Written by Ron Harris
28 September 2017

PRAGUE-ROELLY-ARMS

Best Arms in Bodybuilding?

Roelly Winklaar's Beastly Bi's & Tri's

 

As we are just a couple days away from the EVLS Prague Pro, talk is about the show being a battle for first between William Bonac and Dexter Jackson. Let’s not underestimate Roelly Winklaar, the Dutch Beast! Roelly is one of the most massive men in the IFBB today, and has a tendency to sharpen up and improve in the contests that follow the Mr. Olympia. And how could we forget those insanely massive, round arms? Let’s look at how he got those beastly bi’s and tri’s.

 

Meant to own large-caliber guns

No matter where we hail from in this big world, most of us bodybuilders were inspired by the great Arnold Schwarzenegger early on in life. So it was with Roelly, growing up in Rotterdam, Netherlands as an immigrant from the tropical island of Curacao. A photo of Arnold hitting a side pose with both arms out straight had him awestruck. “I wanted arms like that one day,” he told me. Little did he suspect that years later, his own arms would be talked about in the same breath as The Austrian Oak and other legends of the sport. In part due to his years spent as a gymnast in his youth, as well as what can only be called incredibly gifted genetics, Roelly’s shoulders and arms responded extraordinarily well once he took up bodybuilding in his early twenties. So it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Winklaar had to do anything special for his arms. As long as he trained them hard, they kept growing and growing. Still, he did train for four years under the watchful eye of Sibil ‘Grandma’ Peeters, which afforded him an advanced education on proper exercise technique to get the most out of every movement. Here are some of the exercises The Dutch Beast has relied on to build those 22-inch cannons.

 

Barbell curls

"I do barbell curls with either a straight bar or an EZ curl bar,” Roelly told me. “I think it's actually pretty important that you don't use the same one all the time, because your biceps will get used to it. My biceps don't grow anywhere near as easily as my triceps, so I've had to work them with a lot more variety and different intensity techniques to see good results. A lot of time I do barbell curls first in the routine and I do them as '21's.' You don't need very heavy weight for 21's, so they are a really good warm-up.” Being warmed up is always important for anything, but especially biceps. It's a small muscle group and if you have fairly small joints and tendons like Roelly does, you have a greater risk of injury if you're not careful. “With a lot of curl movements, Grandma liked to have me do '8 and 8,'” Winklaar says. “That means I did eight regular reps, then eight reps where I let my elbows come up and I focused on a maximum contraction of the biceps. Anyone who thinks it's best to always keep your elbows down by your hips is really missing out. Once I started doing these, my biceps grew quite a bit more than they had in a long time."

 

Alternate dumbbell curls

Roelly is a man who has had great success with basic movements, so his biceps workouts usually have a handful of classic free weight movements before he touches a cable. He will do alternate dumbbell curls either to start biceps off, or else as the second movement after barbell curls. At some workouts, Winklaar will do this movement standing, and at other times he sits down. “I like to look at the working arm when I do these so I can better focus on a good contraction,” he says.

 

Concentration curls

"My shoulders are very strong, so I have to be careful or else they take over on a lot of things, like chest work and also biceps,” Roelly explains. Once his biceps start getting fatigued after a couple exercises, he usually either goes over to a preacher bench and does one-arm dumbbell curls, or sits down on a bench where he can brace one arm on his inner thigh for concentration curls. “Either way, my arm is locked into position and takes my shoulder out of the motion so my biceps can do all the work."

 

Hammer dumbbell curls

Since his biceps have to be as big as possible to match his more gifted triceps, Winklaar can't afford to ignore anything that can possibly give them an advantage. Hammer curls work the brachialis muscle that's between the lateral head of the triceps and the long head of the biceps. It's not a large muscle group, but it will add thickness to the area when fully developed. It also helps your biceps peak by pushing the long head up and away from it. And of course, it adds more detail and separation to the whole upper arm once you're in shape if you've built it up properly. Note that he curls the dumbbell across the body toward the opposite shoulder, which allows for a more complete contraction.

 

Rope hammer curls

Most of the time, Roelly prefers using dumbbells for the hammer curl, but on some occasions he does like to hook up a rope attachment to the low cable pulley instead. “I find I can get a slightly better squeeze of the brachialis at the top of the reps using the rope,” he notes. One other thing to note about hammer curls is that they also give the forearms plenty of work. Part of what makes Winklaar’s arms so very impressive is that they are thick and full from shoulder to wrist. There have been quite a few men over the years with huge bi’s and tri’s, yet their forearms were underdeveloped in comparison. It does take away from the overall visual impression.

 

‘Front double biceps’ cable curls

One final cable movement that Roelly will do every once in a while, more so in the contest prep phase rather than in the off-season, is the dual curl using both high cable pulleys at once, an exercise that’s never had an official name but that I have attempted to dub ‘front double biceps’ curls for about two decades now. “I can emphasize both the stretch and the contraction parts of the rep with these, and it’s a great way to finish off the biceps,” Roelly says.

