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Forearm Volume


greppstark

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It's mostly genetic.

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I completely disagree J. You dont find arm wrestlers with wimpy forearms. It takes a crap ton of work for some people. My forearms are nowhere near huge but ive put an inch on them in the past year. When i took my cast off about 2 months ago my right arm looked like a 13 year olds, now im only a 1/4 inch from them being equal. With that being said, ive been up some nights with pain in my hand. It all depends how hard you're willing to work, the body will adapt.

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thought to post Oleg's vid here, I think it's both genetics and training. We can't know how much each is contributing for a given individual for every inch gained, that would be nice but it's not even testable.

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to get a clear view of his L forearm skip to 45 sec with Brzenk and right after with Larratt

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This kid seems to have some extra muscles in his forearm. This one is born to arm wrestle!

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Use a thinner bar, don't focus too much on the grip in the hand, more on the actual arm. Closing grippers has more to do with strenght in the hand and lower arm (wrist), try to focus on the upper forearm more for size. Thats where the forearm is naturally the biggest anyway.

Technically that's not correct. Most of the muscle mass (and therefore working strenght) of the movers of the wrist and fingers are in the upper forearm. That can be seen in any anatomy book. People often casually talk about "wrist strength" etc. but it may be unclear what they actually mean. Resisting pain and breaking can be strength, too, but that's not the same thing. I think usually wrist strength means ability to move wrist and finger strength means ability to flex fingers, and the muscle mass which moves them is mainly in the upper forearm.

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Your forearm should look like a chicken drumstick..bigger at the top than down by your wrists.

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Use a thinner bar, don't focus too much on the grip in the hand, more on the actual arm. Closing grippers has more to do with strenght in the hand and lower arm (wrist), try to focus on the upper forearm more for size. Thats where the forearm is naturally the biggest anyway.

Technically that's not correct. Most of the muscle mass (and therefore working strenght) of the movers of the wrist and fingers are in the upper forearm. That can be seen in any anatomy book. People often casually talk about "wrist strength" etc. but it may be unclear what they actually mean. Resisting pain and breaking can be strength, too, but that's not the same thing. I think usually wrist strength means ability to move wrist and finger strength means ability to flex fingers, and the muscle mass which moves them is mainly in the upper forearm.

Yes you're right about that but I still think there's a difference between the two, in terms of muscle mass and actual strength. Just look at great armwrestlers when they're up against much bigger guys who isn't armwrestlers, they always win. Strength is not only about how big the muscles are, it's about tendons, joints etc. Fore pure strength I think that plays a bigger role actually, you don't need massive muscles to be really strong. And as for closing grippers the muscles you have in the hand will be your best weapon :)

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Use a thinner bar, don't focus too much on the grip in the hand, more on the actual arm. Closing grippers has more to do with strenght in the hand and lower arm (wrist), try to focus on the upper forearm more for size. Thats where the forearm is naturally the biggest anyway.

Technically that's not correct. Most of the muscle mass (and therefore working strenght) of the movers of the wrist and fingers are in the upper forearm. That can be seen in any anatomy book. People often casually talk about "wrist strength" etc. but it may be unclear what they actually mean. Resisting pain and breaking can be strength, too, but that's not the same thing. I think usually wrist strength means ability to move wrist and finger strength means ability to flex fingers, and the muscle mass which moves them is mainly in the upper forearm.

Yes you're right about that but I still think there's a difference between the two, in terms of muscle mass and actual strength. Just look at great armwrestlers when they're up against much bigger guys who isn't armwrestlers, they always win. Strength is not only about how big the muscles are, it's about tendons, joints etc. Fore pure strength I think that plays a bigger role actually, you don't need massive muscles to be really strong. And as for closing grippers the muscles you have in the hand will be your best weapon :)

As said before, Sang-Do Sim is a good example for that. he's thumb pad looks pretty thick.

Edited by greppstark
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Yes you're right about that but I still think there's a difference between the two, in terms of muscle mass and actual strength. Just look at great armwrestlers when they're up against much bigger guys who isn't armwrestlers, they always win. Strength is not only about how big the muscles are, it's about tendons, joints etc. Fore pure strength I think that plays a bigger role actually, you don't need massive muscles to be really strong. And as for closing grippers the muscles you have in the hand will be your best weapon :)

Tendons and joints must be strong in the passive sense but they don't do the work (execpt that tendons and fascias can store and release energy, but it's not important here). As much as active, working strength and muscle mass don't correlate, it's about nervous system. Unlike muscle mass, strength is not a static property, it's really an active dynamic skill just like any skill: manual working, playing an instrument, doing card tricks etc. Practice it and you will get better at it because your nervous system adapts. Of course there are other effects in strenght training, too, like joints and tendons adapting to it by getting thicker and tougher so that they don't break up, but the difference in ability to work comes from nervous system.

