When I was a teenager just getting started in bodybuilding, I used to marvel at the biceps of Larry Scott. They were the best I’d ever seen, and to me they still rank as the best ever. Scott’s biceps heads were incredibly long, reaching past his elbows, and they were very thick and full, too. In studying my own biceps early on, I realized that Scott would be a good role model for me because I also had long muscle bellies. As much as I was amazed by the high peaks of Freddy Ortiz (Mr. America short-class champion in 1963 and 1964), I knew that there was no way I could ever attain arms that looked like his because our basic structures were too different.
In time, my upper arms stretched the tape at 223.4″ cold . no pump at all. This was when I was at my biggest, 325 pounds, for the 1994 Masters Olympia, in which I finished second. For that contest, I used the same biceps routine that I had applied in preparation for the 1975 Mr. Olympia [in which he placed third in the heavyweight division]. In fact, I’ve been so pleased with the results that I still use pretty much the same workout to this day.
I firmly believe that you can get the most growth activation and strength improvement out of the last set or two of an exercise.