Video: Arm Training Observations by Bernardo Costa
This is IFBB Classic Physique Pro Bernardo Costa. Bernardo adopts a methodical approach to training i.e. form coupled with function before adding in the intensity. He turned pro at the 2019 NPC USA and is preparing for his pro debut here in 2020.
Check out Bernardo's Arm Training observations.
I’ve noticed a lot more growth on my arms when I started spreading my volume in my arms over more days of the week instead of only hitting them at the end of my push and pull sessions.
Instead of only doing biceps at the end of my pull sessions, and triceps at the end of my push sessions. I began to incorporate biceps and triceps at the end of both my push and pull days. This was an idea that originated from @jaredfeather.
When he programmed my training sessions and included AM/PM sessions. My biceps/triceps were being worked 4x a week instead of 2x a week. At first I thought I wouldn’t sufficiently recover from this, but in all reality my recovery was better. This was due to the fact that we were spreading the volume out more strategically instead of lumping it all together in just 2 sessions for each muscle a week. This allowed for each set and actual arm session I did to become more productive. I wasn’t doing 3-4 bicep work outs back to back. Which probably eliminated a lot of junk volume.
Now I’ve currently backed off AM/PM training, but I’ve found my arms have responded equally to simply doing 1 bicep exercise, 1 Tricep exercise at the end of each push and pull day. Effectively doing arms 4x out of the week. But only building from 2-5 working sets on 1 exercise for each muscle as my mesocycle progressed. At the end of the mesocycle, at 4-5 sets per exercise I was still doing 16-20 working sets a week across 4 days. Which is equal to doing 8-10 sets of biceps and triceps 2x a week.
Instead of redundantly lumping movements for my arms, spreading it out made each movement I did more productive.
