No other muscle in the entire body is as celebrated as the biceps. Women love them, guys love them – even if the biceps they love aren’t actually their own! One thing for sure is, the goal of almost anyone who trains to look good is to have whopping great big biceps. It’s the cherry on the cake to the smart trainee – and the entire cake itself to the crazies (think Gregg Valentino!)
How does one go about creating those big guns?
By using the best exercises, with appropriate reps and sets of course.
When training, all you need to know is intensity is what counts. Long drawn out sessions don’t cut it. You need to train with short breaks – adequate enough only to get you through the next set – and push yourself like God almighty.
It’s perfectly possible to build big biceps by using reps of 7 – 12 for sets of 3 – 5. Remember – it’s all about fatiguing the muscle thoroughly, but keeping it intense.
As far as exercises go, I firmly believe the best methods for building biceps all have one thing in common – they employ a perfectly supine (palms up) grip.
Most people perform dumbbell bicep curls with a twist, and barbell curls with an EZ-Curl bar. But, there is a lot of research to show that the best results come from straight forward supine grip curls, and the usage of straight barbells instead of EZ-Curls.
There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, when a grip is more prone (hands down) (which happens when twisting dumbbells during a curl, or using an EZ-Curl bar) the bicep fibres are thought to crumple up somewhat, making it more difficult for the muscle to perform as it should. When the palm is supine, the biceps muscle fibres are in the lifting position they were intended to be used in, all lined up nicely and ready to ‘pull’ – and this enables greater weight to be lifted, so more growth.
Secondly, there is the time under tension thing. When the palms are kept supine and a bicep lift is performed, the biceps are under constant maximal tension. They continually have a stretching sensation in them. This sensation is lost when the palm is moved more supine. By keeping the palm supine you keep the biceps in a constant state of tension, and this is phenomenal for muscle growth.
Exercises you may want to try out are incline dumbbell curls, straight-bar barbell curls, supine dumbbell curls, and preacher curls.