Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout Routine

Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout: The Terminator… the Governator… Conan the Barbarian.  Yes, it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and I’m sure the image that always comes to mind when you think about those roles is a larger than life body builder with great muscular and presence.  That’s pretty much the overall definition of Arnie.  He is a fitness and body building advocate and has been that way inclined since he was just 15 years of age. Arnie reaped tremendous popularity when he won Mr. Universe at 20 years of age and followed it up with 7 crowns. Even though Arnie has been busy with other pursuits such as films and working as Governor for California the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout is still revered and a leading bible in muscular growth and how to slap on a ton of muscle mass naturally and quickly.  In this post, we are going to break down the same Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout into components and give you a behind the scenes look at how it can work for you.

Whilst we can’t cover off on the entire Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout in this post (there is simply to much material), we will probably look at two or three components starting with Arnie’s chest building exercises and then the activities to get those thunderous guns (e.g. biceps and triceps).

One of the three most striking body parts that Arnold Schwarzenegger has is his chest.  It is large, solid and has the right definition.  In order to build a build a chest like that, a strict muscle gaining routine is required and it must be followed to a “t”.  This is what the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout specifies:

1. Flat, incline and decline dumbbell presses: the different angles are required to ensure definition exist over the entire chest and pectoral muscles.  Always do the incline and decline exercises first before going flat.  This is to ensure your center pectoral muscles are fresh for the incline and decline presses (e.g. not burnt out from the flat presses already).  Dumbells are used in favor of a bar as it creates way more definition instead of just packing on soft muscle.  Use only about 6-8 reps at maximum weight possible. Move up a weight every single time you do the exercise (it may just be one pound, but always move it up).  Do this for 3 months and you should see rock hard muscles forming over the chest.

2. Mix in definition type muscle building exercises as well.  Add push-ups.  This is undoubtedly one of the most well known gym/home exercises that ever existed. However, when done right and when a variety of push-ups are integrated (yes, there are quite a few types), push-ups are an explosive type of strengthening exercise that adds core strength and conditioning to the muscle as well.  This creates a better “stay” for the muscle and will give it definition.

With reference to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout, push-ups are also used to target the growth of your triceps. Triceps are the muscle groups that are found at the bottom part of your arms. They are mainly used for the extension, or straightening out, of your elbows when you do tasks such as reaching out for something. Contrary to popular belief, large triceps make your arms large, not large biceps.  The biceps are much smaller and contributes less size to your overall guns.  You should keep this in mind and work your triceps twice as hard when compared to your biceps.

3. For triceps, primarily the exercises include tricep dips and tricep extensions in that order.  The most important notes take out of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout is the need to maintain form on both these exercises.  Where most people fail is to keep form when dipping especially in the latter half of the set.

4. In terms of sequence, work your chest before you triceps and once again use push-ups to generate addition conditioning and definition.  In the Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout the push-up type used for triceps is the lever arm (refer to actual program for exact details).  This exercise gets you to the point where the leverage to perform the movement, comes from your feet. Because of this, the task becomes relatively harder as compared to the second type of push-up.

5. For your biceps, barbell and dumbbell curls are in order.  The Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout also adds seated concentration curls for maximum peak growth.  Arnie supposed perfected this routine which gave him biceps that were almost “pointy” and he could pat them when flexed (I’m sure you’ve seen the photos).  With dumbbell curling:

a. Start with barbell curls at maximum weight.  Only do 6 reps and rest 1 minute between sets only.

b. Move onto dumbbell curls.  Complete 8 reps but this time, to exhaustion (until the bicep muscles fail).

c. Lastly, seated concentration curls, but now focus on form and squeezing the muscle for all it’s worth.  Check out Arnie talking about the rush of the squeeze and pump below.