May 8, 2024 • 16 mins
Ever wondered why, despite your best efforts, your forearms just won't grow? Join me, Gus Holland, on Whey of Life as I unravel the secrets to unlocking true forearm potential. In this episode, I dive deep into the nuances of forearm development, from effective nutrition strategies to the ideal balance of rest and recovery. I guarantee you'll walk away with actionable advice that will turn your forearm game around, whether you're looking to improve muscular endurance or seeking sizeable growth.
Tune in as I lay out the details of structuring your forearm training for maximum results, without the risk of overtraining. I share my personal routine, including how and when I incorporate forearm exercises and why form should never be compromised. If you've ever been curious about why calves and forearms require a different training approach than other muscle groups, this episode has the answers. Get ready to adjust your workouts, fine-tune your diet, and achieve the forearm strength and size you've been chasing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of
Way of Life.
I'm your host, Gus Holland.
Today, we're gonna be coveringhow to grow your forums.
A lot of guys specifically havebeen requesting or arm
exercises and tips and tricks onhow to grow them, how often to
train them, etcetera.
(00:21):
So we're gonna cover that.
So obviously, first andforemost, I'm gonna be covering
the very basics nutrition,restaurant recovery, and
consistency.
These are all essential thingsfor any form of training,
whether it's cardio specific youknow, specifically respiration
training, or muscular endurance,muscular growth, you name it.
(00:46):
Having a balanced diet meaningbalanced for your specific goals
is essential.
Basically, you're going to beyou're, you know, obviously
you're gonna have a higherprotein diet than an average
person that is just training forstandard health and longevity.
(01:08):
If you're trying to buildmuscle, you're going to need
more protein.
You know, you're also probablygonna need some more rest and
recovery.
But in general, consuming abalanced diet with enough
protein to support your musclegrowth and ensuring that you're
getting enough overall caloriesto fuel your workouts and your
(01:31):
recovery is essential.
So besides nutrition, obviously, I touched on rest and
recovery.adequate rest is goingto be crucial for your muscular
growth.
As especially I mean, even evenfor your day to day brain
activity, like, outside of thegym.
(01:53):
You're just you're going toneed more rest, and you're going
to need to ensure that you getenough sleep each night to allow
your muscles to grow, but alsoto recover between the workouts.
So your your with the with theamount of sleep you're getting,
you're not just worried aboutyour muscles growing, but you're
(02:17):
also worried about anythingelse suffering as a consequence
of not getting enough sleep.
So lastly, there's consistency.
Obviously, you're going to wantto incorporate some forearm
training into your routine andyou're going to want to keep it
consistent at least for a goodwhile until you see some gains.
(02:43):
Normally, what I say, this goesfor calves as well.
Forearms and calves are kindasimilar as far as their level of
fatigue, they can withstand theamount of training that they
need, the amount of volume,etcetera.
So you're oh, I take that back.
(03:07):
Volume is gonna be much more oncalves because you're
constantly working walking onthem and technically working
them throughout the day.
Just in day to day life, you'reyou are with forums, but much
less so than than tabs.
But anyways, either one, tabsand forums, you're gonna wanna
(03:28):
train two to three times perweek with enough volume
specifically for you tostimulate growth.
And then on top of that, you'regonna you're really, really
gonna want to have enough restin between each each session.
So you're I wouldn'tnecessarily say train forearms
(03:51):
three days in a row.
You know, you can do likeMonday, Wednesday, Friday, or
however you wanna split it upand incorporate it into your
routine.
Normally, I like to thinkthings that are I guess things
that I'm working on specifically, like, if I'm saying, oh my
(04:13):
calves are are really lacking ormy abs or my forearms.
Those kind of, for me, at least, all fall into a similar
category of wanting to hit themmore often with enough volume to
stimulate the growth while alsomaintaining enough adequate
rest in between trainingtraining sessions.
(04:36):
So I like to per personallyincorporate them either in the
beginning or the end of myexercise kind of just as a bonus
, sometimes both.
Like, I might warm up with somecalves.
And then do my whole whateverit is back in bicep day.
