Muscle Insider
New member
Build Big Arms With Derek Lunsford
Arm Workout With 212 Olympia Champion
By Ron Harris
“Gentlemen, front double biceps.”
That was the first pose the head judge called for the first callout of the light-heavyweight class at the 2017 NPC USA Championships. In that moment, I knew the kid in the middle, Derek Lunsford, was going to win the whole show. I didn’t even need to see the heavies or supers. It was like one of those theater or film auditions where the casting director knows they have the right person for that role and there is no need to see anyone else. In fact, I was so sure of it that as soon as judging was over, I posted a pic I’d taken of Derek in that pose and declared: “Here is your overall champion, people … mark my words.” Not that I’m always right, but this time I was. Very often an experienced eye can spot the winner of a contest based off that one initial pose, as it shows you most of what you need to know about the physique.
I am fortunate enough to have been witness to the rise of Derek Lunsford from day one of his pro career – actually, a week before. After watching him dominate the 2017 NPC USA Championships in Las Vegas, I was stunned to see him chalk up his first pro win just seven days later in Tampa. After an auspicious top-five debut at the 212 Olympia mere weeks later, Derek went on to be runner-up to both the legendary Flex Lewis at his final 212 win in 2018, then to the veteran Kamal Elgargni in 2019. 2020 saw him slide down to fourth place, but everything turned around in 2021. With a new coach in Hany Rambod and a renewed faith in God, Lunsford became the 212 Olympia champion.
Arms aren’t everything, but great biceps and triceps development is a must for bodybuilding success. I often say your odds of being a top bodybuilder with average arms are roughly the same as a man of average endowment becoming a porn star. Derek Lunsford’s arms are well above average, stretching the tape out to 21 inches in the off-season.
Wise Beyond His Years
Patrick Moore has talked about how all he trained for the first six years he hit the weights was arms. That’s far from uncommon. Very often, young men only want to train chest and arms, the fun body parts that they can show off in tight T-shirts. Derek’s arms were drawing attention as far back as high school, years before the idea of flexing on stage in tiny trunks was even entertained.
“I wrestled between 130 and 140 pounds, and my arms were pretty big compared to the rest of me,” he relates. When he decided to become a bodybuilder back in 2013, he had the wisdom and foresight to know he should back off on his arms, since they were so far ahead already. “The areas I wanted to focus on were back, chest and legs,” he tells us. “When I looked at my physique compared to the men who were winning national shows and competing in the pro ranks, those were the muscle groups I saw needed to grow.”
Derek never worried for a minute that his arms would wither away to nothing out of neglect. “I knew as long as I trained back heavy, my biceps would be fine, and my triceps wouldn’t need much targeted work on top of chest and shoulder training either,” he notes. That goal of building a complete and balanced physique is rare at any age, since the more common behavior is to continue blasting away at strong points for the gratification of fast rewards, rather than having the patience to hammer away at weaker areas that take much longer to show improvement. Eventually, once he started competing and winning contests, Derek did return to training his arms hard again. This time, he had learned a few things.
5 Things Derek Learned About Arm Training
1. Keep an Open Mind
[*]
“A lot of guys get caught up in thinking they know everything already, so they continue doing the same exact workouts over and over. When I first started out, I used to watch YouTube videos of champions like Jay Cutler and Phil Heath, and mimic what they were doing. Some of the exercises and techniques felt good and worked well, others not so much. But I learned a lot doing that. None of us knows everything, and there is always something you haven’t tried yet that could deliver really good results.”
2. Do Exercises That Are Best for You
[*]
“In that same vein, you need to figure out which exercises are suited to your particular needs, instead of just doing what someone else is doing. For my biceps, that turned out to be dumbbell curls, hammer curls, preacher and EZ-bar curls, and concentration curls. The triceps movements I found worked best for me were rope pushdowns, overhead cable extensions, close-grip bench presses and plate-loaded dip machines.”
3.Master the Mind-Muscle Connection
[*]
“Some guys never learn to connect with the muscle and feel it contracting and stretching during every rep. That’s the main difference between lifting weights, which is what 95 percent of guys in gyms and health clubs do, and truly working a muscle, which is what we do as bodybuilders. My warm-up sets aren’t just to get blood flow into the muscle group, they are a way to establish the right feeling I want in that muscle while I do that particular exercise. If you’re not stimulating the target muscle and doing your best to isolate it, your results are never going to be satisfactory.”
4. Keep It Tense
[*]
“It’s critical to maintain constant tension on the biceps or triceps throughout your sets. If you lose that even for a split second, you’re no longer engaging that muscle. Never relax the muscle at any point in the range of motion, or any point in your set.”
5. Perfect Form Isn’t Always Ideal
[*]
“For a while I was training with people who stressed that you had to keep your form textbook perfect from the first rep of every set to the last. Eventually I came to the realization that even though perfect form is a good idea most of the time, if you never allow yourself to stray from it, you will be missing out on going a little heavier and getting a few more reps out of the muscle. It makes more sense to me to tax the muscle with perfect form until it can’t do any more, and then use a little bit of heave to force that muscle even deeper past its limits. That’s been working very well for me.”
