Build GIANT Arms With P90X

Face it! Every single  guy wants to have huge arms and will do just about whatever it takes to get em.

I remember going to the gym in college and doing bicep curls for days! The more bicep the better right? Thats where huge arms come from right?

WRONG!

If you want to build GIANT arms with P90X, then you need to stop focusing on your biceps and really focus in on the triceps! The reason being is that the triceps make up about 2/3 of your upper arm. There is simply more muscle there in your triceps than there is in your biceps, therefore if you want more muscle in your arms, focus on the muscle that there is more of…Make sense? Good!

Okay so how does this fit into your P90X routine? Good Question!

 

How Do I Build Giant Arms with P90X?

One word…DIPS!

Now I know that dips are just a small portion of the P90X arm routines, so how can you develop your triceps for bigger arms if P90X isnt necessarily focused on building giant arms? First though, lets understand why dips are so effective.

Why Dips Are So Effective In Building Muscle

When you want to pack on some serious size to any muscle group, your focus needs to be on compound exercises. Compound exercises, unlike an exercise that isolates the muscle group, recruits muscle fibers from a range of muscle groups. By compound I mean that you are using more than just your triceps during the exercise. To get those giant arms you want and to build those muscle fast, you are going to want to focus on compound exercises that focus on the tricep and the bicep at the same time…DIPS!

We have the summer Olympics coming up real soon. Go ahead and take note of how friggin huge the male gymnasts arms are! Take a look at their triceps! Why do these dudes have such giant arms? Its because the exercises and movements that they focus on are compound! Dips are very similar to the moves that you see those gymnasts doing! The best part is that you can use your own body weight as the tool! Even better…with dips, you are moving your entire body – not just your arms. You use all the stabilizer muscles as well as the primary muscle groups through the entire move.

 

How To Incorporate Dips Into Your P90X Routine

This is simple! You already do dips in P90X, just not a dip that uses your entire body weight. In P90X, they do dips with their feet on the ground and their hands on a chair behind them. What you are going to want is something similar do a dip bar that you would see in the gym. I recommend investing in a good dip station, but if that is not on option, find something in your house that is stable and will allow you to do your dips like the pic shown below where you are moving your entire body weight. I do them sometimes just for fun in between our counter tops in our kitchen.

Just do these type of dips during the video rather than chair dips.

Another option is to do what is called muscle stacking. This is where you do your normal workout on arms/shoulders with P90X, then 7-8 hours later you come back and BLAST that same muscle group with a different set of moves. This would be your chance to maybe come back and do 3-4 sets of dips, weighted dips, or pyramid sets with dips…get creative and have fun with it. Just do lots of dips! lol You can also do dips 3 times per week! Just make sure you allow 48 hours in between for recovery. This will really speed up your gains when trying to build giant arms with P90X.

Proper Form With Dips – Build Giant Arms

Form is always king when it comes to building size. If you start rockin and rolling with the moves and encorporate momentum then you simply are not activating the proper muscle fibers and in addition, you are putting yourself at risk of injury.

Like I mentioned before, dips can be done on a dip station, parrellel bars, or if you are super hardcore, you can do them on gymnast rings if you have access to them! What you REALLY want to focus on though during your dip is that when you go down, only go down far enough so that your tricep is parrallel to the ground. Going any lower than that will only put stress on your shoulders that you dont need and it will increase your risk of injury.

 

What About My Biceps?

Ya ya ya, lol. I know – You still want to pump out those bicep curls, but guess what – P90X is already set up to get you the biggest biceps and its the move that most everyone hates…pull ups! Dont forget – the way to get bigger arms is to focus on compound exercises that recruit the use of multiple muscle groups. If you want bigger biceps, then focus on great form with your reverse grip chin ups. These are going to build the peak of your bicep and just as you did with dips, you can come back 7-8 hours after your first workout and blast your biceps with chin ups for a crazy arms muscle stack!

 

I hope this gives you a better idea of where your focus should be when trying to build giant arms with P90X! Just really be sure that your form is perfect, you get plenty of recovery time since that is when muscles grow, and get after those compound moves! Let me know in the comments if this post was helpful and share it on facebook or twitter if you liked it! Now get after it and do “WHATEVER IT TAKES” ~ Sagi Kalev