Blasting Guns with the Blade

How Dexter Jackson Trains His Incredible Bi's & Tri's

The biggest arms? N0 – but maybe the best

Dexter Jackson does not have the biggest arms in pro bodybuilding, if you use a tape measure as your gauge. Then again, these days size alone in the arms means very little, since legions have taken to injecting all manner of gunk into their biceps and triceps to fluff them up the way millions of women now plump up their lips with foreign agents to give theirs the Kylie Jenner pout. Make no mistake, plenty of men now probably have arms that are technically the same size as Dexter’s. Great! What about shape, separation, and detail? Now we are starting to get into the qualities that truly make Jackson’s arms outstanding. Both his biceps and triceps are round and full, with bi’s like striated baseballs and tri’s like hanging ham hocks. Like finely cut diamonds, his arms catch the eye with intricate grooves and splits from all angles. And while numbers really don’t mean a thing, they are a legit 21 inches at a height of only 5-6. A final testimony to the pedigree of The Blade’s arms is that he was the man who came closest last year to beating Phil Heath as The Gift marched on to his fifth Mr. Olympia title. Very few bodybuilders past or present could stand next to Phil, known for having perhaps the best arms in the game today, without their own guns paling in comparison. Not Dexter. He more than held his own in that department. Let’s look at some of the exercises that this iron veteran uses to keep those arms world-class.

Barbell curl

“Barbells build muscle.” That’s the mantra that Dexter put his faith in to transform himself from a 130-pound regional-level bantamweight to a 240-pound Mr. Olympia and 5-Time Arnold Classic champion. “Heavy curls with both a straight bar and the EZ-curl bar, for sets of 8-10 reps as heavy as I could go with good form, is pretty much how I built almost all my biceps size,” Dexter states.

EZ-bar curl
For many years, The Blade started off his biceps workout with barbell or EZ-bar curls; as this allowed him to hit the exercise fresh and at his strongest. Now that his bi’s are about as big as they will ever need to be, and also out of respect to his 46-year-old shoulder and elbow joints, Dexter will do them second in his biceps routine after a machine preacher curl. These can be done for a standard 4 sets of 8-10 reps, or he might do 3 sets of ‘21’s’ instead: 7 reps from the bottom stretch to halfway up, 7 reps from the midpoint of the rep to all the way up to full contraction, and finishing with 7 full-range reps. “Charles will have me do these every few workouts,” Jackson explains. “I never know when they’re coming until he tells me to do them.”

Alternate dumbbell curl
Since Dexter started working with Charles Glass over 7 years ago (he is now trained by Psycho Chris), his biceps routines have followed a very effective framework: a machine movement, a two-arm curl as with a barbell or an EZ-curl bar, and finally a dumbbell exercise. About half the time, that dumbbell movement is the basic alternate dumbbell curl. Though his biceps are already somewhat fatigued by this point in the workout, Dexter is still able to handle some decent weight here. One feature of the alternate dumbbell curl that makes it especially valuable is that it works both major functions of the biceps: both arm flexion (bending the arm) and supination of the hand, or rotating the hands away from the midline of the body. Skipping these in your biceps workouts can very well mean that you’re not reaching the full size potential of your bi’s.

Dumbbell concentration curl
Dexter’s primary goal whenever he trains his biceps is to get the best contraction possible. That’s why the other dumbbell movement he usually finishes with is the concentration curl. It also has the advantage of being performed one arm at a time, permitting maximum focus on contracting just one biceps at a time. Dexter prefers to do his concentration curls the standard way, seated and bracing the working arm on his inner thigh to avoid cheating.

EZ-bar close-grip presses
Dexter doesn’t do much heavy close-grip pressing anymore at this point in his career. However, one way he does like to employ that movement is to finish off sets of skull crushers with a few reps of presses once he has hit failure. “This works out really well, because even after you hit failure with the extension movement, you still have enough strength left to do 8-10 reps of presses in that top, lockout range of motion,” he tells us. And because the tri’s are pre-exhausted from the skull crushers, a weight that would normally be far too easy is now challenging enough to pump up the triceps nicely.

