But What About My Arms? A New Lifter’s Insecurities Addressed

It happens at my gym like clockwork. A few weeks into training, right
around the time squats start feeling heavy and the honeymoon phase of
the linear progression begins to fade, a new lifter – always a dude
– will corner me with a nervous-ish look on his face and ask, “Hey
Steve, um…when are we going to add some in some arms?”

It’s not a dumb
question, it’s actually an honest one, and something I hear pretty
often. I’m sure my fellow SSCs hear it too. Hell, while I can’t
remember for sure, I probably asked it myself when I first started
training seriously. You walk into the gym, commit to something hard
and unfamiliar, start moving serious weight and then suddenly notice
something is missing. The pump – the one Arnold famously said is
more satisfying than cumming with a woman – just isn’t there.

That familiar feeling
you used to get every time you trained at Basic Fit®,
after finishing your fourth set of 12 on cable curls, is nowhere to
be found. Surely that should be there, right? I mean, the burn is how
you knew you were making progress. And now? Now all that’s there is
just more weight on the bar than last time. Panic sets in, and you
start wondering if all this squatting and pressing is somehow making
your arms smaller.

Let me reassure you:
it’s not. And more importantly, you’re training your arms right
now. You just don’t understand it yet.

And here’s the thing: this usually comes from guys who’ve been to
gyms in the past and have done bro splits that most certainly had an
arm day. They might’ve spent years following something like: chest
on Monday, back and bis Tuesday, shoulders and tris Wednesday, and
legs some other day or not at all. But now it’s not there.
Actually, a lot of that bullshit isn’t there. After a few weeks in,
they can eventually wrap their heads around what happens to them when
you add a bunch of weight to your squats and deadlifts. The strength
gains, the muscle mass, the systemic growth starts to make sense, but
“Where the hell is the arm work?” starts to rise to the top of
their list of priorities.

The
Novice Phase: The Best Time to Grow

If you’re doing the
Starting Strength Novice Linear Progression, you’re in the best
phase of your training life ever. You are making progress on every
lift, every workout, which is an absolute gift. When I make progress
now, for example, it’s either very rare or the fluke of a good day.
But a novice? Being a novice is The Shit. You don’t need fancy
splits, periodization, conjugate programming, or targeted isolation
movements. You just need to eat, sleep, show up when you’re supposed
to and keep adding weight to the bar.

And when you do that –
when your bench press goes from 60kg to 100kg, your press climbs from
35kg to a plate on each side, and when you start knocking out sets of
chins – something magical happens: your arms grow. Because they
have no choice.

You think your triceps
aren’t working during heavy pressing? You think your biceps and
forearms aren’t under tension when you’re cranking out chin-ups?
You think holding onto a loaded barbell for deadlifts or heavy
barbell rows isn’t training your grip, elbow flexors, and triceps
like crazy? This is the stuff that actually builds real arm size. And
unlike endless sets of curls, it carries over to literally everything
else you’ll ever do with your body.

Compounds
Work Best

Here’s the funny
thing – and I see it play out in real time with clients all the
time: the more you focus on getting stronger at the compound lifts,
the more your arms start to look like you actually lift. As a matter
of fact, it kind of sneaks up on you. The people themselves sometimes
don’t notice it until we show them a day-one deadlift and then
another one a month later and they can’t fucking believe it.
Everything, and I mean everything, looks noticeably bigger and
stronger.

You grind your press,
add meaningful weight to the bar and build up to that 2 plate bench
press and then you bang out your chins and their gnarly cousin –
dips – and suddenly someone says, “Jesus, dude, you’re looking
bigger.” What, my friends, do you think they mean? Your shoulders
look broader, your forearms are thicker and your back is wider and
meatier. And the whole thing is sitting on top of hips that don’t
fit in your old jeans anymore.

That’s what people
notice first. Not your biceps peak and not the vein on your
brachialis. They see the whole package – the width, posture, and
density that you cannot fake and that you do not get from curls.
You get it from lifting progressively heavier weight – standing on
your feet, with a barbell.

You’re
Worrying Too Early

So why does the
question “What about arms?” come up so often? Because we live in
a world that sells shortcut aesthetics. Instagram, TikTok, and even
most gyms are full of people chasing the pump, not real strength.
Bicep curls are easy to understand and they deliver a nice sensation.
It’s visual, it’s instant gratification and this is why most gyms
are full of douchebags in tank tops hanging out by the dumbbell rack.
The press, on the other hand? Not so much, because it’s fucking
hard. The path to big arms through compound lifts is less obvious,
but it’s also real, and it lasts.

That said, I get it.
You’re insecure, you want to look like you lift and the arms are
one of the first places we look to “verify” that. But trust me:
if you just stick with the program and get stronger first, everything
else follows because strength lays the foundation. If you skip that
step and jump straight to arm day, you’re just trying to inflate
balloons without air.

Yeah
Dude, You Can Do Arms. After You Deadlift

Now here’s where I’m
going to surprise you: I actually don’t really give a shit if you
want to train your arms. Once you’ve done the work that matters, go
ahead and get your pump on. I mean it. Once you’ve squatted,
pressed, benched, and deadlifted – once you’ve earned your keep
under the bar – knock yourself out. Do your curls, skullcrushers,
hammer curls, tricep pushdowns, kickbacks – whatever the fuck you
want. You can even hit them on your off-day, or if you’re clever,
time it about an hour before heading to the club on Friday night.
That way, your douchey tight V-neck will fit just a little better,
drastically increasing, I’m sure, your chances of getting laid. I
know that some folks will want to do this, and that’s the reason I
put a bunch of extra shit like this in our gym – little accessories
that folks can use to blast their arms when they get the itch,
because I knew this issue was going to come up. The only rule,
however, is this: Big stuff first. Always.

That’s how you build
a body that works and looks the part. The compound lifts don’t
exclude arm work – they just make it secondary. Supplemental. Even
optional. The big stuff is the meat and the arms are the seasoning.
If you want to be one of those guys who skips the heavy stuff to do
cable curls and call it a workout, that’s your business. But don’t
pretend to be confused when you haven’t gotten stronger, haven’t
added size, and still look exactly the same as you did last year.
Don’t complain when, like most dudes, you haven’t changed after a
year of your “hypertrophy-focused” program.

What
Really Gets Noticed

Let me say it again,
because it’s worth repeating: when people look at a man’s
physique and say, “He looks strong,” they’re noticing four
things:

1. Shoulders: Broad,
capped, and with some definition. Built by pressing.

2. Forearms: Thick with
some veins. Built by pulling heavy deadlifts.

3. Back: Wide lats and
visible traps. Built by chins, rows, deadlifts.

4. Hips: A prominent
ass and deeper hips built by squats and deadlifts.

Nobody walks past you
thinking, “He must preacher curl pretty heavy.” They see posture,
size, and presence – all things that come from full-body barbell
strength.

And think about it –
really think about it – the guy you actually notice in
public, the one you do a double take for, is not the skinny dude with
a vein-y arm. It’s the big motherfucker with broad shoulders and a
thick back that you can just tell that he trains. That’s the
guy people remember and that’s the guy you’re trying to become.
So get there first, and then add your curls.

Final
Thoughts

If you’re new to
lifting – if you’re doing the Starting Strength NLP, showing up
three days a week, grinding through squats, presses and pulls – I
promise, you are already training your arms. More effectively than
most of the people spending an hour a week doing curls. So relax,
trust the process, and earn your strength. Once you’ve done that,
grab a dumbbell, hit some curls and knock yourself out. Just don’t
ask about arm day until you’ve done the real shit first.

Discuss in Forums