. How long should a workout last?
14. How much rest time should you take between sets?
15. How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
16. When should you increase the weight?
17. How much rest time should you take between exercises?
18. How do you select exercises based on your anatomomorphology?
19. When should you change your program?
20. Should you take a vacation?
Keep a Workout Notebook
Rate of Progress
Techniques for Increasing Intensity
Volume or Intensity?
Theory of Absolute Strength: A Good Beginning Strategy
Inroad Theory: An Advanced Technique
Summary of These Two Theories
Synchronizing Cycles
Should You Train to Muscle Failure?
Beyond Failure
Stop-and-Go
Burn
Continuous Tension
Unilateral Training
Supersets
Circuits
How Should You Breathe During a Workout?
2. Build Your Arms Quickly!
Secrets of Biceps Anatomy
Anatomical Considerations
Roles of the Biceps
The Secret to Huge Biceps
Hand Position Affects the Strength of the Biceps
Hand Position Affects the Strength of the Brachioradialis
Let’s Talk About Size
A Muscle’s Length–Tension Relationship: The Key to Strength
Secrets of Triceps Anatomy
Anatomical Considerations
Roles of the Triceps
The Secret to Huge Triceps
Secrets of Forearm Anatomy
Anatomical Considerations
Roles of the Forearms
Practical Observations: The Forearm, a Muscle of Extremes
Part 2
Weak Areas and Pathologies
1. Understanding Weak Areas
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
Small Biceps
Short Biceps
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
Small Brachialis
Two Obstacles to Developing the Triceps
Small Triceps
Imbalance Between the Heads
Five Obstacles to Developing the Forearms
Forearms Are Too Small
Forearms Are Too Large
Small Brachioradialis
Imbalances Between Flexor and Extensor Muscles
Weak Hands
2. Strengthening Weak Areas
Strategies for Developing the Biceps
Anatomical Dilemma: You Must Work the Biceps From Every Angle in Order to Develop It!
Anatamomorphological Dilemma: Should You Straighten Your Arms During Curls?
Are You a Hypersupinator or a Hyperpronator?
Adapting Exercises to Your Morphology
Biomechanical Dilemma: Are Curls a Compound Exercise for the Biceps?
If Classic Curls Don’t Produce the Results You Expect
Strategies for Developing the Triceps
Learn to Feel the Triceps Well
Strategies for Correcting Imbalances Between the Heads
Is a Fixed or Rotating Schedule Best?
Strategies for Developing the Forearms
Get Bigger Forearms
Develop the Brachioradialis
Correct Imbalances in the Forearms
Strengthen Your Grip
Prevent Your Forearms From Interfering With Your Biceps Training
3. Preventing Pathologies
Understanding Biceps Pathologies
Causes of Pain in the Biceps
1. Vulnerability of the Tendon of the Long Head of the Biceps
2. Three Types of Biceps Tears
3. Focus on Problems With the Labrum
Understanding Triceps and Elbow Pathologies
1. Understanding Elbow Pain
2. Types of Triceps Tears
Understanding Forearm and Wrist Pathologies
Factors That Predispose You to Forearm Pain
Tendinitis in Muscles Attaching to the Epicondyles
Prevent Pain in the Forearms and Wrists
Goals of a Strength Training Program for Preventing Wrist Injuries
Part 3
The Exercises
1. Beginning Exercises
You Do Not Need Much Equipment to Work Your Arms at Home
Dumbbells
Pull-Up Bar
Elastic Bands
Exercises for the Biceps
Pull-Up
Supinated Curl
Hammer Curl
Concentration Curl
Biceps Stretch
Exercises for the Triceps
Narrow Push-Up
Seated or Standing Triceps Extension With Dumbbells
Lying Triceps Extension With Dumbbells
Reverse Dip
Triceps Kickback
Triceps Stretch
Exercises for the Forearms
Reverse Curl
Wrist Curl
Wrist Extension
Forearm Stretch
2. Advanced Exercises
Advanced Exercises for the Biceps
Supinated Curl With a Machine
Low-Pulley Curl
Cable Stretch Curl
Incline Curl
Preacher Curl With a Scott Curl Bench
Brachialis Curl
Advanced Exercises for the Triceps
Narrow-Grip Bench Press
Dip
Lying Triceps Extension With a Bar or Machine
Seated or Standing Triceps Extension With a Bar or Machine
Cable Push-Down
Advanced Exercises for the Forearms
Hanging From a Pull-Up Bar
Squeezing a Hand Grip
Wrist Roller and Power-Flexor
Pronosupination With a Bar
Part 4
Arm Workout Programs
Home-Based Programs Using Little Equipment
Beginner Programs
Intermediate Programs
Advanced Programs
Programs for the Gym
Beginner Programs
Intermediate Programs
Advanced Programs
Strength Training Programs Designed for Your Sport
Racket Sports
Rugby, Football, and Team Contact Sports
Basketball, Volleyball, and Handball
Downhill Skiing
Combat Sports
Track and Field Throwing Events
Swimming
Golf
Rowing
Kayaking and Sailing
Climbing
Arm Wrestling
Powerlifting Program for the Bench Press
Frédéric Delavier is a gifted artist with an exceptional knowledge of human anatomy. He studied morphology and anatomy for five years at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studied dissection for three years at the Paris Faculté de Médecine.