Alternate Dumbbell Curls
[*]
Dumbbell curls are a staple in the biceps training of nearly every man packing big guns, and with good reason. “I’ve moved away from using bars in general for arm training over the last year or so,” Derek tells us. “Anything that puts me in that fixed position gives me elbow pain. With dumbbells, I can adjust the motion track to where it needs to be for my frame and structure.”
Dumbbell Preacher Curls
Lunsford has also migrated toward more single-arm movements on biceps, and this is one of his favorites. Unlike most trainers, he prefers to stand on preacher curls rather than sit. “Part of that is due to my height,” he laughs. “But more than that, I feel more ready to go and work hard standing up. It’s like, I’m standing there with that dumbbell in my hand, it’s time to crush it!” This goes back to his wrestling days. “Whether it was practice or meets, the coaches never wanted us sitting down and taking it easy. That makes a lot of sense when you’re in the gym and you’re supposed to be working hard for 60 or 90 minutes.”
Overhead Cable Curls
Before most of you were born, Arthur Jones designed the Omni biceps machine for his Nautilus machine line, based on the concept that all three functions of the biceps should be addressed: arm flexion, forearm supination and shoulder flexion, or rotating the shoulder up. This final function can only be performed if the elbows come up near shoulder level or above. Though he is shown leaning back under a lat pulldown bar to accomplish this, he prefers doing what I call “front double biceps” curls with two high pulleys inside a cable crossover.
Cable Pushdowns
Derek used to do tons of skull-crushers like just about everyone else, but eventually elbow pain made them too painful to derive any benefit from. “Now I use a lot of cables instead,” he says. Lunsford chooses from a variety of attachments: the rope, a cambered bar, a straight bar, and even at times, two D-rings. “I’m a big believer in keeping constant tension in the muscle, and nothing does that better for triceps than cables.” Typically, he trains triceps before biceps on arm day, and cables are the ideal way to start them off with plenty of blood flow and a tight pump.
Dips
Once he’s fully warmed up from pushdowns, Derek usually moves on to a heavier compound movement. For him, that’s either a close-grip bench press or a dip. “For that second triceps exercise, I will push more weight and take the reps down into the 10-12 range,” he notes. For dips, he prefers plate-loaded machines as they offer better control over the contractions.
Overhead Cable Extensions
The long head of the triceps can only be worked properly when the arm is overhead, which is why you should always include some type of overhead extension movement in your triceps sessions. Derek’s go-to for this is the cable version, which he will do either seated or standing.
One-Arm Overhead Dumbbell Extensions
“I stopped doing these in favor of the cable version a while ago,” Lunsford informs us, though he was game to demonstrate the widely popular dumbbell variation that many of you do. “If your elbows feel fine and you are able to get that good stretch in the triceps, by all means use a dumbbell,” he adds.
Are His Arms Done Yet?
There is no doubt most of us would be deeply grateful to have arms like Derek Lunsford’s, and we wouldn’t ask for anything else for Christmas. But Derek, like any top pro, is a perfectionist who views his physique as a work in progress in which there will always be room for improvement.
“My arms still need to come up,” he tells us. “For the 212 division, they’re probably big enough, but I still want them to be harder, with better separation between all the individual heads of the biceps and triceps, along with more of a peak to my biceps. That’s what I’m working for.”
Training Split
Sunday: Legs (hamstrings and glute dominant) and calves
Monday: Chest and abs, some delts and triceps
Tuesday: Back, possibly with some biceps
Wednesday: Legs (quadriceps dominant) and calves
Thursday: Delts, possibly with some chest and abs
Friday: Arms
Saturday: OFF
Arm Routine
Cable Pushdowns
Warm-up: 2 x 15-20
4 x 12-15
Close-Grip Bench Press
Warm-up: 1 x 15
4 x 8-12
Overhead Cable or Dumbbell Extensions
4 x 12-15
One-Arm Cable or Dumbbell Curls
4 x 12-15
Alternate Dumbbell or Preacher Curls
4 x 8-10
Machine Curls
4 x 12-15
Complete Contest History
2015 Indianapolis Championships - Welterweight Winner and Novice Overall
2015 Junior Nationals - Welterweight Winner
2016 Midwest Battle of Champions - Middleweight and Overall Champion
2016 Junior Nationals - Middleweight and Overall Champion
2016 USA Championships - Second, Middleweights
2017 USA Championships - Light Heavyweight and Overall Champion
2017 IFBB Tampa Pro - 212 Winner
2017 212 Olympia - Fifth Place
2018 212 Olympia - Second Place
2019 212 Olympia - Second Place
2020 212 Olympia - Fourth Place
2021 212 Olympia - Winner
Instagram @dereklunsford_
Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram
DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS
SUBSCRIBE TO MD TODAY
GET OFFICIAL MD STUFF
VISIT OUR STORE
ALSO, MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW US ON:
YOUTUBE
Top
Click here to view the article.
