Mark Sandor gives essential tips to maximize biceps hypertrophy.
Bodybuilders everywhere understand the importance of robust biceps – they’re crucial for lifting and pulling, and having them look good is a plus! Mutant Nation athlete Mark Sandor knows this and follows valuable tips for an even bigger upper body. He follows a certain criteria when training biceps to get there, which helps him maintain maximum strength throughout his workout regimen. Get your own bulging biceps with Sandor’s advice at hand!
Two muscles make up your biceps brachii, also known as your biceps. The long head is on the outside of the lateral side, and the short head is on the inside or the medial side (1). Exercises like curls, chin-ups, and bent-over rows can help you target and grow your bicep heads.
Mark Sandor is taking us through a full-body workout series where we receive invaluable workout tips from this Mutant Nation athlete. Mark Sandor is a fitness specialist who has helped many others hit and smash their body transformation goals.
For this episode of this seven-part series, Mark shows us how to train both heads of the biceps to get bigger, fuller biceps. In addition, he shares tips on the proper grips and the best form to maximize gains. Are you ready? Because we are! Here’s what we learned from Mark Sandor’s biceps workout.
Mark Sandor Biceps Workout
Here’s a complete breakdown of Sandor’s biceps workout:
| Exercises |
| Close Grip Barbell Curl |
| Wide Grip Barbell Curl |
| Incline Bench Dumbbell Curl |
Close Grip Barbell Curl
The close grip barbell curl is done with a narrower grip than your shoulder width. This keeps your arms turned in; the internal rotation fully involves the long head of your biceps in any movements you make. In addition, doing a barbell curl in this position builds up your biceps peaks, which make up a good part of your biceps mass, leading to fuller-looking biceps.
Close-grip barbell curls improve your pulling and grip strength. This is important for lifters into heavy lifting – the lifting that gets you strong and builds up those muscles! In addition, using a barbell allows you to use much heavier weight than a dumbbell would have you, increasing your tendon thickness (2).
When doing the close grip barbell curl, it’s best to keep your elbows tightly at your torso to ensure that your shoulders aren’t doing the work — this can happen when you start swaying your arms to curl the weight. You should brace your ab core for stability and avoid swinging the weight. Don’t forget to extend your elbow at the bottom to get that full range of motion for significant results. Sandor stated:
“A great exercise to train the long head is to do a close grip barbell curl.”
Wide Grip Barbell Curl
As the name suggests, the wide grip barbell curl is done with a wider grip than shoulder width. The lifter turns externally and rotates their arms at the shoulder joint. This rotation brings more involvement from the biceps short head, working the muscle there more effectively and giving it more width, thus promoting a fuller look.
A wide-grip barbell curl allows you to use more weight than the narrow-grip option. This leads to more muscle hypertrophy and lets you build bigger, stronger biceps. It also helps with grip strength and improves your arm’s definition.
When doing a wide grip barbell curl, ensure your body remains fixed. And again, use only your biceps to move the weight. Do each rep slowly and squeeze your biceps at the top to fully contract them. Remember to keep your elbow position stable during this exercise, too, to activate the short head of your biceps.
Sandor shows us how to train the short head of your biceps using the wide grip barbell curls. He said:
“If you want to train the short head, which is this inside one, you just do a wide grip outside of shoulder grip.”
Incline Bench Dumbbell Curl
The incline bench dumbbell curl works on the biceps brachii, including the short and long heads. It helps to build a strong shoulder position which you will find helpful when doing bench presses, dips, barbell rows, and back squats since good shoulder stabilization is needed to perform those movements.
Incline bench dumbbell curls work on your brachialis and brachioradialis (forearm muscles), making your arms look more massive overall. The brachialis sits beneath your biceps, and growing them will push your biceps up, making your arm look bigger. Plus, they have carryover to curls since their required to maintain good grip strength each rep.
Incline dumbbell curls help you improve your pulling strength, which will come into play on all back movements, such as lat pulldowns and deadlifts. Keep your shoulder in position when doing this exercise, and lower the dumbbells slowly to maximize your size-building benefits. Don’t forget to squeeze your biceps as you do each rep to activate the biceps brachii to their full extent (3).
For the incline bench dumbbell curls, Sandor uses a supinated (overhand) grip with his arms hanging back to train the short head of the biceps.
“Put the bench on a 45-degree angle, lean back, let your arms hang back. You’re going to supinate your hands and bring the dumbbells straight up. So this will train the short head.”
You can check out the biceps workout episode of the 7-Part Mutant Mark Sandor workout series below:
@mutantnation Why settle for a one-sided bicep when you can have the full package? ???? Watch and learn how to target both heads on your biceps and achieve that perfect symmetry. ???????????? #GymTok #TrainingTips #BicepsWorkout #WorkoutTips ♬ original sound – MUTANT Nation – Supplements ☣️
Stay tuned as we follow more episodes of Mark Sandor’s routines and the helpful bodybuilding tips that he shares for building more muscle!
Supplementation
Aside from the heavy lifting, Mark uses some quality supplements to help him with recovery and growth. He is a MUTANT athlete, and they have some of the best products to help pack on muscle. One of those products that can help with recovery is the amino acid, MUTANT GEAAR.
MUTANT GEAAR is one of the better amino acid supplements on the market. Not only do they contain all 9 essential amino acids that your body can’t produce on its own, but they also have arginine, which is critical to include to optimize muscle-building and recovery which is great because of how it plays an important role in the metabolism of an organism.
Amino acids help you grow and repair muscle tissue and recover from workouts. That being said, adding the right amino acid supplement to your nutrition will help you break plateaus in the gym and take your physique to the next level.
So, when you are doing the Mark Sandor biceps workout, keep recovery in mind with MUTANT GEAAR!
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References
- Brigido, M. K., De Maeseneer, M., & Morag, Y. (2013). Distal biceps brachii. Seminars in musculoskeletal radiology, 17(1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0033-1333910
- Wiesinger, H. P., Kösters, A., Müller, E., & Seynnes, O. R. (2015). Effects of Increased Loading on In Vivo Tendon Properties: A Systematic Review. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 47(9), 1885–1895. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000603
- Schoenfeld, B. J., Vigotsky, A., Contreras, B., Golden, S., Alto, A., Larson, R., Winkelman, N., & Paoli, A. (2018). Differential effects of attentional focus strategies during long-term resistance training. European Journal of sports science, 18(5), 705–712. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2018.1447020