(04:57):
I'm just throwing something outthere.
And then end with calves.
You know, it's a good way tokinda change stuff up and
whatever.
I I personally like doing tabsand forums, and I know some
people don't like it, but I likeit.
So it it's kinda fun to tothrow in there.
But this kind of falls into thewhole restaurant recovery thing
(05:23):
because restaurant recoveryaffects your mental state
basically for just to to sum itup, that you're really going to
want to focus on form.
This is because you do not oryou really, really do not want
to hinder for your forearmbecause that is going to hinder
any other arm exercises.
(05:43):
You know, maybe your gripstrength, like, who who knows?
But the The form is gonna iswhat's going to let you
effectively target eachindividual part of your form.
There's multiple differentparts.
I'm not gonna go over thescientific aspect of it or the
(06:07):
scientific names of each partand today and we're just gonna
cover the basics and the need toknow need to know type of stuff
right now.
You're going to really want, inmy opinion, to focus on the
isolation of your form, and notoverdoing the weight.
(06:31):
In my opinion, I I've seensignificant growth in my forums
over the years.
Just from doing the exercises.
I'm about I'm about to listwith fifteen to twenty pound
dumbbells.
I mean, I I actually when Ifirst started, it was more like
ten to fifteen pound dumbbells.
You don't need a whole bunch ofof weight if you're properly
(06:55):
isolating your forearms andyou're just focused on the
growth at least at this moment.
So as far as the exercises go,there are I mean, you can go
I'll I'll explain these after Ilist them, but you can also
Google them for a visualrepresentation and everything.
But there are risk curls,reverse risk curls, ammar curls,
(07:19):
and then different types ofgrip strength exercises.
So that those are, like,farmers walks where you're
you're holding a lot of weightand you're really having to, you
know, hold it for a long time.
These are Denny stones, platepinches, and then different
(07:39):
types of grips grip squeezes.
Excuse me.
There are all types ofdifferent grip tools that you
can and go down a real deeprabbit hole as far as that goes,
hammer curls.
That kinda goes against thewhole isolation of the forearm
thing, but that's gonna reallyhit your brachialis and that is
(08:00):
what kinda ties into yourforearm.
And so it is essential.
You're gonna wanna hold thedumbbells with your neutral grip
, which means your palm's facingeach other.
I like to do this standing upand isolating my or or pinning
my elbow to my sides, basically.
(08:22):
And you're curling the weightup towards your shoulder, while
keeping your palms facing eachother.
And I guess your knucklesfacing outward.
Thumbs.
I guess yeah.
If you're looking down, yourthumbs would be on top of your
hands.
So besides that, reverse riskcurls.
(08:45):
So those are similar to regularrisk curls, but your palms will
be fake facing down.
You're isolating your forearmto specifically just try and
move your wrist.
And flex the muscles withinyour forearm.
Risk curls, you can use yourbarbell or dumbbells.
You can sit on a bench withyour forearms resting on your
(09:09):
thighs and your palms facing up.
Then you curl the weight up byflexing your wrist and slowly
lowering it back down.
I personally just especially ifit's, like, a heavier, like,
fifteen or twenty pounder, orwhatever, I like to I'll
actually kneel next to a flatbench as long as it's not
(09:31):
hindering anyone else's abilityto exercise or, you know, if
they're there's a bunch ofpeople doing bench.
I won't do this, but I willkind of put my elbow, my arm,
with palm facing upward acrossthe bench with my elbow on the
(09:53):
bench, my wrist hanging off theedge of the bench, which really
and then I'm all put lightly putmy other hand like I say, I'm
doing this with my right rightarm at the time.
I'll use my left hand to holddown lightly my my forearm.
So because my wrist is hangingover, it is it's forcing me to
(10:14):
isolate and just curl andbasically, you're curling the
weight with just your wristmovement.
And I will I will go all theway up to as far as I can and
really flexing and squeezing andthen slowly lower down and I
try to also do a slight negativein that motion.
You're gonna really feel this.
