Three Times A Week. Question: What other body parts can I train my arms with? Or you could even break it down further with a chest/triceps/abs day, a back/biceps day, a leg day, and a shoulder day each week. 5777 N Meeker Ave, Boise, ID 83713-1520 USA. Hugo continues to publish several articles on the subject of health and nutrition in several magazines and websites and has been with Prolab Nutrition for over three years. (2015) had participants perform 1, 3 or 5 sets per exercise with 2 exercises for the biceps and 3 for the triceps in a 3x per week full-body training program. Choose one exercise and perform one set of eight to 12 repetitions. Let’s use an example. For example, if you are doing 3 sets of seated shoulder press and you do 8 reps for each set, then total workout volume is 24 reps. And if you are doing 3 exercises for shoulder for that day, like lateral raise and posterior raise, again for 3 sets each and 8 reps, then total workout volume for shoulders is: 3*3*8= 72 reps. How Many Sets Should I Do For Biceps? Split #2 Monday/Thursday: Chest/Biceps/Triceps Tuesday/Friday: Thighs/Hamstrings/Abs Wednesday/Saturday: Back/Shoulders/Calves, Split #2 Monday: Chest/Back Tuesday: Thighs/Abs Wednesday: Shoulders/Traps/Calves Thursday: Biceps/Triceps Friday: Hamstrings/Glutes Saturday: Calves/Abs. Note the massive triceps thickness gains from the group performing 45 sets of triceps work per week. To failure. Most analyses don’t separate studies by training experience, so my research team is performing a meta-analysis. After listening to that statement, Hugo decided to kick the... Be the first to receive exciting news, features, and special offers from Bodybuilding.com! Groups preformed either 9,18 or 27 sets of bicep exercises per week for 6 weeks. The study showed optimal results using 18 sets per week, 9 sets were not enough and 27 appeared to be overtrained by the end of the study. With 2 sessions, the average intermediate MRV for biceps might be around 20 sets per week. Many coaches debate if there’s a point in doing more than 10 sets per week, so 45 sets to failure sounds ludicrous in contrast. Over Three Times A Week. I think you should take into account at least the following factors when estimating someone’s optimal training volume. After a period of 8 weeks, the 8 sets per muscle per workout group reported slightly better muscle growth. Even without those, the data beautifully fit a diminishing returns curve. Hugo is owner of www.hrfit.net, an informational, free fitness and nutrition website. Negative effects sizes are included but not shown, as they are likely indicative of measurement error or lack of adherence to the training program. Untrained typically correlates with unmotivated. Another common mistake of overtraining is hitting the biceps with too many sets, you could walk into almost any gym and find someone doing 20 odd sets on their biceps being under the incorrect impression that ‘more is better’. That should be recoverable for most individuals. There are a couple of misconceptions that you’re operating under: 1. Multiple sets taken to 10 reps fall in the middle of the rep range (8-12) and are linked by studies to muscle growth, so you'll find nary an exercise scientist who'll disagree with that approach. For example: 3 sets for 4 exercises = 12 sets. Optimal Sets per Week: 8-12 total sets of direct work for both triceps and biceps Frequency : 2-3 days per week, or more. It’s a great way to figure out how and when to scale up what you’re doing in order to keep your progress steady and prevent it from stalling or stopping altogether. Answer: For absolute beginners, 4-6 sets twice a week works best. Most studies are done on untrained individuals. This is probably my favorite study on training volume to date, because they studied such a wide range of volumes, the study lasted 6 full months and the participants were military personnel. So no program is optimal for cutting as well as bulking. Physiologically, it also makes sense that the more advanced you become, the higher your optimal training volume rises. You can do anywhere from 2-3 exercises per muscle group, two times a week. Several studies have found that there’s a sweet-spot training volume compared to which, doing more or less, reduces progression [2, 3, 4]. As you get more advanced into bodybuilding, you start learning more about your own individual recovery capabilities, but in my experience 10-12 sets seems to be tolerated well by most people. Back workouts use biceps quite a bit. The graph also doesn’t display (but does include) the major outlier of Radaelli et al. Now contrast these results with the studies on trained individuals. Ten or more sets per muscle group per week worked better than 5-9 sets. Question: How can I get big arms quickly? I believe most of you are doing more than 12 sets per week for biceps. the more advanced you become, the higher your optimal training volume, Advanced trainees are more resistant to muscle damage, show a blunted hormonal-anabolic response to a given training volume, most people run into the