Trainging for strength and traingin for hypertrophy overlap but are still different. Also hypertrophy and short-time endurance overlap. Therefore you can use sets of 20 reps and gain mass and a bit of strength, but not optimally, at least for an average person. (I'm yet to see scientific evidence for calves or forearms needing very long sets for optimal hypertrophy.)

Anyways, if I would try to get both strength and mass but didn't care about endurance, I would first try sets of 5 or 6 and only after that go up in reps, as up as needed, whether it be 10 or 20.

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I have no idea what I'm talking about. You should probably glaze over what I said previously. I was 135lbs when I graduated high school and dislocated my wrist throwing a baseball. Girls even made fun of how skinny my wrists were. My wife said I had monkey arms when we met.. Now I have a 17-inch forearm goose-necked...but wtf would I possibly know. I only trained some of the Koreans in the videos you posted at a seminar in Seoul in 2012. Please...carry on speculating

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James, one could argue though that regardless how big your forearms are at starting point the rate of improvement is partially due to genetics, and which might not perfectly correlate with body frame. No doubt it takes hard work too, but even hard work can be linked to genetics. :)

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Well I certainly don't want to argue. Thankfully I have a job that demonstrates the importance of both genetics and socialization on a daily basis. Thanks to both nature and nurture I get to walk around town with two Renaissance Festival turkey legs attached to my elbows. Not that chicks dig it or anything.

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I have no idea what I'm talking about. You should probably glaze over what I said previously. I was 135lbs when I graduated high school and dislocated my wrist throwing a baseball. Girls even made fun of how skinny my wrists were. My wife said I had monkey arms when we met.. Now I have a 17-inch forearm goose-necked...but wtf would I possibly know. I only trained some of the Koreans in the videos you posted at a seminar in Seoul in 2012. Please...carry on speculating

I'm at loss, can you explain to what and to whom you are responding?

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Certainly not you Elmo. Not looking for a message board marathon argument where we grandstand and compete for the last word. If anyone would like to know the methods I have used to get bigger forearms just send a message to my inbox or better yet hit me up in facebook.

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Certainly not you Elmo. Not looking for a message board marathon argument where we grandstand and compete for the last word. If anyone would like to know the methods I have used to get bigger forearms just send a message to my inbox or better yet hit me up in facebook.

Hmmmm

But have your methods been rigorously tested in a highly regarded scientific laboratory with a double blind study on at least 100,000 participants with a precise cross section of your average population for decades on end then had the results scrutinized by the best scholars and scientific minds available?

No you say!...then it can't possibly work lmfao

:laugh

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Science, personal experience and anecdotal evidence all have their strengths and weaknesses. I like to challenge them all, including my own limited experience and knowledge. Interesting topic for discussion, but not in this thread.

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Me too, which is why I used empirical evidence from peer-reviewed journals that supported the exercises I put in my book. The methods I developed on my own and borrowed from others proved highly effective in my labratory (hmm hmm garage). I have read some rediculous articles and viewed equally dopey videos from so-called experts (trainers with degrees in exercise science I am guessing) that have no idea how to work the different muscles in the forearm and make unfounded claims like "tendons cannot grow."

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My forearms are about the same, but my hands have definitely gotten bigger since I started grip training in 2011. My wedding ring no longer fits.

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Lots of time under tension whatever exercise you choose to do.

Mighty Joe had a short or medium term goal to bulk his up. its on here somewhere but im not sure where. i think he reached his goal. either contact him or look on his Youtube account.

lots of good advice in this thread to.

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I tried this exercise today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1hRqU23YRk

It felt great, planning on doing it routinely. The max wt on the cable machine reads 200 pounds (max capacity). But I wanted to check with you guys (I'm relatively new to rolling handles and didn't know what to expect) : Is it reasonable to be able to do isometrics with 200 pounds, or do you think the wt is most likely less than what it reads on the cable machine plates?

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