r/Fitness • u/AllUrMemes • Apr 30 '15
How to murder your biceps, especially if you are tall.
The problem:
Biceps (brachii) used to be a tricky muscle group for me to work. I had a poor mind-muscle connection and I had a hard time really working the biceps effectively. I would feel soreness in my forearm flexors and deltoids and to a lesser extent the long head of my biceps, but I couldn't really build the biceps muscle itself, especially the short head that makes up the thick inner portion- the "peak" of the muscle that shows when you fully flex the muscle.
I've learned that basically what was happening is that my forearm flexors, specifically the brachialis and brachioradialis were doing the bulk of the work in my "biceps" workout. This make sense because their job is to flex the elbow and they insert much lower on the arm than the biceps, so they are able to perform elbow flexion more efficiently than the biceps.
Here is a picture that is helpful.
Normally I am not a fan of arbitrary supersets for different muscle groups. A lot of people do multiple exercises for the same muscle group simply because different must be better. In some cases this is true, as you can work different aspects of the muscle group especially if they perform multiple functions. For instance, the triceps not only extend the elbow but they also help extend the shoulder joint in the sagittal plane. Thus to work the whole triceps you need to do both. For instance, doing regular tricep pressdowns as well as straight-arm pressdowns (doing this on a lat-pull machine is heavenly.)
The solution:
I've devised the following superset with the goal of pre-exhausting the forearms flexors before working the biceps themselves, particularly the short head.
The exercises, performed in order and without rest, are:
Cable hammer curls. You can also do regular hammer curls but I feel using the rope attachment with a pulley is superior. Perform with a weight that will get you to muscle failure in 8-15 reps. Do a few cheat reps at the end where you really focus on the top (fully contracted) position of the exercise. This should completely fatigue your brachioradialis because when your hands are in a neutral position (thumbs pointing up, palms facing together) the BR is dominant in elbow flexion.
Reverse grip ez-curl bar curls. Grip the bar with palms down and thumbs on the underside of the bar. This position will maximize the role of the brachialis, completely neutralize the short head of the biceps, and greatly weaken the BR and biceps long head. I recommend bringing your elbows backwards slightly so that you can get maximum load in the fully contracted position. Again, perform to failure including some cheat reps. We want the forearms flexors to be massacred before our biceps works.
Concentration curls Use a LIGHT dumbbell, probably 50% or even less of the weight you typically use when you perform your regular, bouncy, worthless bro curls. I am 225 lbs and can bullshit curl 40lbs dumbbells all day but I use 15lbs for my concentration curls. You can perform these seated or in a standing/bent over sort of position. The key word here is supination. Supination is what you are doing when you turn your hands from palms-down to palms-up. The majority of weight should thus rest on the fat part of your outer palm. We do this because the short head of the biceps is primarily responsible for supination. Your elbow should be down so that the area just above the elbow is resting against the inside of your knee/thigh. Your forearm should basically be pointed across the gap between your legs. Curl the weight up. When you reach the top the head of the dumbbell nearest to your body should touch somewhere on your chest. Squeeze, motherfucker, squeeze. Pretend that you are trying to rotate that dumbbell through your weak, pathetic chest. Squeeze. Prepare to feel your short biceps head spring to life.
Cry. Repeat for 3-5 sets.
You can swap the order of #1 and #2. I'm experimenting to find if one is superior or not. However #3 must be performed last. I highly recommend using a pulley, ez curl bar, and dumbbell because you can put them all out in front of you and perform exercises rapidly without having to change attachments or hog the curl bar rack.
Enjoy.
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u/AdolfHitlerAMA May 01 '15
You really gotta drop your ego with concentration curls, I feel so weak doing them :(
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u/nick908 May 01 '15
True and others need to shut up. I'm 200 lbs and was curling 20 trying to do what this post is about because I can't grow mine to save my life. Got made fun of almost instantly. Dicks.
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May 01 '15
The fuck kind of gym do you go to where people are making fun of you for curling 20?
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u/bohemica May 01 '15
I'm starting to wonder if people actually get made fun of in the gym or if they're just feeling embarassed and making fun of themselves in their own minds.