Overhead dumbbell extension
Some type of overhead extension movement is always in Dexter’s triceps routine, as it provides a level of stretch not possible in other exercises. For many years, Dexter would do his with a dumbbell and either two hands or one as shown here. Now, he tends to prefer using a cable pulley; which is far kinder on his joints.

Dip machine
For most of his lifting career, Dexter did more than his fair share of weighted parallel bar dips for his triceps. Now he much prefers the greater control offered by the machine version of that movement. Certain models, like the Hammer Strength machine Dexter is shown using here, also have a chest pad to force a more upright position so you can’t lean forward and shift the stress more towards the pecs. “I also don’t let my elbows come up too high,” Dexter notes. “Once you do that, the chest and delts come into play too much. Focus on that bottom half of the full range of motion where the triceps are doing all the work.”

Bench dip

Occasionally, Dexter will do his dips in a decidedly old-school way, between benches. Though he might put a 45-pound plate or two on his lap, he is just as likely to do these at the very end of the workout; negating the need for any additional resistance beyond his own bodyweight. In contrast to the parallel bar and machine versions of dips, the position of the arms behind the shoulders allows one to shift more of the stress to the long head of the triceps. That’s the meaty part seen from behind, and it happens to be where most of us could use more mass and fullness to the tri’s.

The Blade's Top 5 guidelines for monster guns

1. Don't overtrain your arms!

"The arms are a smaller muscle group than something like back or legs," Dexter begins, "but you still see so many guys doing as much if not more for them." You see this in every gym, every day, and chances are that you have been guilty of it too. It’s not hard to understand why. Arms are fun to train. You can see them in the mirror as you work them, so there’s that immediate visual reward. They’re also pretty easy to train in comparison to bigger bodyparts. You can do 5 sets of curls and still have plenty of gas left in the tank, unlike 5 sets of heavy squats or deadlifts, that would wipe you out. And of course, very few of us are satisfied with our arms. All these factors often lead to marathon arm workouts, but since the arms are a relatively small muscle group, more is not better. "Not counting warm-ups, you shouldn't need any more than 8-10 sets total for the biceps, and the same for triceps," Dexter comments. Hit them hard and be done with it, because all you do in the gym is stimulate growth. The actual growth of a muscle takes place some time later, and then only if it is given time to recuperate and repair as well as sufficient nutritional support to allow for the synthesis of new lean muscle tissue. Another common tactic that is meant to deliver results but often hinders growth is to train the arms twice a week. "That's something that might work when you're a young guy starting out in bodybuilding, as long as you're allowing 72 hours between the workouts," Jackson acknowledges. "But after a certain point and especially once you get past the age of 30 or so, very few people would be able to make progress training anything twice a week with the exception maybe of calves."

2. Use weights you can control and feel

It's probably been drilled into your head that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle. To an extent, that principle holds true. The guy with 30-inch quads can usually squat a lot more weight than another man whose wheels aren't a lot larger in circumference than his arms. But there are also cases where using very heavy weights can impede muscle growth, simply because the target muscle isn't doing the brunt of the work. "You always need to be able to control the weight at all times with arm exercises," Dexter advises. "I squeeze the muscle into a contraction, then control the negative and feel the muscle stretching," he tells us. When you think in terms of being able to feel your biceps or triceps contract and stretch, the weight you use becomes almost entirely irrelevant. Those of you who have spent any time on YouTube have probably seen video clips of stooges heaving up 90, 100, or even 150-pound dumbbells in what are labeled 'curls' in the title, yet bear about as much resemblance to a true biceps curl as an epileptic seizure does to a waltz. "I don't care how much weight I'm using on anything in the gym as long as it's stimulating the muscle like I want it to," Dexter explains. "If I can't get that feeling, I use a little less weight." Sadly, that's something too many guys refuse to do, either out of ignorance or ego. Put it this way though. Would you rather be the guy who uses the most weight in the gym on curls and have arms that are nothing special, or would you be willing to use less weight and build the best arms your genetics are capable of? Depending on how you answer that question, you're either a weightlifter or a bodybuilder. Weightlifters might be able to impress the other guys and girls at the gym when they train. Bodybuilders build physiques that impress others everywhere, all the time. One last cue to take from Dexter when it comes to his recommendation to select weights you can handle - the man has won close to 20 pro shows including the Mr. Olympia, and he's yet to tear a muscle. Clearly he's not just training hard, he's training smart.

