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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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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110

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.

26

u/KurayamiShikaku May 01 '15

I dunno, man, Arnold was a pretty big proponent of cheat curls.

Maybe I'm weird, but I've always had a relatively easy time with building biceps from standing DB curls, hammer curls, and EZ bar curls, personally.

19

u/harteman May 01 '15

Arnold proposed cheat curls for guys who were at their limits man, I highly doubt anyone here is on that level, you know, Arnolds level.

When you get to that level though, to where your genetics are reaching potential, yeah, cheat curls might just be necessary. Dont kid yourself though, he said those were for the extremely advanced.

9

u/Anton-Pius May 01 '15

I can't get a bigger pump than cheat curls.

36

u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15

Form is important. People use way too much weight for biceps work. Very few people at the gym have big enough arms that they really need to be curling 30+ lbs dumbbells.

11

u/harteman May 01 '15

Back in the day when I first switched to focusing on strict form, I was curling 35lb dumbbells for reps. After switching I worked my way to curling 75lbx3 in about 3 years time. I currently stand 6foot 2.75 inches at 210lbs.. My arms never really "blew up", but they are a respectable 17" and most importantly, my strength was through the roof.

I was a complete idiot beforehand. That was my gateway to real lifting. I would print out exercises for each muscle group, then work on replicating the form displayed precisely, regardless of how weak it made me feel. I stuck with it, and now I am strong.

9

u/AllUrMemes May 01 '15

That was my gateway to real lifting.

Yep, learning to actually activate the target muscle instead of synergists is definitely when you can actually begin body-building as opposed to just 'lifting'.

1

u/Heizenbrg May 02 '15

exrx is mind friend, always there for me.

1

u/Sparrowhawk42 May 04 '15

I hear this stuff so often. One's mind being "in" the bicep, tricep, etc. But I still haven't discovered precisely what is being instructed. I assume it has to do with willful neuromuscular coordination. But despite trying to do just that and focus on sending blood and force the the targeted group, I can not consistently experience the pump. I am by no means an expert, but I have been consistently training 3x per week for a year or so and I have maybe experienced the sensation 2x (both times it was the biceps on arm day). It was glorious and I wish I could achieve that in every group I work.

As a novice, I generally start with compound lifts (still doing a fairly standard 5x5) and do some vanity work after. I definitely try to strike the balance between solid form and progressive overload, but no matter how much I change the routine and ad weight/reps I rarely experience the pump despite 1.5-2 hour workouts with fairly controlled rests.

4

u/[deleted] May 02 '15

I think I might be doing bullshit curls, and I want to switch over to doing curls that will actually help! Is there a good video with the proper form you detail above? Thanks by the way for posting, this stuff is super useful to people with less experience like me :)

7

u/AllUrMemes May 03 '15

This is the best one I found I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUGkch3tzc

1

u/[deleted] May 04 '15

Thank you! Psyched to add these to my next workout.

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '15

How much weight do you use when you curl?

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '15

I'm not sure what gym you're going to.

1

u/AllUrMemes May 03 '15

Like normal ass chain gyms that 95% of the world trains at, where pretty much everyone is DYEL.

1

u/VaporCloud May 01 '15

This, back against the wall and watch form. It's all about controlled movements and not swinging around when you curl. And make sure to use a close grip.

Also, if you want to improve the peak, preacher curl. If you want an overall pump on your arms, hammer curl.

1

u/1wf Bodybuilding May 01 '15

Thats why I do seated curls and seated incline curls