(10:35):
I like to do If it's lighterweight, I like to do three sets
of ten or so.
If it's heavier weight, I Ikinda like to do, like, four
sets of six or four sets ofeight really.
So as far as what I was justexplaining with the wrist curl
(10:57):
and your your palm facing upward, you can you can hit it like
that, and then you can literallyturn turn your forearm in your
hand.
Let's see.
Ninety degrees.
That's facing upward and youcan you can curl upward while
just isolating that we're onlymoving your wrist and you can
(11:18):
rotate your arm another ninetydegrees with your palm facing
down.
That's that reverse wrist curl.
And you're really gonna behitting it hard.
It does not take a lot to toreally get your your farms
worked out and Yeah.
So Like I said, you're gonnawanna stick to consistency.
(11:39):
This means incorporating this.
I I like to actually writewrite my workout plans out.
I mean, some people are like,no.
I just do I know what I I'mdoing, and I just do it every
day.
But Writing it down really isis one is gonna let you keep
track of the sets and reps youactually did, not just what you
(12:00):
thought you did or whatever.
But it's also going to let yougo back in, like, two weeks time
or whatever with with anyexercise and have a reference
point of the weight you'reyou're using.
And even if you jot down howyou're feeling with that weight,
like, you could be like, well,Like, if you're starting out
bench, you're like, well, I wasyou know, I hit one thirty five
(12:22):
on bench, and I'm really proudof that.
And but it was a struggle.
It was like so, I mean, myspotter almost had to help me.
It was, you know, it was reallyfighting.
You know?
And then two or three weeksdown the road, you're like, oh,
what?
I hit one forty, but it was itwent pretty smooth.
You know?
And you can it's a really coolway to see your growth over time
(12:45):
, especially in time doing youryou start feeling down with your
training because at some pointthat normally that happens for
people, especially whenfollowing a program, the, I
guess, the monotony and you're,like, feeling like you're not
making a whole lot of progress,but you actually are.
That's kind of my my rant asfar as that goes.
(13:08):
You want to focus onprogressive overload, which is
gradually increasing your weightthat you're lifting over time.
To constantly challenge yourmuscles and stimulate that
growth.
So like I said, if you startdoing these That's why you
that's why you write this stuffdown.
(13:28):
If you start doing theseexercises with tens and you're
like, man, this is reallystruggle.
I was burnt out.
Like, my hands were tremblingwhen I was done and I I felt
super weak.
I mean, that's a that's a goodworkout.
But then later on, you're like,okay.
Well, It's been, what, howeverlong, two weeks a month, however
however long it takes you.
(13:49):
You're like, man, I I feel Ican do fifteen pounders now.
And you go up to fifteenpounders and you you start doing
that.
So that that's that progressiveoverload to continually
challenge yourself.
So that's about it.
As far as forum exercises go,another fun thing that I left
(14:11):
out is you can a lot of baseballplayers do this and I think
wrestlers too.
I'm not super familiar, butyou'll they'll get, like, a five
gallon bucket from Loewser HomeDepot, you know, whatever
hardware store you have.
And fill it up with rice, andjust the cheapest rice that you
can find or whatever.
(14:32):
Some people do a sandwich, butI don't I don't know.
I don't I like rice.
Well, I like to do it with rice.
And you kinda just like youforce your hand down into the
rice.
And you just kinda move itaround.
It's, you know, it's kinda likethat isolate isolating the
wrist thing.
You can you have some, like,elbow flaring in there or
(14:55):
whatever doesn't really matter.
But you're basically the riceis adding resistance to the
movement of your hand within therice, which is going to work
your forearms.
So some people do kind of likea a twisting motion with their
hands or or kind of like asneaky motion through there or
or different swirls like tryingto move the tire massive rice
(15:19):
like you're stirring stirring itwithout any water in it.
All of those are good exercises.
You can do those forwards andbackwards and all kinds of stuff
.
So that's a very cheap way,especially if you don't have a
lot of Sorry.
Especially if you don't have alot of access to workout
equipment or, you know,different types of grip strength
(15:43):
tools.
