Have you ever decided to take arm day a bit more seriously by following and performing a host arm workout tutorials courtesy of your favorite fitness influencers, gym buddies or mentors for weeks on end, but then after all is said and done, you have little or no visible hypertrophy gains to boast of for all your efforts?
Well, if this scenario resonants with you, you should know now that you are not alone. Also, it may interest you to learn that your arm day training program may not necessarily be the reason why your biceps aren’t growing as expected.
As a matter of fact, the issue is not all those arm exercises you have learned and you are now executing with the right technique, the problem is not necessarily what you are doing during your session, but what you do after your gym sessions.
That’s right, what you do when you are not training is just as important as what you do during your sessions. Here are seven (7) identified reasons why you are not experiencing muscle growth as anticipated and the associated bicep growth tips that you can note down and try out on your next arm day.
#1. Your Muscle Recovery Plan Is Inadequate
You probably have had the popular saying that muscles aren’t built during training, but during recovery drummed into your psyche by your fitness mentors. But while this saying is cliché at this point, that doesn’t negate the truth behind it.
As you engage your arm muscles during an arm exercise, you have unavoidable microtears in your muscle tissues. These microtears are a normal part of hypertrophy and as your muscles repair during your rest time, your muscles become larger and stronger.
Your body stimulates hypertrophy in order to prepare your muscles for the presumed rigors of your next arm day training schedule. If you engage in training for several days within a week without taking sufficient time out to recover, you interfere with your muscles repair and hypertrophy process leading to disappointment and frustration.
One tip you can adopt today is to allow your arms particularly your biceps sufficient time to properly recover from your arm day workout regimen. The recommended recovery time for your biceps should be 48 hours at the barest minimum.
#2. You Ignore Nutrition for Muscle Growth
While arm training mistakes should never be overlooked if you are serious about building arm muscles and strength, you should also pay equal attention to your nutrition plan.
If you want to build muscle, you need to consume an adequate amount of protein with your calories count at a surplus (to support your training) and not at a deficit. You should consume enough complex carbohydrates along with healthy fats and of course lean proteins.
#3. Your Progressive Overload is Weak or Nonexistent
The trick of muscle building is to give your muscles enough tension that will cause microtears (and not a major damage) in order to stimulate hypertrophy during your muscle recovery. So, while staying on the same weight day-in, day-out may not cause injury, it also would not put sufficient tension on your muscle to encourage it to adapt to the stress with a corresponding growth.
Note that progressive overload comes in various forms and not just the periodic lifting of higher weights. You can also implement progressive overload by increasing your set range and/or repetitions (reps) for your exercises or by working and perfecting your workout technique.
You can equally introduce progressive overloads by adding more exercises to your arm day training regimen and/or by increasing your overall control of the weights and/or range of motion with every rep.
#4. You Focus on Pump rather than Progress
While admittedly that pump you focus on can feel great in the moment, it should by no means be used as the primary measure of muscle hypertrophy.
Instead of concluding that your workout has been successful because your arms are swollen just after your arm workout session, you should enjoy the moment, but know that the true measure of the success of your workout regimen lies in long-term gains.
You need to focus more on lifting a greater volume of weights with each passing week of training or increasing your rep range while at the same time working on your technique to ensure significant improvement to minimize injury risk while optimizing performance.
#5. You Probably Aren’t Doing Enough Compound Exercises
While isolation exercises can help you focus on a particular muscle group, you will get greater results when you perform compound exercises which are designed to train a greater number of muscle groups spread across a wider range of body parts.
Rather than working your biceps with endless barbell or dumbbell curls, you can combine this with compound exercise like rows, underhand pulldowns, and chin-ups that put a whole lot more tension on your biceps as well as other muscles to encourage growth.
#6. Poor Sleep Quality Could be a Reason Why Your Biceps Aren’t Growing
It doesn’t matter if your training is on point and you are eating right, if you do not get enough sleep, you will end tired during the day and this can greatly affect how you train. Sleep is where your muscles repair themselves, adapt to the tension of your last intense arm day training, and grow accordingly in response to the stress of the workout.
#7. You need to Stay Consistent
It is not unusual to see people jumping from one arm day training routine or another mainly influenced by overtly convincing online fitness influencers. While this may open you up to a vast number of exercises to improve your muscles, jumping from one exercise to another can lead you to inconsistent training to build the necessary tension that will stimulate muscle growth. What you need to do is to spend enough time perfecting your form on a set of exercises while working up progressive overloads in the process
Final Thoughts
Is it possible that your workout plan is not entirely to blame for why your biceps aren’t growing?
Could it be that you are not getting sufficient sleep and nutrition?
Is it possible that you are not working hard on your progressive overload?
Maybe you are not putting in enough reps or you are still on the same barbel weight for your curls that you were on months ago when you started your arm workout. You need to find out exactly what the issue is and resolve it accordingly and watch how your bicep muscles grow.
