Train for Forearms Directly

Adam: What’s much more useful is to examine why your forearms are currently lagging behind, before attempting to find a solution to fix them. As with any bodypart, are you growing and progressively getting stronger on the exercises that hit them? If the answer is honestly yes, then let’s make a swift move into looking for a solution.

The primary function of the forearms is wrist flexion. This severely restricts the amount of movements you can do to isolate them, but as we all know in the iron game, isolation is generally a term that is inefficient in many cases, time-consuming, and a limited factor when it comes to getting results. Seriously, how many wrist curls are you prepared to do? Do you really think the big guys down at your gym are agonising over holding a barbell over a bench and twisting their wrists back and forth? I only see teenage dorks doing that or severely misguided people who need to get their priorities straight and educate themselves. You are massively restricted in terms of progressive resistance

With the synopsis being abusively set (sorry), here are my propositions for anybody struggling to develop those alluring, thick forearms that seem to be a resounding image of power and masculinity amongst the population. Admit it: it’s quite impressive and manly to have big forearms, regardless of the masturbation jokes that you will inevitably have to endure as a consequence.

Ditch the Straps

It’s a known fact that straps minimise forearm involvement to an extent during exercises you may commonly use them: shrugs, chins / pull-ups, rows, deadlifts, etc. You have to have a bit of compromise of course, especially if your goal is bodybuilding and your arms become quite dominant on certain movements you’re trying to minimise their involvement on, but here is the catch-22 situation: if you incessantly insist on using straps for every exercise, your forearms are going to suffer quite badly.

In my sincere opinion, you shouldn’t be using straps for the majority of exercises for a couple of reasons. The first, it limits real-world application of strength. Do you walk around on holiday through the airport with a pair of lifting straps when you carry your suitcase? Think logically. Secondly, it’s inconvenient to simply have to use straps for everything. If you become ridiculously dependant on them, what are you going to do when you don’t have them available to you? Straps are great, but don’t abuse and overuse them. Moderate their use, and your forearms will thank you both visually and practically in their application.

Deadlift, Row & Chin-ups

Directly leading on from my previous point where you shouldn’t use straps, these are the exercises you should be performing if you want to develop some seriously dense, thick forearms. These exercises require phenomenal grip strength once you progress to heavy weights, have unlimited potential for progressive resistance (the key stimulator in muscular growth), and are amazing, time-efficient exercises. If you’re not performing these three movements – or at least two of them – you need to seriously re-evaluate your training.

Another salient point that will necessitate forearm growth is grip strength. Get an iron grip, and I guarantee your forearms will look impressive. You can perform grip work directly, but for simplicities sake, I’d say just get extremely strong on all these exercises without straps and it’ll take care of itself.

Concluding

So, there are two, very simple, albeit important messages I continually stress to individuals who want to develop their forearms. They are very stubborn for some individuals and dependant on genetics to an extent, but that’s never been a good enough excuse not to focus on rectifying this problem.

Oh, and go on then – I’ll even let you throw in a few sets of wrist curls at the end of your workout if you needlessly insist.