Train the biceps for size, shape and strength
Better Looking Arms:
Train the biceps for size, shape and strength
Is there anyone who doesn’t appreciate great-looking arms? Hard sculpted biceps on men, and gracefully lean upper arms on women? And wouldn’t you love them on your body?
The biceps, those two-headed (“bi”) muscles at the front of the upper arm that flex the forearm, are one of the smallest, yet most eye-catching muscles on the body. They are easy to train using most any pulling or curling exercise and it doesn’t take a lot of grueling work to see real progress.
Women can and should do these exercises without worry, since females typically don’t see a size increase in muscles from strength training. Since women have up to 30 times less of the type of hormones that cause muscle hypertrophy, they can lift for strength and shape, and not worry about bulk.
You’ve probably sat at a bicep curl machine at the gym and wondered what the big deal is. Yes, the machine is designed to isolate the muscle but, unfortunately, most people tend to let the machine do most of the work. As you brace your upper arms on the pad, and grasp the handles, you’re performing some fancy elbow-flexing to move the handles and the weight. But how much are you really benefiting from it?
Move to Free Weights for the best advantages
It is difficult, though not impossible, to isolate most of the stress on a particular muscle. For this reason, free weights (weights that aren’t connected to a track or locked in a position) should be used whenever possible. While a curl machine attempts to isolate the work on a specific muscle, free weights use a compound movement by working a group of muscles, while still focusing the stress on one at a time.
To get an idea of this, imagine how muscles work together when opposing each other. On any given lift, one muscle is contracting and another is relaxing, such as the biceps and triceps when performing a biceps curl. Since the tricep must be worked, the bicep is not completely isolated. Hence free weights work the muscle, but go a step further.
Pick up a 10-lb dumbell in each hand. Immediately, you notice you’ve changed the dynamics of the workout by adding 20 lbs to your body weight. Now larger stabilizer muscles in your abs, legs, and back are working to keep you in balance. Using free weights develops your stabilizer muscles, not to mention your coordination, and this compound movement results in the most effective gains for muscle growth.
Use variation for the continued gains
If you’re new to strength training, keep in mind that the lighter the weight you lift and the more the repetitions you do, the more likely you are to tone the muscles but not see great gains in strength. So let’s take a look at a standard biceps workout using:
- Biceps Standing Barbell Curls
- Preacher Curls (seated on Preacher bench with dumbells or barbell)
- Seated/Standing Dumbell Curls
For the barbell curl: Stand with your feet comfortably apart and hold a barbell with both hands using a palms up grip about 18 inches apart. With the bar against your upper thighs, exhale, then curl the bar up to the height of your shoulders. Lowering the bar back to the starting position in an easy controlled movement. Do three sets of 12 to 20 repetitions, always to exhaustion. Be sure to use enough weight to completely exhaust the biceps muscle (i.e., enough that you can do at least 12 reps, but not more than 20 reps).
Seated/standing dumbell preacher curl (also called Scott curls): Position yourself behind a preacher bench holding dumbells, using an underhand grip. Working one arm at a time, lean into the bench, and lift the dumbell slowly upward in an arc until they almost touch the biceps, then return to the starting position. Use a full range of motion, including positive and negative tension, which means raising and lowering the weight slowly, rather than bouncing them up and down.
Alternating dumbell curls: Pick up two dumbells of equal weight in each hand, and do three sets of 12 to 20 repetitions, working to exhaustion. Hold them palms out and curl one arm at a time, then the other, up towards the shoulder. You can lift with the palm up (where the bicep is forced to carry the full load at all times) or use a supinating wrist twist. This latter routine, the twisting dumbell curl, is one of the most proficient means of shaping the biceps and produces the peak seen on so many bodybuilders.
When you want to train for strength, you increase the amount of weight and decrease the number of reps. You need to select enough weight that will allow you to exhaust the muscle—but now you’ll want to make only 2 to 8 repetitions per set. Just be careful to lift correctly and isolate the biceps, otherwise, you’ll end up with sore forearms the next day.
What if you don’t see the results you want?
You might be anatomically challenged and not know it. It’s true. For some people, the brachialis muscle (which runs underneath the outer part of the bicep) may be absorbing the majority of stress which limits what the biceps get to do. In other words, the biceps will only receive as much of the workout as the brachialis will allow, so concentrate on isolating the muscle.
Since biceps are receptive to the variety of free weights training you’ll need to experiment to see what is right for you. Likewise, if your muscles have developed but now resist further growth, you need to fool your body by expanding your arsenal of workouts. You can do that by frequently changing the different types of curls using barbells, dumbells, bench, machine, or cables.
Women lifters also like to add some fun exercises with strands of rubber tubing. You can use them standing or lying on your back, place the tubing over your feet, and you’re ready to pull. Do three sets of 12-20 reps and feel the deep resistance.
Just keep this in mind when lifting with free weights: For strength, do low repetitions (2-5); for size, do moderate reps (10-12); and for toning, do high reps (15-20). Mix up the workout by varying the weight and number of repetitions, and you’ll keep your body guessing. Give ‘em something they aren’t used to and they’ll build fiber for you, anticipating your next move!
Tags: biceps, curls, training the arms, upper arm exercises