 

Triceps

 

Cable pushdowns

Until a few years ago, Roelly almost always started triceps off with a basic movement like dips or more often, skull crushers. As time went by, he adopted the more common, and more cautious tactic of using cable pushdowns to warm up and pre-exhaust his triceps. “I use different grips all the time, like a short straight or cambered bar, a V-shaped bar, or the rope attachment,” he tells us. “They all work the muscle a little bit differently, so it's important that you try to rotate them from workout to workout or at least every few weeks."

 

Reverse-grip pushdowns

"Oma (Dutch word for Grandma) taught me the importance of doing a reverse-grip pushdown for the long head of the triceps, the part that gives your triceps that full round look from behind,” Roelly says. If any of you out there haven’t been doing any underhand grip pushdowns in your own workouts, either with one arm at a time or both as shown here, you could very well be missing out on some potential triceps beef.

 

Single arm reverse grip pushdowns

This is actually the variation that most bodybuilders choose for the reverse grip pushdown, and Roelly will select it from time to time if he is bored with the two-arm version. “I am able to get pretty much the same feeling with both arms,” he says. “The only advantage to using one arm, and the only reason I will do them sometimes, is because you can change up the angle of extension and go toward your other hip for a stronger contraction of the rear head of the triceps.”

 

Dumbbell kickbacks

"A lot of people think kickbacks are no good for building triceps size,” Roelly notes. “Where do they get this idea? I think someone made it up a long time ago and it just kept getting passed on.” I have to agree with The Dutch Beast. It's a free weight extension movement that has always worked well for him. Why do so many others feel it’s nearly worthless? Poor form! One key is making sure your elbows remain up high. I have seen a lot of people do kickbacks with their elbows pointing down at the ground, which means the triceps have almost no stress being put on them at all. Keep the elbows high and don't let them swing, and squeeze the weight up with pure triceps contractions.

 

Single-arm overhead dumbbell extension

Because Roelly’s shoulders are such a dominant body part, he typically avoids any overhead extension movement using free weights. “My shoulders just take over the motion no matter what,” he says. He did find that if he saved the exercise until the end of the workout and went lighter, he was able to recruit the triceps better.

 

The guns are loaded and the Beast is roaring

Roelly could have easily been one of the many new pros that burst on the scene on a wave of hype and cashing in on a freaky bodypart or two before quickly fading into B-level obscurity. Instead, he has consistently proved again and again that he is one of the best in the game. With 5 pro wins on his resume, he’s a lot more than just some guy with huge arms. Winklaar is a solid threat for any contest he decides to enter, with a formidable package of outrageous, dense mass and pleasing shape. Keep an eye on The Dutch Beast as he aims his 22-inch guns at his fellow pros, because he has now firmly established that he can pull the trigger and shoot to kill!

 

Training Split*

Monday              AM Quads and glutes                   PM Hamstrings

Tuesday             AM Chest                                    PM Shoulders and traps

Wednesday        AM Back                                     PM Arms

Thursday            AM Quads and glutes                   PM Hamstrings

Friday                AM Chest                                     PM Shoulders and traps

Saturday            Back and arms (one session)

Sunday:             OFF

*Abs and calves are trained twice a week, but not on set days.

 

3 Sample arm workouts for Roelly

2010

Biceps

Alternate dumbbell curl                          3 sets - 8 reps standard form, 8 reps with elbows high

Hammer dumbbell curl                           3 x 12

Barbell curls (straight or EZ)                   3 sets, 8 reps standard, 8 elbows high

 

Triceps

Dips (parallel bars or bench dips)                     3 x 12-15

French press/skull crushers                            3 x 12-15

Dumbbell kickbacks                                       3 x 12-15

(above may be done as all straight sets, or it could be done as three tri-sets, doing all three exercises in a row with no rest between)

 

2011

Triceps

Pushdown                              1 x 20 (warm-up)

                                             4 x 12, 10, 8, 6 (increasing weight)

 Decline EZ-bar extensions      4 x 6-8

Dumbbell kickbacks               4 x 12

Seated machine dips              4 x 8-10

 

Biceps
Barbell curl (straight bar)            1 x 20 (warm-up)

                                                4 x 12, 10, 8, 6 (increasing weight)

Incline alternate dumbbell curls   4 x 8

EZ-bar curl                                4 x 6

Preacher curls                           4 x 8

 

2014

EZ-bar curls                             4 x 10-12

Alternate dumbbell curls           4 x 10-12

Dumbbell preacher curl             3 x 10-12 each arm

Hammer dumbbell curls            3 x 10-12

 

Triceps

Rope pushdowns                     4 x 10-12

Lying triceps extension            4 x 10-12

Machine dip                            4 x 10-12

Single-arm reverse-grip            3 x 10-12

Pushdown

 

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