Sami asked 5 years ago
Is it possible to get my arms to 19’ naturally? Because my arms stopped growing for a year now and I have only been working out now for two years and a half!
Dr. Jacob Wilson Staff answered 5 years ago
Hi Sami,
I definitely understand your pain here, arms can be very hard to grow! You note that you’ve been training for about 2.5-years. This is a pretty common time frame when people really start experiencing plateaus. The best thing to do here is to change up your training style – try to pick new exercises and use new methods to continue giving your body a new reason to grow. If you continue to do the same exercises for the same set and rep ranges, you’ll eventually get into a scenario in which your body has no reason to adapt to your training. When I hit my first arms plateau, I spent about 8-weeks training arms really heavy, like sets of 3-5 on my main triceps and biceps lifts. That really boosted my growth because I had always trained in the 8-12 rep range.
Another thing that can help is focusing a lot more time on your triceps training. Many people focus too much time on their biceps but the triceps make up the majority of the upper arm and can give the illusion of bigger biceps when they grow.
Also focus on compound movements a lot. Focus on increasing your bench and pull-up numbers as these movements are also huge arm boosters.
Lastly, if you want to get big, you need to eat big. If your goal is growth, you’re going to have to take in some extra calories to make that happen.
On your note of 19″ being achievable naturally, there’s a ton of confounding factors that come into this and it also depends on the “quality” of that size, etc. Use the tips here, train hard, and be patient. Significant gains can take a long time!