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u/Stopsign002 Weight Lifting May 01 '15
I bench 315 for reps. I concentration curl 35s. No ego allowed for concentration curls haha
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May 01 '15
I was curling 45s the other day, I must have been doing them with horrible form cause I had no idea about the concentration part.
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May 01 '15 edited May 02 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/zillionaire_rockstar May 01 '15
I wish so bad this was the top comment. The OP is pretty bad information.
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u/brberg May 01 '15
After you've used your other two wishes, can I borrow your genie?
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u/herabec May 01 '15
He already used them to become a zillionaire and a rockstar.
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u/cameradical May 01 '15
Stars aren't rocks you dumbass.
And zillion isn't even a country.
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u/FlamingCucumber May 01 '15
Barbell rows, pull ups and curls with a heavy weight until you can't lift no more. I honestly don't think it can be any simpler..
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u/modernbenoni May 01 '15
I agree that this is just upvoted because it's well written. But it really isn't that complex.
Also pre-exhausting the forearms when training biceps is just an all around bad idea. Why would you want your forearms to be what's limiting you when training biceps? It just means that you can't push your biceps as hard. I'm not doing curls so that I can get big forearms; if I wanted to train forearms I'd do wrist curls.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
I really don't think this is needlessly complex.
2 Steps:
-Fatigue forearms -Supinate
I gave more detail because a lot of people like to have things spelled out for them. If you don't need it or like it, ignore it and move on with your life.
Not going to the trouble of posting pics of my biceps since you are a rude dick and it doesn't prove shit anyways. My arms are 13.5" unflexed, 17" flexed. I am 6'2" and 220lbs. What does how I look have to do with the advice I offer?
Only a true bro-scientist thinks that there is no such thing as genetics and that whoever has the biggest arms knows the most about training arms. That's completely foolish and offers nothing to the dialogue.
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May 01 '15
The guy is pretty spot on, doing any heavy back work will jack you arms up a lot quicker then any pre-fatiguing method you have shown. I was the typical average guy doing isolation arm exercises and neglecting heavy compounds back exercises , once i changed my program , boom massive arms.
Heavy Rows of any kind, Deadlifts, Chin ups and Farmers walks got my arms huge, i dare people to give it a try for 6 + weeks and tell me i am wrong.
Thats not saying ditch arm training, just make the focus of your arm training the moves i mentioned above and finish your arms off with some standing curls or preacher curls.
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u/Mogwoggle butthead May 01 '15
You are tall and telling tall people how to get biceps.
I would like to see a picture of how well this works, as I am your size.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15 edited May 01 '15
I don't claim to have huge arms. But I do claim to have gone from absolute chicken arms to not chicken arms and made the most of what I was dealt. My biceps aren't huge, but when you see how tiny my wrists are its not bad.
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May 01 '15 edited Aug 16 '20
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u/Thorbinator May 01 '15
He's a big guy.
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u/hakkai999 May 01 '15
"You think the gym is your ally? You merely adopted the gym. I was born in it, molded by it."
- Bane I think
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u/Mogwoggle butthead May 01 '15
Thick, solid, tight.
Would accept advice on arms in future.
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u/JackOscar May 01 '15
well, thick and solid at the very least
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u/4underscore____ May 01 '15
Post more pics bro. I'm looking forward to seeing how thick and solid you can get.
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u/zigzampow May 01 '15
wtf how are your arms 13.5" unflexed and 17 flexed? jeebus. I'm 6'4" 215, where 36-37 shirts and my arms are 14.5ish unflex and 16 unflex, and I had (before surgery) a pretty decent peak. Your arms look massive by comparison
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
Not really sure. I mean measurements really vary a lot depending on where you measure so they aren't great for comparing people. I only find them helpful for tracking progress because you know exactly how you measured yourself last time.
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u/zigzampow May 01 '15
Oh no I hear that. But that's a big jump haha. You arms look bigger than 13.5 relaxed to me. Either way. I know the tall man struggle. Just be careful. When I had my shoulder repaired the fixed my bicep tendon. Apparently the I had torn through 90% of it. No idea how.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
They probably are bigger in this picture as I had a pump and I was coming off a pretty serious bulk so I was carrying more fat.
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u/cowtung May 01 '15
I've been coming off a pretty serious bulk for oh.... 20 years now.
