Big arms. We all want them, a few have them, and even fewer know how to get them in the first place. But what makes big arms so alluring to most? Whatever that reason might be, we would all like a few extra inches of biceps.
Abel Albonetti is adamant that he knows the way with his 30-Day Arm program. Let’s find out what’s what.
About the Creator – Abel Albonetti
Being big, ripped, and juicy is never really going to go out of style. In 2022, the fitness industry is still booming, and the name of the game is currently “aesthetics.” Abel has never been someone who’s focused on getting massive but rather on being lean and aesthetic.
He’s a lead content creator at BodyFit and has several workouts and articles under his name. His most popular series is by far the 30-Day series, which includes the 30-Day Chest, 30-Day Back, 30-Day Shoulders, and 30-Day Ab programs.
Today we’ll be digging into 30-Day Arms.
30-Day Arms Program Overview
As you might expect, the 30-Day Arms program is solely focused on building big ‘ol arms – which means there aren’t any other workouts in this plan. So you’ll have to incorporate this plan into your current one and make sure you adjust your diet, volume, and recovery accordingly.
- Fitness level: Advanced
- Duration: 4 weeks
- Workouts per week: 3 workouts per week
- Average workout duration: 15 – 30 minutes
- Equipment needed: Full gym
- Goal: Build muscle
Three workouts per week – one for biceps, one for triceps, and one where you’ll do both. Immediately, you can see that these workouts can be attached to other workouts – like adding biceps to back training.
Abel Albonetti’s 30 Day Arms Details
If you ever watched Pumping Iron with Arnold in it and wondered what it’d be like to just do hours upon hours of bicep training … boy, oh boy, is this the plan for you?
Building Pythons
Training for hypertrophy is simply the action of building new muscle tissue due to something called mechanical tension.
Mechanical tension can also be called “time under significant tension” and is essentially just describing that a session should have both volume and load to result in the most amount of lean muscle mass.
This means doing 50 sets of subpar lifting wouldn’t equate to an actual increase in lean muscle mass.
So, with that said, welcome to a plan where you’ll be doing tons of sets. The very first day has a whopping 26 sets – of which some even drop sets! All for one muscle group.
Now, Abel does mention adjusting the volume according to your experience, but that’s an absurd amount of volume. No normal person would be able to keep up, so you better come prepared to suffer.
Mechanics of Arm Training
There are a lot of arguments in the fitness world about which arm movements are better than others. For instance, it’s commonly known that the triceps make up more of the arm than the biceps, yet most guys focus only on the former…
It has to be said that Abel has paid a decent amount of attention to building a program that does seem to be based on science. The volume might be insane, but the bicep training hits all the heads in the short and lengthened positions.
The triceps could use a bit of help, as some movements (like the JM Press and X Cable Extension) have been identified as some of the best moves, but overall the tricep training doesn’t really disappoint at all.
As mentioned before, it might be a good idea to add these training days to your other training days … I might suggest you have both a lot of time and a big carbohydrate drink handy.
2 30-Day Arms Pros
- You can add it to your current plan: While the volume might be way too high for a normal person to recover from, you can lower the volume and add it to your current workout routines.
- Singular in its goal: Unlike other programs that have 101 goals, 30 Day Arms only has one goal, as it’s going to do everything in its power to help you follow the plan. Sure, one is less than many, but as Ron Swanson said, “whole a## one thing.”
The Biggest Con of 30-Day Arms
It’s way too intense for ordinary people.
The volume that Abel wants you to do is purely insane, and the plan would’ve been way better if he simply cut the volume in half and spoke about progressive overload. Most people will grow far better by getting stronger than doing 60 sets of arms per week.
30-Day Arms – Final Thoughts
Is it a plan? Sure, it has benefits, and arms training sure is fun. That said, there are better ways of going about it. You don’t need to be doing 60+ sets per week to grow massive arms.
You need to focus on getting stronger, progressive overload, and actually using the movements that feel good for you. Overall, the 30-Day Arms Program is just focused on giving you so much volume that your arms look bigger because of all the inflammation.
Combine this training with a normal training program, and you won’t grow. There’s a place in training for volume, sure. But the amount needed is certainly not this high.
Focus on getting a few movements – maybe 3 or 4 for both biceps and triceps that you feel work your specific body structure well – and get dirty strong at those. That’s the only way you’ll get big arms.
Rating: 1.0 out of 5
