Super Forearms The Mark of A Man - John McWilliams (1952)

 Iron Man August-September 1952

If you have been one of those men who have found the forearms hard to develop, don’t be discouraged. By following the proper program and working hard at it you will find it possible to add many inches of solid, powerful muscle to those thin forearms and develop a crushing power in your grip. A strong, powerful grip and large forearms are certainly the mark of a man.

In the summer most fellows go around with their sleeves rolled up, exposing their wrists and forearms. When you see a man who displays large and muscular forearms and a thick powerful wrist you immediately classify him as being a very strong man. Usually this is true. So many feats of strength depend directly or indirectly upon the strength of the hands and forearms for their successful execution. It is difficult for me to understand how anyone at all interested in their physical development and strength could neglect developing this part of the body to the maximum.

Have you ever notices how you immediately have a feeling of confidence and friendliness toward a man who shakes your hand with a strong, firm grip> On the other hand, nothing is so disgusting as meeting some smart boy who wants to impress you with the strength of his grip and immediately puts on the pressure trying to make you yell “uncle.”

The forearm presents a problem to some men who find it hard to develop while other find easy progress with little effort. Others worry about the size of their wrist for they have been told that they cannot develop a large forearm if they have a small wrist. It has been our experience that the size of the bones has little, if anything, to do with muscular development. Size of the bones is only an indicator and not a restrictive element. Some of the finest forearms we know of are on small boned men.

If you hare one of the slow gainers, don’t be discouraged. You probably have a finer quality of muscle than some of the easy gainers. Just keep plugging away and you will reach your goal.

Following are some of my favorite forearm exercises. I know that if you will work hard on them as I have, you will be pleased with the results you will obtain.

FOREARM EXERCISE

Exercise No. 1 – Wrist Curl. Load a barbell to a weight allowing 20 to 30 repetitions and assume the position as shown in photo at lower left of page 22.

Now allow your hands to drop down as far as possible by bending the wrists. Allow the fingers to open slightly so the bar will roll out on the fingers. Now close the fingers and curl the wrist up until it is as high as possible with the forearm muscles fully contracted. This is one of the finest exercises for the inside bulk of the forearm. Work them until they ache. You can later on work up to three sets of this.

Exercise No. 2 – Reverse Wrist Curl. This exercise is performed in the same manner as the above described exercise except it is done with the palms turned down. Bend the wrists up and down the same as before and make the movements as complete as possible. You probably can’t use quite as much weight in this one but do 20 to 30 reps and work up to three sets. This one works the muscles on the backs of the forearms as well as giving the thumb added power. I find the best time for forearm exercise is just after my regular workout.

Exercise No. 3 – Compound No.1 Reverse Curl and Wrist Curl. Take a bar in hands as shown in photo at lower right corner of page 22 and with the bar starting at thighs, reverse curl it to the shoulders, then lower and repeat.

Do up to 12 repetitions of this. Do not cheat but do them in strict style. Right after this do the regular Wrist Curl as given in Exercise No. 1. Do about 20 reps of it. Then repeat the reverse curl immediately and so on until you do 3 sets of each without rest between. (Of course you start out with one set of each exercise and gradually work up to 3 sets.)

Exercise No. 4 – Compound Exercise No. 2 Pushups and Wrist Roller Exercise. All of you are familiar with the push up exercise in which you lie face downward on the floor and push up and down with the arms, so we show no illustration of it here. We want you to vary it however, in that you do it while supported on the fingertips – remember, just the toes and fingertips. Work up to 20 reps in this. Now with only enough rest to catch your breath, go on to the wrist roller exercise. I believe most of you are familiar with this exercise but we show a photo of me doing it in the lower right of page 23.

https://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-different-kind-of-wrist-roller-howard.html

You use a round roller of wood or steel with a 3 ft. rope through a hole in the center and knotted to keep it in place. Then with the arms extended to the front, slowly roll the rope up on the roller. Then unroll it and roll it back up the other way and so on for 2 sets each way. Then another set of pushups and then back to the wrist roller again. This will really pump up those forearms.

Exercise No. 5 – Compound Exercise No. 3 Zottman Curl and Leverage Exercises.  Compound exercises are favorites of mine and are responsible for much of the success I’ve had in building my body. The Zottman exercise is a little hard for some fellows to learn but well worth the effort. Take two rather light dumbells at first, as shown in lower left photo of page 23, and as you curl one bell, lower the other from above, and as they reverse you turn the hands over so that the bell going up is in regular curl position and the one going down is in reverse curl position

In other words, you do alternate curls and twist the wrists and bells over at top and bottom. Do 15 reps with each arm. Now with very little rest, go to a very little known exercise, but one which is very valuable  - the leverage exercise. This is illustrated at top of page 23 and shows how you load up a dumbbell bar on one end with a 5 or 10 lb. plate and holding the bar in hand, you raise and lower it by bending the wrist to the extreme limit of it’s movement. Do 12 reps with bell in front and 12 with bar at back. You may be able to use more weight in the back movement. Now do another set of the Zottman Curl and another set of the leverage exercises.

I have given you sufficient exercises to completely develop the forearms to maximum size. You probably won’t be able to use all these exercises in your program unless you are doing little else than forearm specialization. My suggestion is that you use half of them in one workout and the other half in the next workout and alternate thus every other workout. You will find that massage of the pumped up forearms during the workout will help a lot.

Keep working on those forearms. They sometimes take extremely hard work to force their growth. A little higher reps are generally used for them than for other body muscles. You may be slow in seeing results. Sometimes it takes from one to three months before much in the way of outstanding results is visible, but you MUST be persistent and determined. GOOD LUCK TO YOU UNTIL NEXT TIME.