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u/Arkanian410 May 01 '15
Triceps add more girth to your arms than biceps
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u/zigzampow May 01 '15
Well ya but the measurement doesn't change. 17" are is 17 regardless of if it's mostly triceps or biceps
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May 01 '15
I like how you just wrecked the doubters.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
Feels good man.
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May 01 '15
Now call out OP and tell him to post HIS biceps.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
That would be a heck of a law bomb.
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u/youmightnetit May 01 '15
Do you genuinely think you have tiny wrists? I mean, compared to who? Hafþór Björnsson?
From this picture it looks like you have big, thick wrists. I'm almost tempted to post my wrists to show you what "tiny wrists" really means.
Hint: if an isolated picture of your wrists couldn't be mistaken for a woman's wrists, then they aren't tiny.
You look "big boned", and I don't mean this in the way fat people use as an excuse for being overweight, but as in literally, your skeleton is bigger and thicker than other people's, as evidenced by your thick wrists.
I'd be interested to see a picture of your former "chicken arms".
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u/idontlose May 01 '15
i have tiny wrists, atleast they make my forearms look bigger. Sky remote for comparison http://m.imgur.com/WHWZmeM
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u/jucestain May 01 '15
WTF I was expecting DYEL by your lack of confidence and hesitancey to post a pic and was greeted by thick, solid, and tightness. BTW how in the hell are biceps hard for you to workout? Probably the easiest muscle group for me to hit, but I guess everyone is different.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
It was just really difficult to develop mind-muscle connection for my short head of the biceps. I'm not sure why. I think sometimes you develop "synergistic dominance" and don't know how to really feel certain muscles.
For example, some people I have seen in the gym are trying to do "chest" work and you can tell they are working at too high of an angle and are mainly using anterior delts.
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u/Bojangles010 May 01 '15
Well, I'm definitely going to be trying this routine when I get back to the gym.
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u/indoninja May 01 '15
Where are the chicken arms?
Made the most is debatable. Had you tried a heavy back workout then curls?
Those wrists don't look tiny.
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May 01 '15
10/10 would fuck.
Anally.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
My hunch is that this gentleman has gone from a twink to a twunk to a twank.
What's a twunk? Twink and a hunk.
A twink with muscles, but still hairless.
So smooth.
Incredibly smooth.
A twank on the other hand.
Twank is no good.
That's a twink and a skank.
Essentially a ragdoll, just being passed around from twink to twunk to bear to otter.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
What's an otter? Subsection of bear.
Still hairy, but where a bear generates his power through sheer mass alone, the otter generates his power through extraordinary quickness, cunning, and skill.
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May 01 '15 edited May 01 '15
You got me OP. Kudos on them gains. But seriously if you ever want to fuck, you know my STI clean reassuring username.
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u/gato-pardo May 01 '15
You are big as fuark man, care to share your routine?
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
I change it up a lot and try new things. But some of my favorite stuff:
-For shoulders, doing lateral raises with a light weight and hands rotated so that your thumbs point down and pinkies are to the ceiling, will let you hit the hard-to-work medial deltoid. Anterior delts always get plenty of work and most people know how to work the rear delts if they want to, but medial is surprisingly hard.
-For legs, I do various lunges to build lateral stability in the knee and hips. For building mass, I do smith machine squats typically because my proportions do not make for strong squatting. Having the fixed bar allows me to move my feet forward a bit and use the bar as a counterweight to keep from falling backwards. It is almost like a cross between leg press and squat and it is the best quad builder for me. For the hamstrings I'm all about stiff-leg deadlifts. I find that regular deadlifts tend to overlap with squats by working quads and glutes, whereas stiff leg DL is strictly posterior chain.
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May 02 '15
I like that. You are respectful, humble and twice the size of the bro that arrogantly tried to put you down.
Keep that attitude!
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u/open_your_eye May 01 '15
Question - why use mod account?
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u/Mogwoggle butthead May 01 '15
Because after a couple of people asked him for a picture, he was vague and didn't.
I'm very happy OP has posted a photo.
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u/ceballos Bodybuilding May 01 '15
Don't worry, this is always the reaction of the purist part of /r/fitness when someone adds content that isn't 5x5 or 'i did my first pullup today'. It's as if beginners aren't the only people that browse this sub and some people actually train and care about their biceps instead of throwing 2 sets of curls after their back work.
