Big Biceps: first on every athlete’s wishlist

The size of your biceps will be largely determined by your genes, which are what mark your potential. However, not everything depends on genes. Your effort, your diet-plan and, of course, your training strategy will also be of great importance. You may not achieve biceps like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s when he was on top of his game, but: you will no doubt reach a development that won’t leave your pals at the gym indifferent, if you follow our strategy correctly.

When we talk about the biceps muscle in our arms, we refer to the biceps brachii, a muscle with a particular capacity for development made up of 2 extremes: the long head, which is located on the outside of the arm, and the short head, located on the inside. The objective of the biceps brachii is to allow arm mobility and elbow flexion.

Once we can locate these two bundles of muscle fibres and know what they do, it’s time to learn what exercises will lead to their development.

Mechanical Tension is the main strategy to produce muscle hypertrophy. Mechanical tension is the resistance our muscles have to face (through lifting), considered according to intensity (weight) and duration of effort (time under tension).

To explain it more graphically: it consists in lifting heavy loads at slow or moderate pace, for a period of time between 30 and 50 seconds, doing the traditional 6 to 12 reps.

Metabolic stress is another mechanism responsible for producing muscle hypertrophy. It consists of maintaining a constant tension in your muscle, without rest between repetitions and without reaching full stretch or flexion. In this way, the blood becomes trapped within the muscle fibres, restricting the supply of oxygen, which produces a great pumping and burning sensation. In Bodybuilding slang, it’s known as “Go for pump and burn.”

Basically, metabolic stress is achieved by working high number of reps with low or moderate loads, using pulleys, rubber bands, dumbbells and light bars.

Finding the best strategy to develop your biceps is key. Although each athlete responds differently, there seems to be a strong consensus that the mechanical stress produced by heavy loads (above 65% of 1RM, i.e. the maximum weight you can lift in 1 rep) is the best stimulus we can give our biceps to grow. That load will determine the number of reps you can do and the speed necessary to complete them, always doing the technique correctly.

The pulley curl is great for putting metabolic stress to work, no matter what grip you use. Look for short reps to find the muscle pump.

Concentration curl, as the one performed on a Scott bench, is ideal for working the short head of the biceps.

Now that you know the importance of prioritizing exercises that induce great mechanical stress, and now that you’ve learned the composition of your biceps (with its two heads), it’s time to choose the best exercises. Our recommendation is that you work both heads with equal intensity and attention. Try not to focus only on your favourite exercise, but on the whole spectre of exercises. This will allow you to have balanced biceps. It will also reduce the risk of injury when handling very heavy loads – and they also have their place in the hypertrophy game.

Long head exercises:

• Close grip Barbell Curl.
• Dumbbell hammer Curl.
• Zottman Curl.

Short head exercises:

• Wide grip Barbell Curl.
• Scott bench Curl with EZ bar.
• Spider Curl

Please remember: the exercises are important, but the key is the intensity with which you perform them. The weight-load and time under tension are more important than doing a standing curl or resting your arm on a Scott bench. Varying the exercises will help you vary the working angles, and thus not adapt too easily, but what is really important is your level of effort and the time you maintain it.

Curl with heavy dumbbells: an excellent option to start your biceps work.

1. Focus your work on the muscle. Avoid swaying and momentum when lifting the load.

2. Do the lifting (also known as the concentric part) in an explosive way and the lowering (the eccentric part) in a controlled, slow way.

3. Maintain a full range of motion, when working strength (mechanical tension).

4. Always seek to do the exercises with a correct technique.

5. As you adjust to the weight-load, try to increase it by 5% and maintain the same number of reps.

6. Try not to overdo your training. The biceps is a small muscle that responds better to short, heavy workouts than to long workouts with a large number of sets.