A man’s arms, along with the chest, are probably the most noticeable muscle groups, so it’s understandable why most men are doing their best to improve their looks in exactly those areas. It’s not that hard to make good and noticeable progress in your arms, provided you just know what you’re doing. Here are some quick tips to help you gain speed and make steady progress:

1) One of the best ways to make sure that your arms will gain a lot of muscle mass and strength is to incorporate lots and lots of close-grip chin ups, as well as dips. Those work to stimulate your arms’ development greatly, especially the chin ups which can work wonders towards your biceps. You should try to include these exercises in most of your arm-related workouts days.

2) Work very slowly. This is one of the most prominent rules when it comes to building muscle – make sure you hold the weights for at least 1-2 seconds at the top when you’re lifting them, then begin descending them very slowly – this will put a lot more tension on your muscles, especially the biceps and triceps, and will develop them more quickly. When the bar gets to the bottom, hold it for several seconds before doing the next rep, to make sure that the tension builds up properly in your muscles again.

3) You’ll need to alternate between going for lots of reps with light weights, and a few heavy reps – this will ensure that your muscles are developed properly and not just in terms of mass and shape. You’ll need to keep control of your arms’ shape, as it’s a common beginner mistake to go for bigger arms without paying much regard to shaping them properly, which results in some rather unsightly muscles.

4) Stretching is king! You should take time to stretch your arms properly, both before and after a workout – this may seem like a useless activity when you’re trying to go for building them bigger, but really, it helps a lot as it helps your muscles relax and enter their growth phase more quickly. It’s important that you pay an equal amount of attention to both your biceps and triceps in your stretching though – which brings us to the next point:

5) Work on your biceps and triceps equally. Those are the two major muscles in your upper arms, and the ones that make up for the majority of your strength – but many tend to only pay special attention to the biceps, leaving the triceps a bit underdeveloped. Don’t do that – it’s equally important that you develop it properly as well, so take your time and include plenty of triceps exercises in your workout – there should be roughly the same amount of exercises for the biceps as there is for the triceps in your routine – this is how your arms are going to end up looking good.