First things first – every person has their own personal preferences when it comes to the gym. If you do a push/pull routine or a full body workout every other day, stick with what works best for you. But we want to bring out a few points that may give you an idea or two when it comes to training arms.
There are both positives and negatives to hitting biceps and triceps on the same day or separately. Most of this depends on how you break up the body parts during your workout week and what makes the most sense for how you do it.
Depending on how much time you have per workout and how many days a week you can get to the gym, you may be able to train each body part only once. But if you can swing it, working each muscle group twice a week is ideal…as long as you separate them far apart enough (at least 48 hours) as to not overdo it.
The main two muscles that make up your arms should not be babied by any means, but you also should be aware of giving them enough rest and recuperation so they have ample time to grow in between workouts. Anywhere from 12-to-15 sets for biceps and the same amount for triceps should be sufficient.
Let’s take a look at some of the pros first and then the cons:
PROS
1 – Biceps are a ‘pull’ body part and triceps are a ‘push.’ So there will be little worry of pre-exhaustion setting in and effecting the second one worked.
2 – Arms are always good to work more than once a week so if you do them together earlier, then you would be able to rest both a few days and hit them again.
3 – They’re a natural stack when working multiple body parts in a single day.
4 – Since both are a relatively small body part, each are usually worked with a larger one and done second (chest first, then triceps, for example). When you plan on training them together, that usually indicates that they are the main focus and not a larger muscle group. So you can hit both hard without having them pre-exhausted.
CONS
1 – If you follow a push/pull routine, you’ll have to work them on separate days.
2 – You’ll have to choose between which one to work first and rotate them from workout-to-workout as to not always train the same one at full strength.
3 – Usually an indicator that you only have time to train one body part a day on workouts other than arms day. It’s common to double up biceps and triceps with larger muscles and then repeat that same workout a few days later.
NOTES:
*Switch around the exercises you do for biceps and triceps.
*Be sure to be diverse and do some seated and some standing movements.
*Be aware of the different ‘heads’ that make up the muscles and implement exercises in each session that concentrate on each.