Gaining Weight and Bigger Arms
by Vladi
Last Update On December 13, 2011
I don't know how it started but there is a rule of thumb flying around that you need to gain 15 pounds of overall bodyweight in order to add an inch on your arms. While you obviously have to gain some weight in order to gain muscle on your arms 15 pounds seems a little excessive.
Muscle growth is adaptation to stress. In other words the damaged tissue after a workout repairs itself and grows bigger, increases the number of blood vessels and nerve endings. The body will only repair the affected muscle group. So if I only train my legs and gain 15 pounds I will probably not gain any muscle on my arms. The opposite is also true - if I train only my arms my lower body will suffer.
An inch on your arms does not equal 15 pounds of muscle - not even close. I would even say that an inch on your arms can be as little as 2 pounds of real muscle depending on how big your arms are in the first place. Problem is arms are small and those 2 pounds are gained slowly over time. Just buy one pound of red meat and imagine it proportionally spread all over your arm. Vince Gironda used to say to his students: “ How much do you think an inch on your arms will affect the scale?”
Your body does not care about proportions at all. Look at gymnasts - they have very heavy arms, chest, back, shoulder development but the lower body while being strong and explosive is not that developed. Why? The sport does not require it. The body adapts to the demand put on it. Everything else is secondary and there are no magic and secret mechanism that makes you proportional when you put more emphasis on a certain bodypart. You can be 160 pounds with 16 inches arms (gymnast) and you can be 200 pounds with 13 inches arms and 26 inches legs (Olympic weightlifter)
Truth is some people may have gained 15 pounds of body-weight when their arms have gotten bigger by one inch but it's not true that you need to gain that much weight to add an inch on your arms because they are a small muscle group and 15 pounds are actually a lot of muscle. Some people will need two years to gain that much weight if they are not beginners.
If I need 15 pounds to add an inch on my arms how much would I need to add an inch on my leg - 25, 30 ? That's three years of training according to Mike Mentzer who specifically outlines in his article Nutritional Reality that most people should be happy with 10 pounds a year after the initial gains. Of course in three years you can add much more than one inch to your leg unless you are very close to your genetic potential.
It also depends on your height. If you are 6'6 you will need to gain more weight in order for your arms to fill out. A person who is 5'5 has much less weight to gain. So the rules break again. In general don't bother that much with the scale or the tape. Progress is always slow and if you want bigger arms just train them hard enough while avoiding over-training.
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