One Month Later

After four weeks of curls, pressdowns, chins, dips, and awful, awful finishers that may actually violate some clause in the Geneva Convention, my four-week expedition in pursuit of bigger arms in finally over.

The result? An extra 1/4 inch on both arms.

That may sound disappointing, but I've been lifting weights for six years now; any small gain in mass or strength takes some serious scratching and clawing. It doesn't make for very dramatic after photos, but when  you unashamedly check out your arms as much as I do, you notice the difference; there is a muscle bulging from the side that wasn't there before, my forearms feel thicker, and my left bicep doesn't look quite as puny (except it kind of does).

Darren's in a similar boat, even though when you look at him in person the difference seems like night and day. He's doubled his reps with the same weight on the bench press, he can knock out 20 perfect pushups now (he could do maybe 10 shaky ones at the start), and he can do two more pullups than when he started, bringing him up to a grand total of two.

Four weeks is a very, very short amount of time, and a 1/4 inch doesn't look a whole lot bigger. But a contest is a contest, so here are our before and after pics for all to see:


Before on Left/top, After on Right/bottom

Pretty impressive for two drug-free guys who had real lives outside the gym.

Leave a comment telling us who you think made the most progress (we're obviously not factoring in time at the tanning bed).