The Forgotten Muscle – An in Depth Forearm Workout Guide

Posted by on May 21, 2009 in Workout Info | 0 comments

The Forgotten Muscle? What Do You Mean?

In my experience the most under used and under worked muscle group is easily your forearms. How often to you actively think of working just your forearms? My guess is not often. The problem with ignoring your forearm muscles is simple: they play a vital role in your grip strength and how much you can lift with free weights for many different workouts on other body parts. So lets recap quick:

  • Forearms are often ignored
  • Forearms help increase grip strength
  • Forearm strength/size is esthetically pleasing
  • More forearm strength = more grip strength = lift heavier free weights with more control

Warming Up Your Forearms

To begin it is generally best to rotate your hands and began contracting your forearm muscles, help get the blood flowing to the forearms so you can began the very enjoyable cramping adventure you are about to embark on.

Another nice warm up technique I like to use is to sit on a bench and turn my hands towards each other while they hold me up from behind. By doing this you can feel your forearms begin to tighten and increase blood flow. Once you feel warmed up enough you can proceed onto the exercises!

Please note: it is also a good idea to begin every workout with some warm up cardio to help increase blood flow throughout your whole body

Forearm Exercises

I am sure you can guess the way must forearm exercises work (you bend the wrist to contract/extend forearm muscles) but I am going to provide some more interesting and common forearm work outs. Let’s begin!

For each forearm exercise (or atleast most of them) there is a reverse workout in which your palms go from facing up or down, to facing down or up.

Palm Up Barbell/Dumbbell Wrist Curl

Essentially this workout can be performed on a bench, or while resting your arms on your legs and with either a barbell or dumbbell. To begin with the bench you rest on your knees on the side of the bench, with either your barbell or dumbbells in your hands while your palms are facing up, somewhat like a preature curl. Let your wrists wrest on the edge of the bench and hold your forearms flat againts the bench, not allowing them to move. You now roll your wrists up, essentially you are curling the weight with just your wrists and forearm muscles. This exercise is virtually the same between dumbbell and barbell except that with dumbbell’s you can do one forearm at a time and use your other hand to support your other arm. This exercise works the meaty underside of the forearm to help create that rock hard bulge.

Palm Down Barbell/Dumbbell Wrist Curl

Basically the same as the first work out however, your forearms are flipping and your palms are facing down. You can lower your wrists and lift them up or  in order to ‘curl’ the weight. This exercise helps to build the top of your forearms and create a more define and vascular forearm.

Reverse Barbell Curls

Most people are familiar with barbell curls, this is essentially a whole new spin on that technique. To begin we start out with our palms facing down and grabbing the bar with an overhand shoulder width grip. Now you perform the curl essentially the same way, you start from the lower postition and raise the bar up until your forearms are vertical, now you lower your arms back down extending your arms and allowing the muscle to relax momentarily.

Reverse Barbell Preacher Curls

This is exercise is very similar to the preacher curl, and the barbell curl. You again start with an overhand grip shoulder width apart, and forearms resting on the pad. You lift your arms until your forearms are vertical once again, the straighter the better, and you let them back down and fully extend your arms again. Also be sure to allow the muscle to relax momentarily.

 

This list of forearm exercises should keep you busy toning and massing out your forearms for a little while. Remember the importance of forearm development when working them out because the cramping sensation can be quite incredible.

The Sensation

So you did your first forearm workout….how do your arms feel? Tight? Cramped? Ah yes these are all good signs of a good forearm work out. Remember the more you work forearms the more accustomed you will be to this sensation. Also the more defined and vascular you will become. Massive forearms will always be able to draw a certain respect from people, keep at it build them up.

When Should I Workout Forearms?

The answer to this is really dependent on how into the forearm workout you get, and how much you can handle. I generally like to hit forearms hard on a leg/shoulder day. The reason is simple I can do my should workouts and the rest of the time hit legs and forearms where I won’t need much gripping strength since my forearms will be exausted, cramped, you name it. So experiment with what days your forearms are feeling exceptionaly ready for a hard workout and incorporate your workout then. Just remember to do the forearm work outs and you should eventually have a new routine down pat.

 

 

Check the blog for more articles every few days!

Related posts:

  1. The Art of the Bench Press
  2. Workout Plans and Information

Comments are closed.