2 Reasons Why You Can’t Seem to Add Another Inch to Your Arms

You do curls.

You extend triceps.

Hell, you even turn your wrists out when performing dumbbell curls, but you just can’t seem to grow those guns.

This post is going to tell you what’s holding you back.

Reason 1: Geometry

Every inch added to the circumference (the distance around) requires more cross-sectional muscle than the previous inch.

Let’s revisit grade school geometry.

Imagine you have a circle with a 1-inch diameter. The circumference(πd) of this circle is 3.14 inches. The area(πr^2) of this circle is just under 0.8 square inches. Now imagine you have a circle with a 5-inch diameter. This circle’s circumference is 15.7 inches, and the area is 19.63 square inches. The distance around the circle has increased by 5 fold, but the area has increased by almost 25 times!

Reason 2: Diminishing Returns

As your hours and pounds of muscle accumulate your rate of gains slow. Check out the chart below to get an idea of how fast a guy can put on muscle.

The “not worth calculating” part stings.

Now you might be wondering where is this maximum? I’m glad you asked.

For a drug-free 5’9″ male with 7″ wrists and 9″ ankles the maximum lean (~10% body fat) body weight is 198lbs with 17″ biceps. You can check out your own maximum predicted measurements here.

The Fix

You probably thought this post was going to have training secrets and protein sorcery, but it is filled with the facts.

Building muscle is slow, hard work but now you have a better idea of the why’s. These two factors go for any muscles in the body(glutes included girls), albeit with a little tweaking to the math.

What you can do to increase the size of your arms is follow a good program(check out a free program below), and get your nutrition on point.

Download The Seriously Strong Beginner Program