Most people focus on biceps and triceps during their arms workouts, but targeting your forearms as well will help to build strength in your wrists and help protect them from injury.

Do the following exercises in order, resting for two minutes between them. You can easily build these into your regular workouts, but remember to leave two or three days before repeating them to allow your muscles to recover.

'Getting bigger arms in the gym comes as a result of your body’s response to the stress of weight training,' says personal trainer Guy Stockwell. 'If your arms muscles were sentient beings they’d think, "That was hard. I'd better do something about it so it’s not as difficult next time".’

When you perform arm resistance exercises, microscopic tears occur in your muscles. Your body responds to this micro trauma by overcompensating: the damaged tissue is repaired and more is added, making your muscles bigger and stronger so the risk of future damage is minimised.

This is the best biceps workout for adding mass and building strength, with six moves each selected for their effectiveness.

Each workout should take 35 minutes including the warm-up.

When you target a single muscle you need to allow five days between workouts. Do this workout once a week and up to two whole-body workouts in the same week, allowing 48 hours rest between each.

Use a weight that lets you complete every rep but pushes you to your limits during the last few.

Spend five to ten minutes on a piece of cardio equipment and then do some bodyweight exercises to fire up your muscles.

The biceps come high up on the list of glamour muscles for most men. It's what you flex when you want to show off your muscles. Go into any gym and you'll see rows of men curling barbells in an attempt to build bulging biceps. Yet the biceps are among the smaller muscles in the body, and they aren't even the biggest muscles in your arms.

Your triceps make up about two thirds of your upper arm muscle mass and, as the name suggests, they are made up of three different muscles or 'heads'. The long head and lateral head combine to form the horseshoe shape at the top of your arm, while the medial head runs beneath the long head down to the elbow. Their job is to straighten your elbow, so they come into play every time you push something away from your body, such as when you do bench presses.
 

Call off the arms race: if you’re still obsessed with your biceps and triceps, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage in the dating war. In fact, if your workouts are mainly focused on the muscles you see in the mirror – including your pecs and abs – you may as well start waving a white flag. 

Why? Because when it comes to attraction, a body that’s ready for action in the running, fighting, saving-cats-from-trees sense gives off visual vibes that you’re an evolutionarily viable catch. According to one study from the University of Windsor in Canada, for instance, how attractive men were rated by the opposite sex correlated almost perfectly with their shoulder width and upper-body taper – or how close they were to the V-shape that signals functional upper-body strength. Think classical statue, not Austrian bodybuilder – proportionally, Michelangelo’s David is close to the ideal masculine shape.