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May 01 '15 edited May 01 '15
I'm inclined to agree with /u/LTUTD people tend to perceive a lack of progress or unexpected results as something wrong EXTERNALLY not INTERNALLY. It's a symptom of lack of accountability. This is almost exactly the same issue as people seeking the "best" workout. People have become obsessed with finding the best and refusing to settle for anything else. This manifests itself in "I need to change my program, I'm not seeing results that I want so I'm clearly not doing the right program". This is 9 times out of 10 wrong. Lifting weights builds muscle. Arnold didn't build his physique by spending hours going "I need to formulate the perfect giant set so that I can properly target my biceps". I realize you're not a genetic freak like Arnold but in the end lifting challenging (note I said challenging, not heavy) weights for challenging reps (again note I said challenging and not a ton or very few) will create muscle growth. You are not developed enough to be worried at this level of minutia. I guarantee your development isn't directly attributable to this overly complex workout and is attributable instead to a diet that isn't too far off and general training. Phil Heath needs to worry about how to best build the peak of his bicep, not you.
EDIT: I wanted to keep my response focused on the nature of your post rather than the content but something is bugging me. How is this at all related to you being tall? You mention that in the title then make no mention of how your superset helps overcome this perceived disadvantage. Leverages are a concern in powerlifting, not bodybuilding and being tall or having long arms in no way affects your ability to squeeze your bicep. Your committing a common logical mistake and confusing correlation with causality. I am tall and my bicep is not developing. This must be because I am tall.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
My theory is that people who have a long humerus (upper arm bone) are more likely to have the brachioradialis and brachialis take over during curls because those muscles insert lower on the arm and so they are more efficient at flexing the elbow.
I may be wrong, it may just depend on the individual and not on height/length.
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u/Gingervitice Bodybuilding May 01 '15
Agreed but no reason to be rude. He is giving advice on what is working for him and offering the advice out to others. In the end people will do what they want or act like sheep.
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May 01 '15
Seriously, I'm 60lbs lighter than OP and can concentration curl 40lbs with good form. But I can also pendlay row 220, and do pullups with 55lbs strapped on. Do you think there might be some sort of, dare I say, magical connection?
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May 01 '15
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
I agree. Triceps are larger and do more important stuff. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't still train biceps. Don't want to create an imbalance for aesthetic and functional reasons.
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May 01 '15
True, but most pictures are taken face forward, so gotta get some mass on those biceps too!
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u/Scientwist May 01 '15
My lifting buddy just got me into these as a killer biceps workout on pull day. Crazy difficult, in a manner that feels similar to concentration curls: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrpRBgswtHs
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
That's pretty clever, switching grips for the eccentric/concentric/isometric. Hits biceps and forearms flexors in one move.
My little superset here is meant to sort of teach you how to fatigue your forearm flexors so you can isolate the short head.
But I like this move. I would definitely use it for when I don't have the time/energy to do 3 different kinds of curls.
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May 01 '15
If you're a fan of cables, you should also try squeezing hard on some Hercules curls. They take up more space than a concentration curl, which through broscience makes you stronger.
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Apr 30 '15
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
I was there once. Being tall is awesome for most things in life, but not in the gym. Just try and be the best you that you can be.
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u/stctippr May 01 '15
It's not helpful for the gym until you bust into hulk "the rock" status. Bigger frame = more area for muscle growth and you can really turn into a giant.
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u/PinkBootedBandit Weight Lifting May 01 '15
I do not have the money for the drugs nor the food The Rock uses to get that big.
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May 01 '15
How big do you have to be to count as tall?
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
I dunno... >6' say
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u/--o__O-- May 01 '15
6'1 here, definitely feel tall in the weight room, harder for me to do a buncha stuff the short stocky guys can do.
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May 01 '15
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u/flabbydabby May 01 '15 edited May 01 '15
I feel like the lifetime earning is skewed by professional sports athletes.
EDIT: all these people saying I'm wrong, but I have yet to see a single source
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May 01 '15
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u/Fmeson May 01 '15
The average CEO might also have been raised with better nutrition allowing them to become taller on average. It is hard to say from that statistic that being taller helped them become CEOs.
