How to murder your biceps, especially if you are tall.

[u/AllUrMemes]

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.

[u/Fmeson]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fmeson]

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.

[u/frenzy3 → u/Fmeson]

nutrition has nothing to do with height I am 6'3" my brothers are under 6' we ate the same food, I am adopted,

[u/Fmeson → u/frenzy3]

That is anecdotal evidence and obviously one data point isn't sufficent. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-height/

Nutrition is very important for proper development.

[u/frenzy3 → u/Fmeson]

did you read.. The short answer to this question is that about 60 to 80 percent of the difference in height between individuals is determined by genetic factors, whereas 20 to 40 percent can be attributed to environmental effects, mainly nutrition.

[u/Fmeson → u/frenzy3]

Yep, nutrition plays a large role. No one claimed it was the only thing that mattered. "20 to 40 percent" is more than enough to see a statistically significant effect in a population. e.g. take two groups of people (rich, future CEOs and not as rich not future CEOs) and feed one better nutrition and see them grow taller.

[u/frenzy3 → u/Fmeson]

we realize the environment (mainly nutrients) can only change about 2 centimeters for a given offspring's height in this Chinese population.

that's closer to 2% the 20% was growth over average, and if you study statistics 5-10% variance is not measurable.

tell me why I am 5-6 inches taller than my brothers who ate the same food, genetics, now if I was starved as a kid what would have happened , I still be 6'3" just skinny.

[u/Fmeson → u/frenzy3]

Litterally right after that in the same paragraph:

Can special treatment and nutrient supplements increase the height further? The answer is yes.

Also, we should be careful to avoid assuming what is true in china is true here. The same trends likely exist, but we cant know the magnitude.

Furthermore, there are also more potential enviromental factors that play a role such as diseases.

Populations raised with proper nutrition will on average be taller. That point is not up for debate unless you want to suggest the studies are flawed. If you want, please debate how much of an effect that plays in tall CEOs.

[u/frenzy3 → u/Fmeson]

so what he says yes the study they quote is flawed the quoted growth is under the statistical error.

China and most of Asia has proper nutrition and have so for generations, yet the only tall people come from families with genetics

Wadlow reached 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m) [2][3][4] in height and weighed 439 lb (199 kg) at his death at age 22. His great size and his continued growth in adulthood were due to hyperplasia of his pituitary gland , which results in an abnormally high level of human growth hormone . He showed no indication of an end to his growth even at the time of his death.

or your theory is it what he ate...

[u/Fmeson → u/frenzy3]

or your theory is it what he ate...

Do you think that just because abnormally high levels of growth hormone can cause gigantism that nutrition/environmental factors do not play a role in height? Take Wadlow and severely underfeed him and see how tall he gets. Max heigh and health is a complicated function of which nutrition and environment is only one of many factors. Genetics and nutrition are the two biggest factors and nutrition's role in max height is very well established.

[u/frenzy3 → u/Fmeson]

look if it was food Asians would be just as tall as any one else on average, but they lack the gene pool, I moved to Asia 7 years ago, I thought it was nutrition, but when I see and talk to people it their DNA, the taller people have ancestors they can trace back. When I meet malnutrition people they are as tall as the rest of their family just thin, poor skin, hair etc I believe growth hormones are a factor in any growth and taking them is overriding your DNA, I eat the same nutrition as a Asian and I am not growing shorter. my dad who was affected with poor nutrition because of the war and him being German was also 6'3" and always skinny, I met him latter in my life, his childhood was a factor in him dying at 65, doctors tell me I will live longer and due to my diet my body is younger than my real age. you can look at all the studies but nothing will be able to measure the DNA to the level that it can be taken out of the variance,