Well, thank you all so much forlistening.
If you like this episode,please share it with a friend.
That is the number one way tohelp the podcast.
And it's greatly greatlyappreciated.
The other way is to leave arating and review.
Like usual, I'm gonna beputting the websites information
(16:04):
down in the description as wellas some other links you might
find useful.
And, yeah, I will be talking toy'all next week and thank you
all so much.
You'll have a great rest ofyour week.
Alright.
Bye.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of
Way of Life.
I'm your host, Gus Holland.
Today, we're gonna be coveringhow to grow your forums.
A lot of guys specifically havebeen requesting or arm
exercises and tips and tricks onhow to grow them, how often to
train them, etcetera.
(00:21):
So we're gonna cover that.
So obviously, first andforemost, I'm gonna be covering
the very basics nutrition,restaurant recovery, and
consistency.
These are all essential thingsfor any form of training,
whether it's cardio specific youknow, specifically respiration
training, or muscular endurance,muscular growth, you name it.
(00:46):
Having a balanced diet meaningbalanced for your specific goals
is essential.
Basically, you're going to beyou're, you know, obviously
you're gonna have a higherprotein diet than an average
person that is just training forstandard health and longevity.
(01:08):
If you're trying to buildmuscle, you're going to need
more protein.
You know, you're also probablygonna need some more rest and
recovery.
But in general, consuming abalanced diet with enough
protein to support your musclegrowth and ensuring that you're
getting enough overall caloriesto fuel your workouts and your
(01:31):
recovery is essential.
So besides nutrition, obviously, I touched on rest and
recovery.adequate rest is goingto be crucial for your muscular
growth.
As especially I mean, even evenfor your day to day brain
activity, like, outside of thegym.
(01:53):
You're just you're going toneed more rest, and you're going
to need to ensure that you getenough sleep each night to allow
your muscles to grow, but alsoto recover between the workouts.
So your your with the with theamount of sleep you're getting,
you're not just worried aboutyour muscles growing, but you're
(02:17):
also worried about anythingelse suffering as a consequence
of not getting enough sleep.
So lastly, there's consistency.
Obviously, you're going to wantto incorporate some forearm
training into your routine andyou're going to want to keep it
consistent at least for a goodwhile until you see some gains.
(02:43):
Normally, what I say, this goesfor calves as well.
Forearms and calves are kindasimilar as far as their level of
fatigue, they can withstand theamount of training that they
need, the amount of volume,etcetera.
So you're oh, I take that back.
(03:07):
Volume is gonna be much more oncalves because you're
constantly working walking onthem and technically working
them throughout the day.
Just in day to day life, you'reyou are with forums, but much
less so than than tabs.
But anyways, either one, tabsand forums, you're gonna wanna
(03:28):
train two to three times perweek with enough volume
specifically for you tostimulate growth.
And then on top of that, you'regonna you're really, really
gonna want to have enough restin between each each session.
So you're I wouldn'tnecessarily say train forearms
(03:51):
three days in a row.
You know, you can do likeMonday, Wednesday, Friday, or
however you wanna split it upand incorporate it into your
routine.
Normally, I like to thinkthings that are I guess things
that I'm working on specifically, like, if I'm saying, oh my
(04:13):
calves are are really lacking ormy abs or my forearms.
Those kind of, for me, at least, all fall into a similar
category of wanting to hit themmore often with enough volume to
stimulate the growth while alsomaintaining enough adequate
rest in between trainingtraining sessions.
(04:36):
So I like to per personallyincorporate them either in the
beginning or the end of myexercise kind of just as a bonus
, sometimes both.
Like, I might warm up with somecalves.
And then do my whole whateverit is back in bicep day.
(04:57):
I'm just throwing something outthere.
And then end with calves.
You know, it's a good way tokinda change stuff up and
whatever.
I I personally like doing tabsand forums, and I know some
people don't like it, but I likeit.
So it it's kinda fun to tothrow in there.
But this kind of falls into thewhole restaurant recovery thing
(05:23):
because restaurant recoveryaffects your mental state
basically for just to to sum itup, that you're really going to
want to focus on form.
