Arm measurement (cold): flexed vs. relaxed (hanging straight)

[musketeer]

OHMG

Cold means that you have not worked out and pumped the musclses full of blood.

Flexed means that you have bent your arm and are measuring the arm at it's greatest circumference.

When your muscles are pumped, the blood vessels are dialated, and the capiliaries are all full of blood. The flexing of a muscle will draw the myosyn sheaths closer together and they overlap. As the sheaths are stacking up, the muscle will decrease in length but as the tissues are gathered together, they will form a greater girth.

Although the actual mas of a properly balanced bicep is about 50% of a proportioned tricep group, the bicep wil stack up much more than the tricep and cause more of difference to tape measure ments in relation to it's size.

People with small triceps and a great biceps peak, may stretch the tape much further than somone who has genuinely more muscle but cannot "stack" the muscle as high.

With regards to strength, i havn't a clue...

 

[WalkingBeast]

I go from just over 15" to about 17.5" - not bad for an old guy (42 yrs). Since I started working out again, the difference for me has basically been about 2 inches (without the pump). There have been times (like on NO2) that I got nearly an inch with the pump, but that's not the norm.
Good Lord, Walking Beast! I wished I had the stats you show. How do you like doing the deadlifts? Do you feel that they really incrase your overall strength?

ThanX brother!! Much appreciated!! Right now my arms are around 17.5 also. Lost a good amount of size from these herniated disks! haha So recovery may take some time. Sounds like youve made some good progress. You have a similiar difference to me from flexed to relaxed also. Must be the bicep peak. I used to love deadlifts, but did them way too much, and too hard. I managed to herniated two disks in my mid back over time. I just kept injuring myself and pushing through it. Eventually the benching seemed to crush my disks. As fun as deadlifts and my own "beast lifts" were I would have been better off avoiding them all together. Did much more damage then good. Now I have a long road to recovery. Going to have to train differently for a while too. Probabally wont deadlift again. I couldve built more size doing weighted hyper extentions and heavy shrugs. Without all the damage they caused. My traps got slightly thicker from them and my waist measurement. No increases on my upper back or anywhere else. They were addictive but not too useful for me. As for increasing overall strength they may have helped somewhat, but I think they only increased mental strength really. The ability to focus more energy into a lift. They really werent needed though. KEEP KILLING THAT SHIT!!