Bicep Sundae - Progress!?!
Okay so after a very interesting conversation this week, and again being reminded I have big biceps. I decided to take the plunge and give a break down on how I have personally train biceps.
First let me say this is my opinion on the matter and things I use and it keeps producing progress for me. So I'll be outlining some of my personal ideals about training them.
I'm a little nervous about this type of post but hey a new type cant always be bad, right!?! Plus with a personal training certification I should get comfortable with these types of blogs.
Anyways, just know I will be applying what I know from my studies, personal journey, and every fitness guru, coach, bodybuilder, etc, I follow to give you a fundamental outline to add some mass.
Its also important to note that although big arms were a focus of mine early on, I'm currently more focused on growing a bigger back, traps, shoulders, and legs.
First thing first, I think this can apply to every body part you want to enhance.
How do you think of your biceps?
For real do you look at your biceps and see a mole mound or do you see freaking mountains?
Before going into a workout, picture what you want that muscle group to be like. Personally I want mountains, peaks on top of peaks, big bold mountains as big as the Himalayas..... Okay you get the point!
The way you think of a muscle group will help you understand what you are going to have to do to get that muscle group.
Now that you have your mountain sized biceps pictured in your head how do you go about creating just mass?
Preacher curls, supinated curls, standing barbell curls, alternating dumbbell curls, curls, curls, curls, curls!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh so many options.
Relax! First lets focus on some very important but major changes you can employ before you start playing around with the types of curls.
The bicep brachii is made up of two muscle heads. You have the long head, outer portion of the muscle, and you have the short head, the inner portion of the muscle. Now keep this in mind with the simple fact that this particular post will be covering adding mass and size to the overall bicep structure.
Once you have the mass or you think you have made significant changes to your biceps base structure. That's where I have started and suggest employing more specific curls to target either the short head vrs. long head development of the bicep.
Again this is all how I personally have attacked my training.
I picture my body like a giant Ice Cream Sundae. Start with your base layers of giant scoops of Ice Cream and slowly add in the toppings and all the other goodies as you go.
So lets start with one of the biggest scoops of Ice Cream in your Bicep Sundae.
Scoop 1. Tricep Flex a.k.a Completely Stretching the Bicep
Okay so have you ever noticed the person that has a massive slab of meet hanging off of their arm where a bicep is supposed to and when they flex it looks like they have softball in its place.
You watch them a little more, and they drift over to the dumbbell rack pick up a simple 20 lb Dumbbell and start curling.
You look away and then back, only to see them put the 20 lb dumbbell and it looks like they arm is about 10x bigger than when you first saw them?!?
Now you are mind blown how do they do that, a simple conclusion might be they have to be taking something. In reality maybe they just work the muscle a little differently.
Really focus in on and watch the triceps of a person curling at the bottom/starting position and or at the end of the eccentric phase of the curl.
A person that is really stretching the bicep and shaping some mountains is the person that demonstrates a flex of the triceps at the very bottom of the curl movement before they curl the bar or dumbbell back up.
When doing this you allow a complete stretch in the bicep muscle. The first couple of times you might have to drop weight and its going to feel weird or even burn.
However, its a small but effective enhancement that has provided better connection and overall development in my personal training.
If you employ this try just going through the curling motion without weights and flexing your triceps at the bottom as hard possible before you even add in weight.
Scoop 2. Weight-- Check the Ego No more 3/4 Reaping
I'll say it again. Anyone that wants big biceps you have to train for big biceps. Hit your sets (3-4) and reps (6-12).
With that comes selecting the right weight to do the job.... In other words no 3/4 reaping, don't cheat the curl, and check your ego.
The bicep muscle is one of the best to obtain the mind muscle connection and actually picture yourself creating the muscle because you can see yourself flexing the muscle as you work them.
This all has a catch though!
One thing I have noticed in order truly connect with the biceps and create them is picking a weight that is controllable throughout the whole movement but burns like Hell the last 2-3 reps of each set.
What does that look like?
(Simply for me personally anytime I hit curls if I'm at 149-165 lbs I get the best connection, burn, stretch, etc... with 20-40 lb dumbbells in the 8-10 rep range. This will change depending on reps I'm going for and the movement) I don't recommend these weights for everyone!!!
That being said a cheat curl is fine but should be used on that last reps if you have to use it, not the whole set. I would actually recommend you stop curling completely, rest for 5 seconds, and then get that last rep if you have to.
If you can find a weight that lets you control and stimulate the bicep and allows you to completely flex the bicep at the concentric motion (top of movement) while controlling it all the way down and stretch the bicep at the end of eccentric motion of the movement (bottom of the movement), there wont be any short changing the results.
