Forearms

[DiBatista]

I'm just looking for ONE(no supersets or anything)exercise for forearms. My biceps and everything else is fine but my forearms still look slender. Thanks a million.

[FishrCutB8]

How about forearm extension and flexion, as per Mr. Ian King:

[DiBatista]

alright thx alot ill try em today

[bobby]

Not that anyone asked, but those are brutal, esp. in BOM stage 1 weeks 1-3.

[Jake]

Just one? Farmer Walks get my vote. Grab two huge dumbbells and walk around until you can't hold them anymore.

[Lou Schuler]

Back when I was in high school, the two or three of us who lifted used to do pullups because we thought it was a good forearm exercise.

In retrospect, I think we were at least partially right. The best way to make any muscle grow is to force it to work against the greatest possible resistance.

Isolation exercises, like wrist curls, are certainly fine for beginners or for others at the very beginning of a comprehensive, long-term program.

But you can't possibly do a wrist curl with your body weight, which is what you're using in a pullup. Granted, the forearms aren't the prime movers there, but they're the final muscle link between the bar and your body weight, which means they're contracting isometrically to hold whatever you weigh.

I also second Jake's suggestion of the farmer's walk, and I'll throw in the deadlift as a pretty serious forearm-builder.

[goldwave84]

Hey Lou!
Nice to see you around. Just ordered yr TAP too, looking forward to it. Just wondering, do you ever train pro bodybuilders?

[Lou Schuler]

I don't train anybody but myself, and even I do workouts designed by others -- usually Craig Ballantyne, but also Alwyn Cosgrove, Dave Tate, or another trainer I'm working with on an article or book.

As for pro bodybuilders, it's kind of a running joke that you'll see them quoted in bodybuilding magazines prescribing particular exercises for forearms, but then see them quoted saying they don't actually do special exercises for their forearms. And sometimes these quotes will be in the same article!

[UpNorth]

I was feeling pretty good after my workout this morning so I decided to give the farmer's walk a try -- ouch! After five seconds I was thinking "what's the big deal." At fifteen seconds really started to feel it. At 30 seconds I couldn't move the weights to the floor fast enough. Two sets of that killed me.

Now typing all day is a vivid and constant reminder of those things.

[Lost Dog]

Many of Craig's TT routines have lunges and reverse lunges in the same superset. I can barely feel my hands afterwards, much less the "target" muscles. Farmer's Lunges?

[BiggerThanYou]

Originally posted by Lost_Dog:
Many of Craig's TT routines have lunges and reverse lunges in the same superset. I can barely feel my hands afterwards, much less the "target" muscles. Farmer's Lunges?

Anything that requires a good, strong grip such as lunges, deadlifts, and farmer walks provide good forearm stimulus.
From my own personal experience...barbell rows and deadlifts have been my 2 best forearm exersizes. This goes back to what Lou said earlier concerning the ability to use more weight on compound movements than on little isolation movements (such as wrist flexions/extensions).

[DiBatista]

Yea i did them in my workout with not to heavy weight, i def felt a burn but for some reason i have two huge bruises on each of my forearms at about the same spots, can anyone explain those?

[Lou Schuler]

Originally posted by Superman:
Yea i did them in my workout with not to heavy weight, i def felt a burn but for some reason i have two huge bruises on each of my forearms at about the same spots, can anyone explain those?

Is that where the edges of the dumbbells hit them? You didn't say you worked with dumbbells, but I know the ones in my gym will leave bruises like that on certain exercises.