Written by Ron Harris
22 May 2017

17jond-arms-toronto

Jon Delarosa 2nd at the NY Pro

Now He Gets Armed for Toronto Pro

 

 

Finishing second at last Saturday’s New York Pro was a kind of validation for Jon DeLa Rosa; a punctuation mark to a contest he first entered in 2012. In fact since 2012 the only New York Pro he missed was 2015. His record reads: 2012, 5th; 2013, 4th; 2014, 3rd; 2016, 8th; 2017, 2nd. Thus we can see he enjoyed a consistent upward trajectory with his Big Apple exploits until 2016, which overall was a disappointing year for Jon. But the New York result (his second pro win, having taken top honors at the 2015 Chicago Pro) indicates he is back on track after the travails of last year. Fresh from a stint at the Oxygen Gym in Kuwait, and their boot camp philosophy, Jon entered the New York Pro in a particularly confident mood. Early in the prejudging he looked a tad soft, but as the contest wore on, the more sweat poured out of him and the harder he became. However that was not enough to hold off the challenge of winner, Sergio Oliva Jr. Now Jon takes that momentum forward to Toronto in search of a win. Meanwhile here’s the lowdown on how Jon built his spectacular arms

Origin of the Big Guns: That De La Rosa DNA

Jonathan De La Rosa is both a second-generation Dominican-American and a second-generation bodybuilder. Even though his father didn’t start competing until his mid-40s a couple of years after Jon made his stage debut, William De La Rosa had been a bodybuilder for many years, as defined by his living the lifestyle: training hard, eating right, and even reading the magazines and going to shows. Jonathan knew from early childhood that his dad was different from the other kids’ fathers. “He was the biggest, most muscular guy around,” De La Rosa recalls. “He had a big full chest, crazy thick back and shoulders, legit 20-inch arms, and forearms like Popeye. Whenever I had friends over, they would ask him to flex and he would hit a front double biceps shot— they always freaked out.”

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Getting his own Cannons

 Jonathan remembers having big legs and forearms (other kids called him Popeye), and his upper arms weren’t too shabby either. When he started training in middle school, they were already a solid 16 inches. William had assembled a very decent home gym in his garage that included an adjustable bench, a squat rack, a pull-up bar, a preacher bench and an ab machine as well as barbells, dumbbells and plenty of weights. Jon got plenty of great instruction on proper technique from his dad, but he still wanted more. “My father gave me his copy of Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, and told me any of the workouts in there were excellent,” he says. The first workout he selected was for biceps, and it featured alternate dumbbell curls, hammer curls and concentration curls. “I did about 20 sets in all, and for the first time I felt that full, tight pump in my biceps— and I wanted to feel that every time from then on.” Triceps were treated to mostly compound movements, loads of dips and close-grip bench presses along with some extension movements. It wasn’t long before he’d added an inch to his arms. Little did he know that one day in the not-too-distant future, his arms would stretch the tape out at just over 22 inches at his heaviest off-season weight of 268 pounds at 5’6”. He trains biceps and triceps together in one workout and here are the main exercises that have contributed to the colossal bi’s and tri’s of this New York Champ.

 

THREE FOR BICEPS

Alternate Dumbbell Curls

 Jon likes to start biceps off with three sets of alternate curls, using light dumbbells for sets of 20-30 reps to pump as much blood into the muscle and the surrounding joints and connective tissues as possible. “I get funny looks from people who see a guy with arms my size using a pair of 20s, but that’s OK,” he laughs. “I found that getting a great pump in the beginning makes the rest of the workout that much more effective. You feel the heavier barbell curls and preacher curls working the biceps deeper down into the fibers.”

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Concentration Curls

 After his bread-and-butter mass movements for biceps, barbell and preacher curls, Jonathan moves to an isolation movement. Most often it’s the dumbbell concentration curl. Recently he’s adjusted his technique based on seeing what fellow pro Ben Pakulski was doing. “Instead of having his hand centered on the dumbbell handle, he has the pinkie side of his hand jammed up against the inside of the plates,” he explains. “That allows you to supinate the hand a little bit more, and you feel a more intense contraction in the biceps.”

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Cable Curls

 If for some reason De La Rosa doesn’t do concentration curls, he will head over to the cable station and do curls with either both arms simultaneously or one at a time. “My newest way to do these that I really like is the version I got from my friend Akim Williams,” he tells us. “You attach a short straight bar to the seated cable row and do them from a seated position— totally different angle and feel from standing cable curls.”