This is because you do not oryou really, really do not want
to hinder for your forearmbecause that is going to hinder
any other arm exercises.
(05:43):
You know, maybe your gripstrength, like, who who knows?
But the The form is gonna iswhat's going to let you
effectively target eachindividual part of your form.
There's multiple differentparts.
I'm not gonna go over thescientific aspect of it or the
(06:07):
scientific names of each partand today and we're just gonna
cover the basics and the need toknow need to know type of stuff
right now.
You're going to really want, inmy opinion, to focus on the
isolation of your form, and notoverdoing the weight.
(06:31):
In my opinion, I I've seensignificant growth in my forums
over the years.
Just from doing the exercises.
I'm about I'm about to listwith fifteen to twenty pound
dumbbells.
I mean, I I actually when Ifirst started, it was more like
ten to fifteen pound dumbbells.
You don't need a whole bunch ofof weight if you're properly
(06:55):
isolating your forearms andyou're just focused on the
growth at least at this moment.
So as far as the exercises go,there are I mean, you can go
I'll I'll explain these after Ilist them, but you can also
Google them for a visualrepresentation and everything.
But there are risk curls,reverse risk curls, ammar curls,
(07:19):
and then different types ofgrip strength exercises.
So that those are, like,farmers walks where you're
you're holding a lot of weightand you're really having to, you
know, hold it for a long time.
These are Denny stones, platepinches, and then different
(07:39):
types of grips grip squeezes.
Excuse me.
There are all types ofdifferent grip tools that you
can and go down a real deeprabbit hole as far as that goes,
hammer curls.
That kinda goes against thewhole isolation of the forearm
thing, but that's gonna reallyhit your brachialis and that is
(08:00):
what kinda ties into yourforearm.
And so it is essential.
You're gonna wanna hold thedumbbells with your neutral grip
, which means your palm's facingeach other.
I like to do this standing upand isolating my or or pinning
my elbow to my sides, basically.
(08:22):
And you're curling the weightup towards your shoulder, while
keeping your palms facing eachother.
And I guess your knucklesfacing outward.
Thumbs.
I guess yeah.
If you're looking down, yourthumbs would be on top of your
hands.
So besides that, reverse riskcurls.
(08:45):
So those are similar to regularrisk curls, but your palms will
be fake facing down.
You're isolating your forearmto specifically just try and
move your wrist.
And flex the muscles withinyour forearm.
Risk curls, you can use yourbarbell or dumbbells.
You can sit on a bench withyour forearms resting on your
(09:09):
thighs and your palms facing up.
Then you curl the weight up byflexing your wrist and slowly
lowering it back down.
I personally just especially ifit's, like, a heavier, like,
fifteen or twenty pounder, orwhatever, I like to I'll
actually kneel next to a flatbench as long as it's not
(09:31):
hindering anyone else's abilityto exercise or, you know, if
they're there's a bunch ofpeople doing bench.
I won't do this, but I willkind of put my elbow, my arm,
with palm facing upward acrossthe bench with my elbow on the
(09:53):
bench, my wrist hanging off theedge of the bench, which really
and then I'm all put lightly putmy other hand like I say, I'm
doing this with my right rightarm at the time.
I'll use my left hand to holddown lightly my my forearm.
So because my wrist is hangingover, it is it's forcing me to
(10:14):
isolate and just curl andbasically, you're curling the
weight with just your wristmovement.
And I will I will go all theway up to as far as I can and
really flexing and squeezing andthen slowly lower down and I
try to also do a slight negativein that motion.
You're gonna really feel this.
(10:35):
I like to do If it's lighterweight, I like to do three sets
of ten or so.
If it's heavier weight, I Ikinda like to do, like, four
sets of six or four sets ofeight really.
So as far as what I was justexplaining with the wrist curl
(10:57):
and your your palm facing upward, you can you can hit it like
that, and then you can literallyturn turn your forearm in your
hand.
Let's see.
Ninety degrees.