The former editor in chief of the French magazine PowerMag, Delavier is currently a journalist for the French magazine Le Monde du Muscle and a contributor to several other muscle publications, including Men's Health Germany. He is the author of the best-selling Strength Training Anatomy, Women’s Strength Training Anatomy, The Strength Training Anatomy Workout, The Strength Training Anatomy Workout II, Delavier's Core Training Anatomy, and Delavier's Stretching Anatomy.
Delavier won the French powerlifting title in 1988 and makes annual presentations on the sport applications of biomechanics at conferences in Switzerland. His teaching efforts have earned him the Grand Prix de Techniques et de Pédagogie Sportive. Delavier lives in Paris, France.
Michael Gundill has written 13 books on strength training, sport nutrition, and health. He coauthored The Strength Training Anatomy Workout, The Strength Training Anatomy Workout II, Delavier's Core Training Anatomy, and Delavier's Stretching Anatomy. His books have been translated into multiple languages, and he has written over 500 articles for bodybuilding and fitness magazines worldwide, including Iron Man and Dirty Dieting. In 1998 he won the Article of the Year Award at the Fourth Academy of Bodybuilding Fitness & Sports Awards in California.
Gundill started weightlifting in 1983 in order to improve his rowing performance. Most of his training years were spent completing specific lifting programs in his home. As he gained muscle and refined his program, he began to learn more about physiology, anatomy, and biomechanics and started studying those subjects in medical journals. Since 1995 he has been writing about his discoveries in various bodybuilding and fitness magazines all over the world.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you determine the most appropriate weight for each exercise?
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
More than the number of repetitions or sets, it is the resistance (or weight) that you use in each exercise that determines the effectiveness of your training. It is important to use a weight that is appropriate for your physical abilities as well as your goals.
In the beginning, it may be difficult to figure out the appropriate weight. Some exercises are too easy while others might seem impossible. You may be uncertain, but this adjustment process is not a waste of your time. It helps you develop something called muscle memory. The difficulties in this selection process arise because it is not natural to have to choose the resistance imposed on your arms.
In nature, muscle work adapts to the weight, not the other way around. For example, when you run, your stride automatically adapts to the difficulty of the terrain. In strength training, the logic is reversed. It is as if you were adapting the terrain to the type of stride you wish to have. You have to get your brain and central nervous system accustomed to this paradox. To make the process even more complex, add to the equation the ever-present desire to handle weights that are too heavy in the hope of skipping steps. To find the right resistance in each exercise, start with light resistance and gradually increase it. The following is an explanation of the process. There are three broad weight zones:
- Zone 1 weights seem light and do not require much
effort to lift.
- Zone 2 weights allow you both to feel your muscles
work and to do the exercise with perfect form.
- Zone 3 weights require you to cheat to lift them, and
they do not allow you to feel your muscles working
well.
The process for selecting resistance begins with a warm-up. A good warm-up will help you calibrate the level of resistance for your arms. You must always start with a light weight.
You should do your first warm-up set with a weight in the middle of zone 1. The second warm-up set should use a weight from the upper part of zone 1. After that, let your goals determine the amount of weight you use.
Goal: Increase the Size of Your Arms
Do three-quarters of your working sets with weights from zone 2, gradually increasing the weight with each set. This increase should take you from the lower part to the upper part of zone 2.
You can do one last set with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. Handling a weight that is a little too heavy prepares the central nervous system for your next workout. This technique, called future work, is for increasing intensity. Do not abuse it or you could injure yourself!
Goal: Increase the Strength of Your Arms for Strength Sports
After you warm up, do your working sets with a weight from the lower part of zone 3. By gradually increasing the weight in each set (pyramid strategy), you will gradually reach the upper limit of zone 3.
Goal: Do Cardio Work for Endurance Sports
Do your working sets with weights from the upper part of zone 1 and the lower part of zone 2. There is no grad-ual increase in weight since the goal here is to fight the growing fatigue that happens from doing set after set with little rest time in between.
Goal: Increase Explosiveness and Endurance
Use a weight that reflects the muscular demands necessary for your sport. Two training structures can be used:
1. One workout can be a mix of strength work (with zone 3 weights) followed by cardio work (with weights from upper zone 1 and lower zone 2).
