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I hardly ever do curls or any exercise that focuses solely on making my arms stronger. I've found, however, that they're probably the part of my body that grows the fastest as a side effect of the other exercises I do.

I guess my question is, is that fine?

3 Answers 3

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Absolutely yes. I used to be incredibly skinny but changed my workout completely on the advice of a personal trainer. I used to work hard on biceps with zero results.

I changed my workout to focus on the major and largest muscles of the body e.g. legs and chest and my arms grew in size dramatically and that is after doing zero biceps curls or anything directly targeting the arms!

Exercises like Dead Lifts, Machine Leg Press, Military Press etc are key to building great arms.

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  • How do Machine Leg Press help the arms? When holding on for dear life when pushing the legs up with your legs?
    – Salsero69
    Mar 24, 2011 at 12:19
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    @Salsero Working out with high intensity, compound movements will increase growth hormone levels. Also the more muscle you have (anywhere), the more testosterone you will have - leading to more growth overall.
    – Nobody
    Jun 22, 2011 at 15:45
  • @rmx Really? So starting my routine with dead lifts or heavy squats would be a good starter to get things going?
    – Salsero69
    Jun 23, 2011 at 1:20
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It really depends on what you are looking for. As xiaohouzi79 said, if you're happy with your current arm growth doing other exercises, that's perfectly fine. However, if you're looking for additional definition (not growth) you will most likely at least have to have one good time in your lifting cycle focusing on your arms. I would recommend that you make sure you are working both sides of your arms (biceps and triceps) through your other exercises. The worst thing would be to have one side grow faster/bigger than the other. Not only does this look weird, it can cause injuries later on.

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It's fine to skip arm specific exercises if you are already happy with how they are progressing without direct exercises.

I personally focus more on my legs because I need them more for the sport I play.

You can also focus more on strengthening exercises using something like Ausband than building large arm muscles. Which is what I do.

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    I think that most guys are the gym focus far too much on upper body, great legs and glutes are far more impressive that an oversized torso e.g. Christiano Renaldo.
    – TheLearner
    May 1, 2012 at 8:07

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