Even though many of my strength feats do not call for overwhelming arm development,
this area of my anatomy gets the query every time.

I suppose this is an American symptom, for overseas bodybuilders accuse this country
of being arm-happy. Of course, foreign arm development as a whole is well below
ours, so this could have a bit to do with it too.

Actually, I think it goes a lot deeper than this, and the appreciation of big, powerful
arms is an American folk custom. By this I mean that this country was developed
by the labors of all the various pioneers and explorers over the past 300-400 years.

As they pushed into the wilderness and afterwards, wresting a living from the land,
these men had to work hard, work with their hands and arms and whole body, to
get along. The settler, the village blacksmith, the lumberjack, the carpenter and builder
. . . all needed powerful arms to ply their trade well, and in time those with the
greatest, most powerful arms grew to be respected for their contributions.

Bodybuilding today, with the glorification of the entire, well-developed physique, is
still influenced by this great American heritage to the extent that big arms and
powerful arms are the most respected part of the body. Sometimes this fact is lost
sight of in the race for pecs, lats, delts, etc. but it is there nonetheless.

Arm Strength and Size Go Together

The strength factor in arm training and training as a whole is lost sight of by some
bodybuilders today. But without strength you cannot have maximum development.
The more powerful you can become, the better developed you will also become.

This is especially true in the arm area, and one of the basic tenets of my arm training. Bodybuilders are so conscious of the bigness of things. Many of them concentrate just
on pumping and forget the strength part. As I've trained and developed power for
my strength feats, I've found that my development of size has kept pace with strength
increases. Simple, but true. If you want more size, then go for strength.

But it is not as simple as "lift more weight, get bigger." My feats involving great arm
strength, such as breaking chains, bending spikes and the like, need the application
of continuous arm strength over a period of time. It is this continuous application of
power over a long period of time, the long holding of a contracted position, that
differentiates my approach to arm training from that of other bodybuilders. And, I
think my method certainly has been successful.

Too many bodybuilders are used to doing a rep, resting, then doing another rep . . .
they don't have that continuous application of power in training. I design my training
to take advantage of this long period of holding tension, and do many exercises
that involve constant tensing of the arm muscles, especially the biceps.

I've found that applying this strength principle to my workouts has resulted in
greater power for my strength exhibitions, and greater size through working the
muscle harder.