Great biceps are the male equivalent of having great… well, you know. The shape of them, the way they bulge out, retract, they really are a fascinating muscle – and you are depriving yourself of having something great if you underplay your bicep work.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should blast your biceps regularly, this is a huge mistake, but you need to really get to grips with what makes great biceps.
I’ve got to be honest – unless you are looking to be Mr. Olympia and have amazing genetics, you’ll never have biceps like Arnold. But, let’s face it, who appreciates that kind of development but the judges and diehard physique competition fans?
Simply concern yourself with building the biggest biceps you can – all this ‘shaping’ stuff is nonsense. All you can ever do to your muscles is develop all parts of them to their fullest potential, and the shape they take is up to them – you have no say in it.
What the amateur bodybuilder needs to do is use the truest mass-building exercises he can and forget the fancy stuff bodybuilders use to ‘detail’ their muscles. Whatever this ‘detailing’ does, it won’t work for the guy who isn’t even close to his genetic potential – and you can’t even come close to that without a ton of steroids and HGH. Fact.
What is this exercise? Well, it’s several – but they are all tied together with a single constant – a supine grip. A supine grip is a grip in which the hand faces up.
Mark Rippetoe is one of the top strength and conditioning coaches, and in his book he states that any bicep exercise which the grip isn’t fully supine, causes large sections of the bicep muscle not to contract and work properly – thus, limited muscle growth. Even EZ-Curl bars in Marks’ book are a waste of time.
From my own research, I agree with this to an extent. I’ve found the bicep workouts with my best results came from barbell curls with a straight bar, and incline curls with dumbbells, but with my grip supine – this stretches my biceps so good it’s incredible, and the results are.
I train biceps no more than twice a week, and do so when they have already been worked with other exercises, such as bent over rows or upright rows. I also ensure there is at least 72 hours rest between each session.