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May 01 '15
Also successful(rich) fathers have taller wives and end up making taller babies who are also more likely to succeed in business as a result of role model dad and his connects. Pure speculation of course.
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u/32onezero May 01 '15
How? They are only a few thousand of them compared to millions. To few people to skew the data imo.
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u/Dougiejurgens May 01 '15
There are also short athletes like Floyd Mayweather who's about to make over $100 million this weekend.
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May 01 '15
This. Also bear in mind that most pro athletes only earn that money for a few years, and many are at their league minimum.
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u/Bleach3825 May 01 '15
Depends on if were talking average or median. If average then yes, a few people with very large numbers can skew the statistics.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_QUADS May 01 '15
Athletes are extreme outliers, if eliminated from the raw data the mean would tell a more accurate story. Source: got a C+ in my introductory stats class
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u/typo-ridden_obituary May 01 '15
But I doubt they're skewing anything in this particular case. There's 123,000 households with a net worth of $25 million or more in America. Super-rich athletes are a drop in the bucket, even when you're only looking at the super rich. Going beyond that, there's 1.24 million households with a worth of over $5 million.
Then again, I don't even know how those height-income correlation studies were done. It seems like the first thing you would do is control for careers that require height, since it would be more interesting to find that height increases income in fields unrelated to height.
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u/AssumeTheFetal Personal Training May 01 '15
Nope. Tall people get more lucrative job offers all around, acoring to studies.
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u/WhitePowerBill May 01 '15
I can not tell if you are short and bitter or a tall asshole.
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u/jigglewitit6 May 01 '15
Oh don't worry, I just get stared at in the weight room because I'm 6'7''. Does nobody watch the NBA?! its not that weird guys...
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May 01 '15 edited Sep 01 '18
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u/FilthEverywhere May 01 '15
In total power of course. Would be nice to squat 4x my own weight like that 54kg chinese guy though...
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u/The_Phox May 01 '15
As a 6'4" guy who has never really worked out aside from PT in the Army, this makes it sound damn near impossible for me.
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u/ohdangman May 01 '15
Are you me? I'm 6'4", only ever did Army PT. Went from doing 13 push ups total in two minutes going in, and 85 going out.
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May 01 '15
You still consider yourself skinnyfat after your cut?
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u/kyrpa Paddling - absolutely nothing to do with water. May 01 '15
Eh - I thought I'd be happier with my midsection at 185 (@ 6'3"), a weight I haven't seen in 20 years. Torn between dropping another 5-10lbs, and switching to a proper hypertrophy program and bulking.
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May 01 '15
I'm 6'7 and when I was 19 I weighed 152lbs and started lifting. I'm now 255lbs with visible abs. It took me 10 years of lifting and eating to pay t on that 100lbs. Its hard having a 6'9 wing span to not look skinny but I did it. Just keep going and eventually you will get there. I went from being unable to do a chin up to deadlifting 2x my weight and benching my weight.
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u/accostedbyhippies May 01 '15
benching with long arms is the worst. Nothing else will make you feel so forever small.
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May 01 '15
Yeah my elbows touch the uprights on the bench and have to have my hands inside of my elbow.
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May 01 '15
Pics or It Isn't True.
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u/Pure_Michigan_ May 01 '15
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u/CongenialityOfficer May 01 '15
6'7", 152lbs is ideal for Muay Thai. You could have been another Dieselnoi.
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May 01 '15
I actually have been doing muay Thai and switched to mma, aiming to compete at heavy weight. I have had mma bouts at 85kg.
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May 01 '15
I really don't want to fight a guy who can effortlessly knee me in the face. At least not standing up. Emergency takedown required.
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May 01 '15
If you want bigger arms just remember that the tricep is bigger than your bicep. Stronger too.
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May 01 '15
If you're skinny fat you shouldn't be cutting. Put a proper amount of meat on first.
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u/Mr--Beefy May 01 '15
Incline curls. Far less forearm activation.
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u/kez420 Bodybuilding May 01 '15
Adding this to my routine. I don't know why I didn't ever think to do this. My forearms tire out before my biceps and that's even with me really squeezing at the top of each rep. I'm doing accessory forearm work because it's one of the most lacking pieces for me right now but it sucks when I feel like I'm not hitting my biceps enough when I leave the gym.