That's facing upward and youcan you can curl upward while
just isolating that we're onlymoving your wrist and you can
(11:18):
rotate your arm another ninetydegrees with your palm facing
down.
That's that reverse wrist curl.
And you're really gonna behitting it hard.
It does not take a lot to toreally get your your farms
worked out and Yeah.
So Like I said, you're gonnawanna stick to consistency.
(11:39):
This means incorporating this.
I I like to actually writewrite my workout plans out.
I mean, some people are like,no.
I just do I know what I I'mdoing, and I just do it every
day.
But Writing it down really isis one is gonna let you keep
track of the sets and reps youactually did, not just what you
(12:00):
thought you did or whatever.
But it's also going to let yougo back in, like, two weeks time
or whatever with with anyexercise and have a reference
point of the weight you'reyou're using.
And even if you jot down howyou're feeling with that weight,
like, you could be like, well,Like, if you're starting out
bench, you're like, well, I wasyou know, I hit one thirty five
(12:22):
on bench, and I'm really proudof that.
And but it was a struggle.
It was like so, I mean, myspotter almost had to help me.
It was, you know, it was reallyfighting.
You know?
And then two or three weeksdown the road, you're like, oh,
what?
I hit one forty, but it was itwent pretty smooth.
You know?
And you can it's a really coolway to see your growth over time
(12:45):
, especially in time doing youryou start feeling down with your
training because at some pointthat normally that happens for
people, especially whenfollowing a program, the, I
guess, the monotony and you're,like, feeling like you're not
making a whole lot of progress,but you actually are.
That's kind of my my rant asfar as that goes.
(13:08):
You want to focus onprogressive overload, which is
gradually increasing your weightthat you're lifting over time.
To constantly challenge yourmuscles and stimulate that
growth.
So like I said, if you startdoing these That's why you
that's why you write this stuffdown.
(13:28):
If you start doing theseexercises with tens and you're
like, man, this is reallystruggle.
I was burnt out.
Like, my hands were tremblingwhen I was done and I I felt
super weak.
I mean, that's a that's a goodworkout.
But then later on, you're like,okay.
Well, It's been, what, howeverlong, two weeks a month, however
however long it takes you.
(13:49):
You're like, man, I I feel Ican do fifteen pounders now.
And you go up to fifteenpounders and you you start doing
that.
So that that's that progressiveoverload to continually
challenge yourself.
So that's about it.
As far as forum exercises go,another fun thing that I left
(14:11):
out is you can a lot of baseballplayers do this and I think
wrestlers too.
I'm not super familiar, butyou'll they'll get, like, a five
gallon bucket from Loewser HomeDepot, you know, whatever
hardware store you have.
And fill it up with rice, andjust the cheapest rice that you
can find or whatever.
(14:32):
Some people do a sandwich, butI don't I don't know.
I don't I like rice.
Well, I like to do it with rice.
And you kinda just like youforce your hand down into the
rice.
And you just kinda move itaround.
It's, you know, it's kinda likethat isolate isolating the
wrist thing.
You can you have some, like,elbow flaring in there or
(14:55):
whatever doesn't really matter.
But you're basically the riceis adding resistance to the
movement of your hand within therice, which is going to work
your forearms.
So some people do kind of likea a twisting motion with their
hands or or kind of like asneaky motion through there or
or different swirls like tryingto move the tire massive rice
(15:19):
like you're stirring stirring itwithout any water in it.
All of those are good exercises.
You can do those forwards andbackwards and all kinds of stuff
.
So that's a very cheap way,especially if you don't have a
lot of Sorry.
Especially if you don't have alot of access to workout
equipment or, you know,different types of grip strength
(15:43):
tools.
Well, thank you all so much forlistening.
If you like this episode,please share it with a friend.
That is the number one way tohelp the podcast.
And it's greatly greatlyappreciated.
The other way is to leave arating and review.
Like usual, I'm gonna beputting the websites information
(16:04):
down in the description as wellas some other links you might
find useful.
And, yeah, I will be talking toy'all next week and thank you
all so much.
You'll have a great rest ofyour week.
Alright.
Bye.
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