Thread: Forearm workout and weight gain

Without weights is a bit difficult to "bulk up". To get good, functional and tight muscles yeah, but usually people just want to increase muscle size for looks. However, there are tons of good moves you can do with your own body weight and are absolutely not limited for mere pushups

Personally, I am training now for planche pushups, which require very good core strength and arm strength. I have noticed that most preparatory moves are good for overall conditioning. Those include ie. handstand pushups, static positions like the crow and such. Of course, if you really want just to get a lot bigger forearms, I'd suggest moving over using weights.

Couple of clips for your interest I hope.



A clip of many different pushups, which have effect on different areas.

Pull-ups or hammer curls if you have a dumbbell - Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Not including weights? That is kind of hard, since when you use your body weight, your muscles get used to the resistance strain, allowing you to do more and more reps. This is why there are so many different variations of bodyweight training, or somatotrophics. The majority of people that use body weight as resistance tend to maybe bulk up a little at first, but in the end, they tend to be just lean, not bulky. The rare cases where you see some buff guy who does bodyweight exercises, it's usually so because of the variations they do of the normal exercises.

I'll put it to you like this, look at a gymnist's routine with bodyweight exercises, give that routine to a bulky guy you meet, hundred bucks says they can't even do half of it. It's all how your body gets used to something, if it's used to something, and yuo want size, you add weight, or gravity in the sense of bodyweight exercises.

Now, with the forearms, they're really more of a show off muscle, in the sense that they're main purpose is to help the hands, with weak forearms, you're likely to not beable to grasp a lot of weight. There are things you can do to get size to your forearms (if that's your stubborn muscle group). First off, work it out an extra day, or if you're working them out a lot already, cut off of it (basically 2 days is all you should focus on them). Things to do not requiring weights, might be a dead man's hang (where you literally hang using only your hands to grip the bar), go for a minute or two. Another variation of it is to have a tennis ball in your hand while you do it, so that the tennis ball is on top of the bar where your fingers would normally grip.

But really, this is just going to give you stronger hands and forearms. For size, you really need weights, simply because anything you do, your body gets used to it eventually, usually six weeks, and then you'll either start burning the muscle with excess reps, or you'll just get damn good endurance in your muscles. It's weird, and really complicated. So I'll say it like this, IF you had weights, this is what I'd tell you to do.

1. Wrist curls (slow movements)
2. Reverse wrist curls (slow movements)
3. Wrist roller (it's a device where a weight plate is attached to a rope and you roll the stick to bring the weight up and lower it back down)

Bodyweight exercises though, the only thing that really comes to mind that would really attack your forearms would be like a fingertip push up, not meaning just one fingertip, but using the fingertips of your hands when you do a push up. But again, eventually you'll be able to do more and more reps, and the higher the reps, the lower the size, unless you're a freak of nature.