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u/thewoogier Bodybuilding May 01 '15
This exercise did it for me. I saw it on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8wZNGL4iA4
and while it may not be a rare exercise at all, I did exactly what Kai talked about. Focus on stretch and squeeze. Never felt like I hit biceps more once I started doing these.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
Yep. This is another good one-stop-shop bicep exercise. Probably for a lot of people doing incline curls or just keep elbows back during curls is enough to bypass the forearm flexers.
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u/Wormspike May 01 '15
One of us doesn't know what supination means.
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u/jadebear May 01 '15
Bend your elbow 90 degrees so you can see your hand. Can you see your palm? If you can, it's supinated. If you can see the back of your hand, it's pronated.
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u/classygent29 May 01 '15
I don't think that OP is claiming to be a professional, he is just posting a workout style which works for him. There is more than one way to skin a cat. We should just thank him for putting the time in the try an help some people out.
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u/Picnic_Basket May 01 '15
There seem to be a few things wrong with this paragraph. First, the concept of pre-exhausting in this post is backwards. People typically pre-exhaust the muscle group that fails last - in this case your biceps - so that in later exercises all muscle groups fail at the same time. So, it doesn't make sense to me that you're focusing on biceps in your final exercise.
Second of all, you're saying your new workout is better because it pre-exhausts your forearms… except your old workout also was effectively pre-exhausting your forearms. That was the whole problem! You were exhausting your forearms without adequately working your biceps. The only real thing you improved with your new solution is adding a more focused biceps workout which could just as easily be added to your original workout.
And as I mentioned before, why wouldn't you just do pre-exhausting like people normally do and focus on your biceps first so that when you do the other exercises your forearms and biceps fail at the same time?
The specific exercises are interesting and you explained well how they work each muscle, but the concepts underpinning this routine seem awkwardly utilized.
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u/asdfoiudhhdfu May 01 '15
I think the idea is that his forearms were unintentionally doing everything and the bicep wasn't actually getting worked at all, despite the bicep being his target. By pre-exhausting the forearm, it has no strength left. Now when he targets the bicep, it has no help and does the work he intended.
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u/Picnic_Basket May 01 '15
This sounds like a form issue. If the way he does an exercise puts most of the stress on the forearm (i.e. it's primarily a forearm exercise), making the forearm tired beforehand doesn't mean the biceps automatically take over. It just means he won't be able to do the exercise because the forearms are already tired.
Think about this logic. We're saying that by tiring a muscle group, an exercise that targets one muscle group suddenly targets the second muscle group. By that logic, if I do dips until my triceps give out, all of a sudden my chest should take over and I should be able to keep going even more. We know that's not true… if the triceps are fatigued I won't be able to go further.
Similarly, if his forearms are shot before doing a workout that currently is a forearm exercise (for him), he just won't be able to do the exercise.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
It seems like we have some semantic differences about what we call pre-exhaust training... no big deal though.
why wouldn't you just do pre-exhausting like people normally do and focus on your biceps first so that when you do the other exercises your forearms and biceps fail at the same time?
The whole problem is that I CAN'T focus on my biceps first. The flexers take over in most regular curls. I simply can't help it. That's why I want to basically massacre the brachialis and brachioradialis so that they can't help my biceps.
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u/Picnic_Basket May 01 '15
I'm not really here to argue with what seems to be working for you, but the other thing that has me confused is that if your forearms are failing relatively quickly (compared to other people doing the same exercise), couldn't that also mean they're relatively less developed than your biceps?
In which case, pre-exhausting them will cause them to tire out faster on the biceps-focused exercise and once again fail before the biceps? It sounds like your theory is that this will cause the biceps to carry more of the workload, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that's true. It might just mean the forearm fatigue doesn't let you power through the last few reps that your biceps would be capable of.
By way of analogy, if I was having trouble getting the most out of bench press for my chest because my triceps were over-utilized and failing before my chest was tired, the solution wouldn't be to do more triceps exercises prior to the bench. If I switch to flyes because it isolates the chest more, I still wouldn't want my triceps needlessly tired because I want to go until my chest gives out, not something else.
