I see trainers of varying experience spending hours training their biceps: most with little tangible success.   I have read articles in popular muscle magazines extolling the virtues of blitzing and bombing your biceps with high intensity from all angles bla bla bla .................

There will be further articles featuring the latest big thing in steroidom. They will list several variations of the curl that they attribute as the reason they have 22 inch arms.   They will guarantee that if you follow their routine for several weeks, eat right and get plenty of rest your arms will grow.   Ok whatever.

Call me a cynic but I hesitate to take advice from some spotty back behemoth that thinks sticking a needle in his ass is a good idea.

Where am I leading with this diatribe?   Well, I maintain that you can and indeed will, get big muscular arms without doing one biceps curl or triceps kick back.

I don't train my biceps or triceps directly.   I do train my forearms when I do grip training (see my last article).   The only curls I do are the hammer curl and reverse thick bar curl for forearm /grip strength.

The biceps and triceps are heavily involved in all pulling and pushing movements.   Pull ups and parallel bar dips are staple exercises in my back and chest routines respectively.   These two exercises are responsible for my arm size.   My upper arm measures 16.5 inches cold and nearly an inch bigger when pumped, post exercise.   Not 22 inches, but not bad for someone who weighs less than 80kg.

When I used to train at a commercial gym I was always being asked about my arm development.   On one occasion, a young lad approached and asked for advice on arm exercises.   He stated that he trained his arms twice a week, about an hour each time.   I had seen him training and had noticed that he trained really hard and seemed really dedicated.   In fact he reminded me of what I was like at his age; keen, but with little knowledge.     I took some time out and explained my philosophy on arm training.  

I suggested he stopped any direct bicep / triceps work immediately; this was not what he wanted to hear.

I changed his back routine and encouraged him to concentrate on pull ups.   To begin with I wanted him to do a total of thirty repetitions in as few sets as possible.   When he could achieve this in four sets or less then the target would go up to fifty reps.   When fifty was achieved in six sets or less then we added ten repetitions a week until he got to one hundred.  

He did the same with parallel bar dips on chest day.   He trained back and chest just once a week.   He added an inch to his arms in about five months.   He progressed from the magic hundred reps by adding weighted pull ups and dips after his initial set with bodyweight as a warm up.