In a recent video on his YouTube channel, trainer Eugene Teo demonstrates a full arm day workout, with particular focus on how he trains his wrists and forearms for maximum strength.
He starts off by targeting his biceps with a cluster set of dumbbell curls, performing the exercise for 8 reps, then 6, then 4, ensuring he executes a slow and controlled negative on the second half of the rep. “These cluster sets are a great way to increase the intensity and give you more effective reps in a short amount of time,” Teo explains.
In between each descending set of curls, Teo drops to a kneeling position for an active rest period in the form of wrist extensor stretches. “I’m really thinking here about pushing down hard into the ground into the back of my hands,” he says, “to really stretch out the muscles in the back of my wrists, all the way up to the back of my forearms and into my elbows.”
With his biceps pumped and his wrists adequately warmed up, Teo moves onto his triceps, with a set of 8 bodyweight skull crushers, performed leaning against a wall. “If this is too easy for you, you can play with moving your feet further backwards, getting a deeper stretch, pausing at the bottom, and lowering the hands down,” he says.
Between sets, Teo performs ulnar deviations using a pole, doing 5 reps on each side. “Keep it as smooth and controlled as possible,” he says. “You’ll be surprised just how challenging this is to stabilize, it’s one of these areas that doesn’t get trained much in traditional exercises.” He follows this with 5 wrist turns to each side, folding both pronation and supination into the same movement. “You’re going to be tempted to rush, but you want to do your best to keep it slow, smooth, and controlled.”
Teo finishes the session with wrist rollers, attaching a light weight to the pole using a band, and then rotating the bar upwards in his hands until the band is completely wrapped around it, then all the way back down.
He recommends performing each exercise with no break in between, taking a rest of 2 to 3 minutes between rounds, for a total of 3 to 5 rounds. For beginners, Teo suggests starting out with 1 or 2 rounds.
This article was first published on Men’s Health US.