limits of their willpower or connective tissue long before their muscles actually become incapable of recovering from the training volume, Several studies have found that there’s a sweet-spot training volume compared to which, doing more or less, reduces progression, during Ramadan fasting athletes gain strength, » Join in and discuss this article on Facebook. Primary Exercise: Weighted Chin-ups 3×8 repetitions; Secondary … Eating food will not make you fat; only abusing the quantities of the bad foods will. So for the biceps the set volumes per week were 6, 18 and 30; for the triceps they were 9, 27 and 45. I’ve recommended 10-30 sets in my interviews the past years for most individuals with some outliers using higher volumes, like IFBB Pro Nina Ross. Question: How can I make my arms look wide as mine look big when I flex them but small when you see them from the front? There don’t even appear to be diminishing returns for muscle growth. The “momentary failure” part I highly doubt as the idea even a highly trained athlete could perform 8 sets of squats of 8 – 10 reps each to failure as they did in the study, is … So you would only count the bicep curls as bicep volume. But overall 24 sets including all arm muscles looks okay, but imo a little bit too much. I recently posted the results of a training study co-authored by Mike Israetel in which the participants kept making good progress as they pushed up their training volume to 32 sets of squats per week. To illustrate this, during Ramadan fasting athletes gain strength faster when they reduce their volume by 22% than when they stick with their previous training volume. Hugo also just released his new book called The Hardgainer's Handbook of Bodybuilding in March 2005 and also serves as a nutrition consultant to several professional football players and other elite athletes. Modified Compound Superset: Chin-Ups - 8 sets of 6-8 reps (90 second rest) Close Grip Bench Press - 8 sets of 6-8 reps (90 second rest), Modified Compound Superset: Incline Curls followed by Incline Hammers with the same weight once you hit failure - 3 sets of 10-12 reps (90 second rest) Lying Triceps Extensions - 3 sets of 10-12 reps (90 second rest). Here’s how: Bicep Workout 1. Keep your working sets to 6-8 maximum for smaller muscle groups (biceps, triceps, calves) and 10-12 for larger muscle groups (chest, legs, back). 5-10 direct sets per week for the biceps. Formerly a business consultant, I've traded my company car to follow my passion in strength training. : For instance, first do Biceps, then do Triceps). Initially, I'd suspect that pairing triceps with chest … With the exception of the bench press, the results for all measures showed a more-is-better dose-response all the way up to the super high volumes, as illustrated below. Thus, the number of sets per muscle group was 2, 6, or 10 per workout (6, 18, or 30 per week) for the biceps, and 3, 9, or 15 per workout (9, 27, or 45 per week) for the triceps. You will do 2-3 biceps focused exercises per workout, twice per week. Hugo serves as business consultant to many personal training studios as well. Once A Week. However, there was no major difference in strength gain of both the groups. Twice A Week. Well, there could be other reasons as well. As illustrated below, there was no effect of training volume on strength development at all, while there was a clear dose-response of training volume with higher volumes resulting in markedly greater muscle growth. Then rest the prescribed amount of time again and go back to the first exercise. This is dependent on the amount of volume per day Here is a recommended set range for each muscle group: Legs - 14-20 sets Calves - 6-10 sets (possible … There really is no one-size-fits-all  program. Biceps workouts for mass build and strengthen the biceps, one of two primary muscle groups in your arms. The MRV benchmark can be put somewhere between 12-18 sets/week. How Many Sets of Deadlifts for Mass. And you’ll finish off by grinding out two “pump sets” of 10 reps with shorter rest periods. So training volume was 50% higher for the quads than for the triceps and biceps. 5.9K views There’s no set requirement for number of days to train any muscle group, especially inconsequential muscles like the biceps, 2. Training experience. If you are a hardgainer, then multiply your bodyweight by 24 and use a nutrient split of 50% carbs (even split of simple and complex), 25% proteins, and 25% good fats. By filling in your details you consent with our privacy policy and the way we handle your personal data. Radaelli et al. 4 x 12-15 with 30 seconds rest between sets The 5 x 5 scenario maximizes the mechanical tension placed on the biceps, which does a great job causing protein synthesis and neuromuscular improvements. ; Duration - 3 to 4+ months. Train Bi's and Tri's Together. Note: I always seem to get better results when I train both biceps and triceps in the same workout so while I have split them on separate days many times, 90% of the time I train them together. 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