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FIVE FOR TRIS

Cable Pushdowns

 Every triceps workout starts with three or four sets of cable pushdowns, usually with a rope attachment. Again, the goal is to get plenty of blood in the area. In this case, the key area Jonathan wants to warm up thoroughly is the elbow joints. “Once those feel good and warm, I have the confidence to go heavier on the rest of the exercises that will follow."

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Overhead Cable Extensions

 Most of the time, the cable pushdowns are supersetted with seated overhead cable extensions, and the goal is still to pump as much blood and heat as possible into the triceps and the tendons and ligaments around the elbow. “Over the last couple of years, I started having pain in that tendon,” he shares. “I figured out that overhead dumbbell extensions really aggravated it, so I stopped doing those; and I take more time to warm up now than I did in the past.”

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Close-grip Bench Presses

 If you press Jon to give the one exercise he feels has been responsible for more of his triceps mass than any other, he doesn’t hesitate to tell you it’s the close-grip bench press. “It’s rare that I don’t do these on arm day,” he says. “It’s just a perfect mass builder that gives you that nice round, full, meaty look to the triceps even in a pose like the front double biceps.” He is strong enough to do good sets with 405 pounds, which if you don’t realize happens to be a ridiculous amount of weight for close-grips. “It’s one of those sure thing basics,” he notes. “If you work hard and get strong on these with good form, your triceps will grow. Guaranteed.”

 

Dips

 Occasionally, if Jon’s elbows are acting up and feeling tender, he bypasses close-grip bench presses and opts for dips. “I will do either dips on a parallel bar, bench dips, or a dip machine— they’re all good if you focus on contracting the triceps.” On the dip machine, he often likes to use the grip shown here with knuckles out in front of him. “I feel it more in the long head of the triceps that way.”

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Single-arm Reverse Grip Pushdowns

 Very rarely, Jon will finish off triceps with a single-arm cable pushdown using the reverse grip. It’s a pure isolation movement, not meant for even remotely heavy weights. “It’s good for focusing on tight contractions and getting that last bit of blood into the tri’s before you call it a day,” he says.

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JON’S TOP 3 RULES FOR BIGGER ARMS

1. Check your ego at the door.

 “A lot of times guys are watching me train, and I can see from the looks on their faces they’re wondering, that’s all the weight he uses? Way too many people let their egos dictate what they do in the gym. They would rather throw a ton of weight around instead of using a weight they can really control and working the muscle as hard as possible. When it comes to arm training, you can’t isolate the arms going super heavy. When you do that, you involve other muscle groups like the shoulders, chest, and even the lower back. It’s all about contracting the muscles and getting a deep burn and pump. If you’re not doing that, your arms won’t grow."

 

2. Don’t go overboard on volume.

 “Most people love training arms, and they can spend literally two hours doing every exercise they can think of. But you have to realize that what you do in the gym is only a small part of the whole process. If you do too much, your arms can’t recover and grow. There is such a thing as doing too much, though it will vary from person to person. It’s safe to say that nobody really needs more than four exercises each for biceps and triceps, for three or four work sets each."

 

3. Don’t train arms too often.

 “When a body part isn’t responding, usually the first idea guys get is to train it more often. Sometimes that works, but other times it can backfire. Because the arms are a smaller muscle group and also keeping in mind that they are involved in pretty much everything you do for chest, back and shoulders, it doesn’t make sense to train them more than twice a week at most. And even then, this should only be done for limited periods of time. It goes back to recovery. It doesn’t matter how intense your workout is if the muscle isn’t able to recover and grow between workouts.”

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Typical Arm Workout

 Dumbbell Curls                                           3 x 20-25

 Barbell Curls                                              4 x 8-10

 Preacher Curls                                          4 x 8-12

 “Front Double Biceps” Cable Curls            3 x 12

 Dumbbell Concentration Curls                   3 x 12

 Rope Pushdowns                                       4 x 12-15

 superset with

 Overhead Cable Extensions                       4 x 12-15

 Close-grip Bench Presses                         4 x 12-15

 Machine or Bench Dips                              4 x 12

 

Training Split

 Day 1:    Chest

 Day 2:    Back

 Day 3:    Delts

 Day 4:    OFF

 Day 5:    Legs

 Day 6:    Arms

Day 7:    OFF, repeat

To see how Jon fared at the Toronto Pro this coming weekend, May 27-28, stay tuned to musculardevelopment.com. In the run-up on the day there will the usual video interviews, reports, contest wrap-ups and play-by-play commentary in real time. Stay tuned for unrivalled coverage.

 

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