How To Build Up Your Forearm Muscles

Although often neglected by casual lifters, knowing how to build up your forearm muscles can make a striking difference in your appearance. After all, your forearms are plainly visible when the rest of your muscles aren't. To give your forearm muscles the strength and definition they need, try this workout used by none other than Bruce Lee himself, described in "The Art of Expressing the Human Body", a book of Bruce's compiled workout notes.

1. Grip a 40-pound barbell with your arms slack and your palms facing away from you.
2. Roll your wrists upward and inward, as though trying to touch the front of your forearms with the barbell.
3. Slowly return your wrists to straight.
4. Repeat twenty to forty times.
5. Switch your grip on the barbell so your palms are facing you.
6. Roll your wrists upward and outward, as though trying to touch the back of your hand to the back of your forearm. Concentrate on the flex and swell of your upper forearm muscles.
7. Slowly relax your forearm muscles to return your wrists to straight.
8. Repeat the same number of times you did the first exercise.
9. Set down the barbell.
10. Pick up two weight plates, set with the rough side facing each other, with each hand.
11. Grip the plates between the pads of your fingers and the pads of your thumb, using strength and friction to maintain the grip.
12. Bring your elbow upward, like lifting a suitcase, squeezing the plates together to keep them from slipping.
13. Slowly return your arms to slack.
14. Relax your forearm muscles, but not to the point that you drop the plates.
15. Repeat ten to twenty repetitions.
16. Return to step one, cycle through a total of three times.

Do this routine twice to three times per week, and you'll build up your forearm muscles enough to make rock climbers jealous.

Source: "The Art of Expressing the Human Body"; Bruce Lee and John Little, 1998