A proposal for the best college workout

| Staff Columnist

As a college student, your number-one priority as a gym “bro” is to look good. Good enough to wear a tank top whenever, pull off 50 pushups at your next party or run shirtless through campus. Most of you probably think you have this under control, but perhaps, you’re feeling a bit uneducated. Here’s a five-step guide for achieving the perfect “bro bod.”

The gym life never ends:

Go to the gym as much as is humanly possible—it should absolutely be your top priority. Girlfriend? She can wait a half hour for your daily dose of arms. Homework? Only fun once you feel sore. Friends? Gym bros or no bros. The lesson here is pretty simple: You need to remember that any missed gym opportunity is a potential centimeter of muscle thickness gone.

Forget about your legs:

On to the body: your legs look good enough and honestly, you don’t really care how much weight you can squat or how good your calves look. Screw science. Plus, girls don’t even look at your legs, so why bother. Maybe run a few times a month so your legs don’t give out during arm day (every day), but otherwise, give up that lower-body workout you’ve always despised.

Arm day (or the importance of bicep curls):

With your “arm-centric” mindset established, and your newfound desire to have the biggest biceps, triceps, upper back, shoulders, lats and pecs in the gym, it’s time to get serious. First, you’ll need to learn how to use all of those dumbbells and free weights properly. You can definitely check on brobible.com, bodybuilder.com, getmyarmsjacked.com or just watch Bro Science on YouTube. I’ll give you a start. Have at least six “presses” in your arsenal: bench press, military press, dumbbell bench press, j-press, shoulder press, French press, printing press, heck, any kind of press you can think of. Make one up if you’re feeling adventurous.

Now about those bicep curls…do I even need to explain? Bicep curls are the exercise to end all exercises. The bicep curl must be God’s favorite thing to do in the gym. Arguably, your biceps should be bigger than your calf and hamstring muscles, so make sure that any time you go to the gym, you do them—a lot of them. Five sets of 15 reps is definitely not out of the question.

Protein

Now we all know it takes more than a super arm workout to get really jacked. Like every legal weightlifter out there (and also every other college man), you’re going to need to consume a metric ton of protein every day. Don’t even worry about anything else—just make sure that every meal has high protein content. Same goes for your snacks. Protein shakes, extra chicken, PowerBars, Clif Bars, meat chili, Chipotle burritos, beans, the list goes on and on. While you’re at it, make sure you buy a big jar of protein and showcase it in your dorm room so everyone knows you are legit.

Reap the benefits:

If you keep working at it, feeling the burn in your arms until they can’t move, and eat a ton of protein, you’ll start to develop that iconic “inverted pyramid body.” The ultimate goal in college lifting—the chest of Zeus, the arms of Tiger Woods and the legs of a ninth-grade prepubescent boy. You might need to wear jeans or sweatpants more often, and you will notice the occasional person slyly taking Snapchats of your fantastic lower body, but in the end, you’re rocking the sleeveless shirt on the regular and you’re bench pressing more than most other dudes in the gym. Rock on and keep lifting, but arms only.

Sign up for the email edition

Stay up to date with everything happening at Washington University and beyond.

Subscribe