Finally, finish with stretch position movements. The biceps are stretched when the elbow is extended (ie the arm is straight), the hands are pronated (rotated inward) and the upper arm is drawn back behind the body. As such, Incline Dumbell Curls are the only exercise that puts any sort of load on the biceps in a stretched position.

The triceps are stretched when the upper arm is raised upward and the elbow is fully flexed (ie bent). As such, any overhead extension using either a barbell, dumbbell(s) or cable will do.

Exploiting Exercises' Unique Attributes
As explained in Ironmans' Positions of Flexion system, exercises can be categorised based on where in a muscles strength curve the most tension is applied: the midrange, peak contracted or stretched position. And how you should perform an exercise will depend upon which of these categories it fits.

Midrange movements - like barbell curls for biceps and skullcrushers for triceps - typically allow the use of comparatively heavy weights. They rarely provide a full stretch and there is rarely much tension in the peak contracted position. So do not waste your time trying to squeeze your muscles or exaggerate a stretch. Instead, focus on heaving big weights and let the weight - not your imagination - be the stress on the muscle. And yes, some swinging and cheating is fine. Just make sure you are cheating to work the muscle harder; not to make the exercise easier or an excessive weight doable.

Peak-contraction movements - like concentration curls for biceps and dumbbell kickbacks for triceps - place maximum load on the muscle in the weakest, fully contracted position. This unique stress forces every motor unit to fire every myofibril within every fibre of your muscle. As such you need to make sure that the muscle is actually loaded in the contracted position by pausing and holding at the top of each rep. If you pump and swing your tricep kickbacks then you are completely defeating the purpose of the exercise. You can pump and swing your pushdowns but you need to squeeze and hold your kickbacks.

Stretch movements - like incline curls for biceps and overhead extensions for triceps - load the muscle in the stretch position. Loaded stretching has several positive effects:
1. it activates the Golgi Tendon Reflex which forces an involuntary contraction far stronger than you can voluntarily muster.
2. it can cause an extreme stretch on the muscles fascial sheath
3. it causes the release of prostaglandins such as Mechano Growth Factor (MGF) which is a hugely powerful muscle growth signaller

To receive all these benefits requires a very specific method of exercise execution with strict emphasis on hitting the deepest stretch position on every rep.

To activate the Golgi Tendon Reflex you need to use a plyometric type 'bounce' out of the bottom of each rep. There is a controlled but accelerating negative portion followed by a controlled swing and 'bounce' with a powerful drive back to the top.

For the fascial stretch and MGF release, stop in the stretch position at the end of the set and just let the weight rip your muscle open. Done right, the burn and stretch is excruciatingly painful; but your muscles can look visually 'rounder' almost immediately after.

Rep Schemes
Arm training will generally be a higher rep affair mainly because the training goal is to generate a massive pump. But also, arm exercises tend to suit higher reps simply because very low rep sets will either be disgustingly cheated or terminated too early. For example, there is no such thing as a 2 rep set of tricep pushdowns. There is such thing as stopping after 2 reps when 8, gradually-deteriorating reps would have been possible. There is also a 2 rep 'pulldown-and-squat-cable-throw with a jump-on-top-before-the-weight-stack-falls manoeuvre... but that's not a pushdown either.

Standard pyramid rep schemes are good but try working with a wider rep range than normally suggested. After a warm-up do a 20ish rep set to failure, followed by a 12-15rep set, followed by a 7-12 rep set followed by a 3-7 rep set. If you are alternating quickly enough between bis and tris you might even find you don't need to increase the weight between sets. By the time you get to the 4th compound set your arms will be so pumped and fried you can barely get 4 or 5 reps with the weight you initially performed 20 reps with.

Charles Poliquins' 10 sets of 10 reps German Volume system is also brilliant for arms. Alternate a set of a bicep exercise with a set of a tricep exercise, every minute until you've done 10 sets of 10 reps of each exercise with the same weight. Then hit some loaded stretching and your arms will be massively pumped.

Otherwise, any sort of creative rep/set scheme will work for arms so long as you focus on generating a massive pump followed by some hard fascial stretching. Techniques like drop-sets, super-sets, forced-reps etc are all great.

A Word on Diet
Diet plays an enormous role in bodybuilding and this is particularly relevant in the case of the arms. Generally, your arms will grow most significantly when you are gaining mass all over. If you aren't gaining generally everywhere, your arms probably aren't going to be growing much either.

That said, for the biggest pumps you should follow a moderate to higher carbohydrate diet supplemented with creatine. And if you are really sadistic you could throw a good NO2 booster on top of that.

Conclusion
For big arms do what the big arm guys do and pump them up with high sets and high reps. Then stretch the bejesus out of them and watch them swell.

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