Side note: the eccentric phase has some serious bang for its buck in bicep world. Slow has been a major key of mine, its almost as simple as just reisiting gravity the whole time. Don't just let the weight fall back down without you trying to stop it.
Eccentric phase for the WIN!!!!!!
Scoop 3. Straight Arms Only
This one maybe the biggest contender for controversy, but here goes.
When someone is curling, in fact with any movement, there is a natural sticking point. In a curl for most people the sticking point is where the weight is the farthest away from the body.
So pin your arms to your side and then lift them up till you look like a T-Rex and your forearm is parallel with the floor. That's usually the sticking point.
Why I bring up the sticking point is simply this. I noticed early on that for my personal curling style to get past the sticking point I would bend my wrist towards my body. Now you do work some of the bicep this way.
However, keeping your wrist as straight and in line with your arm as possible during the whole movement I noticed more tension on my biceps throughout the whole movement from top to bottom. I also noticed less wrist movement, straight arms, and arms staying close to my sides produced less stress around the wrist region.
Again I had to drop the weight but in the end I feel a better tension and overall control with the bicep movement.
The other major difference with straight arms, wrist, and keeping your arms close to your sides is you start to notice that when you curl up to the top of movement and flex your biceps you don't need to bring the weight up as high as you think.
For instance there is always a person that will throw the weight up in a curl and literally have their chin stop the bar.
What if you just stand up pin your arms to your sides and bring them up in a simple curling motion. As you near the top, flex your biceps as hard as possible. Again there is a natural point where you can't force your forearm up any higher with a fully flex bicep.
Get used to that movement!
Now take it a step further produce the same movement, pin your arms, starting flexing your bicep and produce a curl up to the natural body position. This time take it past the natural point. One thing you should notice is that the elbow of the arm that is producing the curling movement starts moving out in front of the body.
This for me produces a backwards lean when going heavy and I start employing every other muscle besides the biceps to maintain control.
I suggest getting the comfortable position that allows complete control, feel, flex, and putting as much tension on the bicep as possible, then start playing around with hand placements, grips, and the varying curling movements.
Biceps to me allow a person to take all the complicated methods out there, eliminate them, and keep it super simple and get some shocking results. Keep it simple to add mass and make a few moves your bread and butter.
Scoop 4. Chasing the Pump within Reason
This is it! I saved the best the last!
I was listening to an interview with Pro Bodybuilder Flex Lewis... In the interview a question spurred a response from the Pro I personally try to take into every training routine.
The response was along the lines of "If I'm really feeling and connecting with a particular body part for a workout why would I stop?"
To me this makes total sense. Yes I have my workout and yes I have an overall game plan.
However, if I'm feeling good and clicking on all cylinders, the mind muscle connection is completely there 100%. I'm putting the pedal to the metal and putting everything into that muscle group until the muscle can't move.
That's simply it, you are chasing the pump, the burn, the promise land.
Now do this sparingly! When you are feeling connected at the end of your workouts when you have that little bite more energy to give.
This will take you to another level and your arms will really start to blow up. This is one of those ideas where the number of reps have been hit and the body screams to quit but it comes down to overloading the muscle.
That's right, drop sets, assisted sets, rest pause sets, a super set, or even a hyperplasia set. One extra rep or set isn't going to kill your gains or even over train the system if a person is careful with implementing the additional work.
Chase the pump within reason and just push and engorge the muscle with as much blood as possible. Leave nothing left and become either the animal that feels it or a machine that reps until the arms just can't do another rep.
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To take it a step further I provided a sample of bicep moves I use with reps and sets in my current programs:
Day 1:
Barbell Curls: 4 sets 6 reps
Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls: 4 sets 8-10 reps
High Cable Curls (With Straight Bar) w/Dropset: 4 sets 10-12 reps
2 sets AMRAP
One arm Cable Concentration Curls: 3 sets 8-10 reps
Day 2:
One Arm Cable Concentration Curls: 3 sets 8-10 reps
Standing Dumbbell Supinated curls: 4 sets 8-10 reps
Seated Dumbbell Concentration Curls (Palms face forward the whole time): 3 sets 8-10 reps
Standing Hammer Preacher Curls: 3 Sets 8-10 reps
Yellow = Superset
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Finally some additional sources to look at for training biceps are linked below:
Bodybuilding.com:
Stronglifts:
I would love to hear your thoughts, implementation, or feedback considering the topic discussed.
Again these are just my personal thoughts on grow biceps and I continuously apply new ideas and methods as I develop my own.
Try them out and go grow some mountains!!
- The Iron Pulse
(all images are linked to original origin)
