Turn up the intensity on your arm training for sleeve-splitting gains with this 40/20 Arm Annihilator Workout.

Your arms are involved in every upper body workout, which means they’re exposed to heavy weights during back and chest sessions.

As such, your dedicated arm training sessions can focus more on developing definition rather than size.

This Tabata-like high-intensity weight training (HIWT) session is the perfect way to blast those guns!

READ MORE | Pick Your Training Split To Muscle-Up Your Workouts

Why the 40/20 method works

By increasing the time that your muscles remain under tension and the duration of the set, you initiate a host of physiological responses and flood working muscles with blood, delivering essential nutrients to support growth and serious arm pumps.

Workout guidelines:

  1. Set an internal timer for four minutes.
  2. Perform as many controlled reps as you can for 40 seconds per exercise.
  3. Rest for 20 seconds.
  4. Repeat this 40:20 work-to-rest structure for the full 4-minute interval.

Maintain proper form, especially in the final few reps and avoid cheating. Focus on smooth, controlled reps. Aim to keep the reps going for the full 40-second interval, even if that means only performing a few reps towards the end.

After completing each 4-minute interval, move directly to the next exercise and repeat the 40/20 structure.

Exercises guidelines:

  • For supersets: Perform the first exercise for 40 seconds and the second exercise for the following 40 seconds. Keep alternating for the remainder of the 4-minute interval.
  • For single-arm movements: Complete as many reps as possible for 40 seconds on one arm and swap for the next 40 seconds. Keep alternating for the remainder of the 4-minute interval.

The workout

Interval 1: Standing curl superset

  1. Standing alternating hammer curls
  2. Standing alternating bicep curls

Interval 2: Bench dips

Interval 3: Standing EZ bar superset

  1. Standing narrow grip standing EZ bar curl
  2. Standing wide grip standing EZ bar curl

Interval 4: Standing overhead tricep extensions

Interval 5: Alternating spider curls

Interval 6: Skull crushers

Interval 7: One-arm preacher curls

Interval 8: Rope pushdowns