3 Exercises for Bigger Arms You Haven’t Tried Yet

I know, I know – it’s almost October and the traditional “suns out, guns out” attitude will quickly give way to sweatshirts, winter coats and the idea that eating just… all the pumpkin pie is a great way to insulate yourself for winter. But instead of waiting until the sun finally reemerges in early spring to start perfecting your best “oh yeah the beach is back THAT WAY” pose, give these three movements for bigger arms a shot now.

Zottman Curl

Named after 19th-century strongman (that you probably haven’t heard of until right this very second) George Zottman, the Zottman curl goes beyond a traditional dumbbell curl by incorporating more stress on the forearm muscles during the lowering phase of the curl. Because bigger biceps are great, but if they taper down to toothpicks where your forearms should be it just sort of looks like somebody wedged a couple of lollipops in your shirt sleeves.

The idea behind the Zottman curl is to overload the forearm muscles during the lowering, or eccentric phase of the movement by rotating the palms down into a pronated grip that limits the biceps and puts most of the stress on the forearms. You’ll be able to use more weight than you could do if you kept the palms down the entire time because the biceps will still assist on the way up but won’t be involved on the way down.

Make sure you fight to keep your elbows from flaring out or you’ll lose the tension in your arms.

Zane Curl

This one is named after somebody whose name you might recognize – Frank Zane, former Mr. Olympia and known for his compact, more aesthetically-focused physique (at 5’9″ he competed at about 185lbs).

Here, you’ll keep both palms facing up throughout the entire set. Curl both dumbbells up together, then leave one arm in the contracted position while you perform your reps on the opposite arm – I like to use around 6-8 reps per arm with a controlled tempo and no cheating whatsoever. Make sure you focus on keeping the contracted arm in a fully squeezed position with your elbow right by your ribcage – don’t let it rest while the other arm is working.

I also recommend starting with a different arm for each set to reduce the likelihood of imbalances.

Assisted Dip Machine Pressdowns

Don’t worry, this isn’t an all-biceps article – if you want bigger arms, triceps are a must, making up 2/3 of the upper arm.

You know how sometimes you wander into a commercial gym and see people using machines for just about any exercise other than the ones they were made for? Ones that look like they were designed with hashtags like #icandopushupsonthetreadmill or #legpressbenchpressesareamazeballs? Fortunately this isn’t one of those.

I first saw this movement in a John Meadows program that I did back in 2016, and I’ve been a fan of them ever since. They fall somewhere between a close grip bench press or pushup and a triceps extension, but they work extremely well. Let the elbows flare out some and lean into it a bit. I like to start with my hands in a diamond shape with my thumbs and index fingers together and lean forward just enough that the back of my hands are at my sternum in the starting position.

Give these three movements a shot during your next arm workout, and make sure to warn your shirt sleeves that they’re getting evicted come springtime.