3. Switch up your exercises and techniques

"You have to use different exercises for arms on a pretty regular basis to keep seeing results," Dexter informs us. "And you can't avoid exercises just because you don't like them. There are definitely exercises I don't care for, like straight bar curls, that I still throw in there once in a while because I know they deliver good results." Monotony in training is one of the silent killers of muscle gains. People often forget just what a remarkably adaptive organism the human body is. The human race has been able to adapt to factors such as extremely hot or cold climates, limited diets, and high altitudes. Do you really think it can't adapt to the same exact exercises and workouts within the span of a few months? But just look around any gym, and you’ll see many members performing identical routines for each bodypart week after week, often for years on end. Have you been using mostly barbells? Do some dumbbell work! "A lot of bodybuilders think machines are useless, but I get a great feeling with things like dip machines and the one-arm curl with your biceps up high," Dexter notes. "Free weights, cables, and machines all contribute to growth." The point is, don't get stuck in a rut. Change up the order you do your exercises in, try new exercises, or incorporate techniques that extend the muscle's time under tension. Dexter does that on a regular basis, performing 21's for biceps curls and doing tri-sets for his triceps, three exercises in a row with no rest between. You can also try drop sets, rest-pause, forced reps, and static holds. There are so many variables to play with that there is no excuse for doing the same old routine over and over.

4. Stop cheating!

Often bad form is a direct result of going too heavy, but not always. Many bodybuilders use sloppy form simply as the result of 'monkey see, monkey do.' They imitate what they see other guys in the gym doing, or what they see in training DVD's and online videos. "There are a few guys who can get away with terrible form and still manage to grow," Jackson concedes. "But they are the exceptions, not the rule - most guys will just look like crap training that way." Granted, there is a time and a place for cheating reps, but it's not from rep one. "When I've done most of my reps in really strict form, I will loosen up the form a little to get a couple more," Dexter says. "Cheat reps should help you work the muscle harder by continuing the set, not make it easier because you're jumping and swinging around and using every other muscle group except the one you're supposed to be training."

5. Focus on getting a pump

There is precious little conclusive evidence about what exactly causes muscle growth and the best ways to make it happen, but generations of bodybuilders have noticed a direct correlation between achieving a pump in the arms and subsequent increases in their size. In its simplest terms, a pump is nothing more than a temporary increase in blood flow to a target muscle. Heavy straight sets can give you a pump if you have an excellent mind-muscle connection, but if not; techniques like drop sets, super sets, and multiple sets performed with minimal rest between, such as Sevens from Hany Rambod's FST-7 Training will deliver a tight, swollen pump to your biceps or triceps. As mentioned previously, Dexter loves tri-sets for his triceps. "Those will give you a pump no matter what," he divulges. "I can get a pump with those even when I'm super low on carbs and there's no glycogen in the muscle." That's saying a lot, and on that note you really should be cognizant of the nutritional support required for a great pump. Have a meal rich in carbohydrates before training for sure, and many bodybuilders have seen success with having a big cheat meal the night before training a bodypart they are specializing on. Hydration is critical, so always drink plenty of water; and even more so when the weather is hotter. Various pre-workout products available today also assist in getting more pronounced pumps. The bottom line is that the pump is key. It delivers nutrient-rich blood to the muscle cells, and many today believe that the expansion of the muscle helps break up the tough layer of fascia that surrounds our skeletal muscles, allowing for more growth to occur.

Dexter's typical arm workout Pre-Glass

Biceps

Preacher curl 4 x 8-10

EZ-bar 21's 4 x 21

Dumbbell concentration curl 4 x 8-10

One-arm machine curl (elbow above 4 x 10

shoulder joint)

Triceps*

Cable pushdown, V or straight bar 4-5 x 10

Skull crushers or dip machine 4-5 x 10

Rope pushdowns 4-5 x 10

*Dexter performs tri-sets, or 3 exercises back to back without resting, for 4-5 rounds.