Build The Biceps of Your Dreams With These Tips
Most people get a gym membership because they want to grow their arm size. Muscular biceps are the symbol of masculinity, and it’s not going to change anytime soon. While many people spend countless hours working on their guns, only a few of them end up getting them in some sort of shape.
Training your arms for muscle mass and definition isn’t only about lifting a couple of dumbbells for a few reps. You need to take a holistic approach to take your bicep game to the next level. Tweaking your arm workouts a little can help you carve the guns of your dreams.
Use Thicker Bars
While performing bicep exercises, holding onto thicker bars can put more tension on your forearms which can lead to higher muscle tissue recruitment in the biceps. If you don’t have thick bars at your gym, you can use fat grips to make any kind of bar thicker.
The thicker the bar, harder it will be for you to hold onto them. You’ll have to use comparatively lighter weights while performing the exercises while using fat bars. Thicker bars will force you to squeeze your fists to be able to hold onto the bar which will lead to better muscle pumps.
Train the Biceps From All Angles
Most people make the mistake of training their biceps from one angle by only performing exercises like hammer, dumbbell, barbell and cable curls. You need to train the outer, medial and inner heads of your biceps for overall development.
While performing the barbell curls, holding the bar at shoulder width will target your medial bicep head. Grabbing the bar with a wider than shoulder-width grip will target the inner head (the peak in front double bicep pose) and narrower than shoulder-width grip will hit the outer head (the peak in the back double bicep pose).
Switch Your Intensity
You don’t always have to stick to the vanilla 3 sets of 12-10-8 rep scheme. You need to change your intensity to shock your pythons into growing. Maintain a balance between isolation (single joint) and compound (multiple-joint) exercises for optimal bicep growth.
Switch your intensity by changing your sets and rep scheme. Perform 5 sets of 10 reps in exercises like the cable curls in the first week and 3 sets of 20 reps in the next week. You can also switch the intensity between exercises in the same workout by performing 10 reps in the first exercise and 20 in the next.
Use Advanced Training Techniques
If you follow the same training program for a long time, you risk hitting a plateau. Using advanced training techniques like the drop-sets, supersets, BFR (blood flow restriction) training, intra-set stretch training, etc. can help you break through the overhead roof.
You can take your bicep game to the next level by combining all the tips mentioned in the article in the same workout. For example, you could use a thick bar, change the grip position, switch your intensity, use advanced training techniques and change time under tension while performing the three sets of the same exercise.
Change Time Under Tension
Time under tension (TuT) is one of the most overlooked factors in bodybuilding. A higher TuT can lead to a higher breakdown of muscle tissue and can lead to better muscle pumps and development. Changing the time under tension can prove incredibly effective in polishing your guns.
Focus on your rep tempos and switch them up to annihilate your biceps. A sample machine preacher curl rep tempo scheme could be – two seconds on the concentric (upward) movement, one-second contraction at the top of the movement, four seconds on the eccentric (downward) movement, and no pause at the bottom (2:1:4:0).
How often do you train your biceps? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
*Header image courtesy of Envato Elements