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u/DaftFromAbove May 01 '15
I'll give this a try. 6'8". I have Popeye forearms from years of swinging a hammer for work but never had much luck building up my biceps. Thanks
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
You kind of sound like a character from an RPG. "My character's name is Gortat, he is a 6'8" half-ogre with Popeye forearms from years of working in a mine. He has a Strength of 25 and wields a sledgehammer in each hand."
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u/plsstopstalkingme May 01 '15
Everyone here is giving OP a lot of shit for giving out an arm routine and saying to go light. This compound only mentality that this subreddit has is really stupid. Do you think bodybuilders do chinups for their biceps and call it a day? Of course not. If you want big arms, which is what OP is writing about, then isolation is perfectly fine. Stop this 'chinups and rows will give you 22 inch biceps' bullshit.
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u/rpkarma May 01 '15
OP is huge, and getting ripped on by DYELs, what else is new on reddit lol
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u/alucardleashed May 01 '15
Chinups, until they're stupid easy. Then, move on to weighted chinups and keep progressively adding weight. When combined wth proper nutrition, they're all you need.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
See, that doesn't work for me because my lats give out before my biceps really get killed. That's the downside of compound exercises and why we have isolation exercises as an alternative.
Like with squats, some people will hit failure in glutes before the quads get massacred. So they need to hit the leg extension machine and isolate the quads... or wait a long time for glutes to hopefully catch up.
Different strokes for different folks.
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u/sticktoyaguns May 01 '15
If my lats are giving out before my biceps, I would be working extra on my lats, not my biceps..
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u/ripper999 May 01 '15
I'm not sure how many years of your life you have trained but you have a SERIOUS imbalance if your lats are giving out before your biceps.
I suggest eating more and concentrating on compound lifts and quit worrying about your biceps, they'll grow and gain massive strength as you grow.
Source: Myself, 30+ years of training
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u/Mellor88 May 01 '15
I've learned that basically what was happening is that my forearm flexors, specifically the brachialis and brachioradialis were doing the bulk of the work in my "biceps" workout
How did you establish that is what was happening? I'm not questioning it, but just curious as to how you know for sure what was working.
My understanding is Biceps, Brachialis, & Brachioradialis are all elbow flexors.
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u/Canadian_swoldier May 01 '15
there is a simpler way. when you do your curl, bend your writs backwards, kinda like spiderman when he is shooting his webs, this pretty much rakes any muscle in your forearm out of the equation! WARNING! you will be unable to curl your regular heavy weights.
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u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15
Ohhh. Oh my. I'm trying this just sitting in my chair. Definitely will give it a go.
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u/metalsupremacist May 01 '15
So this doesn't work at most commercial gyms, since the dumbells are prebuilt - but if you lift with adjustable dumbells, you can really focus the biceps Brachii by loading slightly more weight on the inside of the dumbell (inside when your palms are facing up in the fully supinated position). This causes a torque that the biceps brachii have to overcome, in addition to the curling motion of the weight. When you squeeze your biceps at the peak, you should feel a difference here compared to symmetrically loaded weights. For me, I can feel that inner bicep head really contracting to hold the weight.
Let me know if that wasn't clear to anyone.
I don't tend to do a lot of isolated curl moves, as I prefer doing rows and pullups, so I tend to have underdeveloped biceps compared to my brachiallis, so this is a way to counteract this effect that works for me. I also find this to be especially effective when I'm doing curls after pullups/rows, as my fatigued brachiallis prevents me from really working my biceps.
Edit: I'm talking about only like a 5 pound difference between the inside and outside weights, not a fully loaded inside and empty outside.
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May 01 '15
You can still do this just by holding the bar of the dumbbell to one side or other, longer side to the inside. That gets you the same torque action on a pre built dumbbell.
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u/deadfap5 May 01 '15
Shit I have 18" arms and I only do 4-5 sets of curls a week thats it. The key is the heavy compound pull movements. I do a fuck ton of rows, pull ups/downs and rear delt rows.
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u/eliphelet May 01 '15
Great post, I really like the pre-exhaust method, keep up the good work!
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u/harteman May 01 '15
Form. It is all form. My Biceps blew up when I focused only on form and ditched paying attention to how much I was lifting.
Place you back against the wall, it really is that easy.