Building Massive Biceps : Rep Schemes

Arm training will generally be a higher rep affair mainly because the training goal is to generate a massive pump. But also, arm exercises tend to suit higher reps simply because very low rep sets will either be disgustingly cheated or terminated too early. For example, there is no such thing as a 2 rep set of tricep pushdowns. There is such thing as stopping after 2 reps when 8, gradually-deteriorating reps would have been possible. There is also a 2 rep 'pulldown-and-squat-cable-throw with a jump-on-top-before-the-weight-stack-falls manoeuvre... but that's not a pushdown either.

Standard pyramid rep schemes are good but try working with a wider rep range than normally suggested. After a warm-up do a 20ish rep set to failure, followed by a 12-15rep set, followed by a 7-12 rep set followed by a 3-7 rep set. If you are alternating quickly enough between bis and tris you might even find you don't need to increase the weight between sets. By the time you get to the 4th compound set your arms will be so pumped and fried you can barely get 4 or 5 reps with the weight you initially performed 20 reps with.

Charles Poliquins' 10 sets of 10 reps German Volume system is also brilliant for arms. Alternate a set of a bicep exercise with a set of a tricep exercise, every minute until you've done 10 sets of 10 reps of each exercise with the same weight. Then hit some loaded stretching and your arms will be massively pumped.

Otherwise, any sort of creative rep/set scheme will work for arms so long as you focus on generating a massive pump followed by some hard fascial stretching. Techniques like drop-sets, super-sets, forced-reps etc are all great.

 

👉 Building Massive Biceps : Basic Training Principles
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Pro Observations
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Lessons from SEO's
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Training the Arms
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Arm Workout Structure
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Training Splits
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Exercise Selection
👉 Building Massive Biceps : Exploiting Exercises' Unique Attributes
👉 Building Massive Biceps : A Word on Diet