2. Alternatively, one workout could focus solely on power work (in zone 3), and the next workout could be dedicated to cardio (between zones 1 and 2). And of course you will use different weights for each exercise. When you have found the right weight for an exercise, write it down in your workout notebook (see page 26) along with the number of repetitions. The next time you work out, try to do 1 or 2 additional repetitions at the same weight.
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
How do you select the exercises that will work best for you?
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
In this book, we have carefully selected the most effective exercises for the arms. However, they might not all work well for you. Indeed, morphologies differ from person to person. There are tall people and short people as well as arms and forearms of various sizes.
A unique morphology should correspond to an individualized choice of exercises. We would be lying if we pretended that every body type could adapt to every exercise. Certain sizes are well suited to some exercises and less so to others. This is the concept of anatomomorphology, the foundation of the Delavier strength training method.
There are two complementary ways to choose your exercises:
1. By elimination: Some exercises do not work well with your anatomy. You should eliminate those. Other exercises do not match your goals. These two parameters restrict the possibilities and, therefore, make your choice easier. However, simple elimination should not be your only criterion. Rather, you should find exercises that work well for you.
2. By selection: Often, the only way to determine compatibility between your morphology and an exercise is to try that exercise. You will find some exercises that you like right away. But most of the time you will find them a bit strange and they will be hard to do since they recruit muscles that you are not accustomed to using. With time, the novelty will fade and you will feel the contraction in your arms more and more.
Learn to Differentiate Between Exercises
Your choice will be easier once you understand that there are differences between exercises. You should learn to recognize them and use them to your advantage. Every exercise has both advantages and disadvantages. Only by mastering the concept of advantages and disadvantages will you find exercises whose
- advantages most closely match your needs, and
- disadvantages least conflict with your goals.
So we will be particularly attentive to describing the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise pre-sented in the section on exercises. From there, you will have a solid and logical base from which to choose.
A Situation in Constant Evolution
As far as the choice of exercises goes, it is important to realize that things are not set in stone. With time, you will start to enjoy certain exercises that you did not like before. When this happens, your first reaction is to regret that you did not realize it sooner. You might feel that you have wasted time. But this is rarely true, since your mind-muscle connection is constantly changing. A month or two months ago, your arms were perhaps not ready for that exercise. The progress you made means that you can now feel a new exercise very well. So do not have any regrets.
The opposite thing can also happen: You feel less and less from an exercise that you really liked before. This exercise guaranteed rapid progress at first, but now it seems ineffective. This is not just a feeling. It means that it is past the time to remove that exercise from your program. After several weeks of not doing the exercise at all, you can attempt to reintroduce it.
You must constantly adapt to your muscles' devel-opment and, most important, be flexible when faced with these changes. This commonsense observation might make you wonder how you can know when it is time to change your training program.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
Understanding weak areas
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Four Obstacles to Developing the Biceps
You must overcome four problems in order to develop biceps. After reviewing these obstacles, we will explain how to move past them.
Small Biceps
This is the main frustration for many people in strength training. Even though you can never have big enough biceps, some people's arms just seem resistant to growth. Visually, small biceps can be dwarfed by large shoulders. The situation is not hopeless. There are innovative strat-egies, often overlooked, that can help you develop your biceps quickly.
Short Biceps
A biceps muscle is short when it stops very high above the forearm; this is often the reason for poor muscle development. On the contrary, people with very long biceps (that come far down on the forearm) have an easier time developing the muscle.
The only advantage of short biceps is that they have a better peak (the summit of your biceps when con-tracted). Long biceps have a less pronounced peak.
Unfortunately, you cannot lengthen your biceps. But even though you cannot make your biceps go lower down on your forearm, it is possible to make your forearm climb toward your biceps by developing the brachioradialis (the muscle that joins the biceps and the forearm).
Imbalance Between the Long and Short Heads
The long and short heads are not always equally developed. You can see this asymmetry when you contract both biceps:
- Seen from the front, a lack of curve and a small peak mean the short head is deficient.
- Seen from the back, a lack of curve means the long head is lacking.
To resolve this problem, you must isolate the work to the head that is lacking.
Small Brachialis
The brachialis is often underdeveloped. So this is easy mass for you to gain. The brachialis muscle's impact on your appearance does not stop there:
- If one arm is bigger than the other, the size difference is often because the brachialis is more developed in one arm than the other.
- Genetics, in large part, determine the form of the biceps, so a large brachialis can improve the peak by pushing the biceps up.
The problem with the brachialis is not that it develops poorly. More often, it suffers from poor motor recruitment. Many people do exercises that are supposed to work the brachialis without the muscle actually working. You must teach the brachialis to contract by doing specific work on motor learning.
Save
Learn more about Delavier's Anatomy for Bigger, Stronger Arms.
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