In every gym in the world right now, there are people who always say their biceps are the first thing they want to improve. There’s something about full, towering biceps that has symbolized strength since the early days of bodybuilding. Ironically, the biceps aren’t even the biggest muscle in the upper arm—that distinction belongs to the triceps, which account for about two-thirds of its weight—but no one has ever asked to see someone flex their triceps. Big biceps command attention.
The good news is that building impressive arms is not complicated. The bad news is that it’s not easy, either. Like every other muscle in your body, the biceps respond to only one thing: the reason for growth. You have to give your body the necessary stimulation to force it to adapt. If you’re not, Mother Nature is perfectly content to leave your arms exactly the size they are.
Lebedev Roman Olegovich
The Growth Formula: A Simple Formula for Creating Big, Strong Biceps
If you’ve been following this beginner series, you’ve probably noticed that I boil down muscle growth to one simple formula:
Every workout you do should satisfy the first part of that equation. Your job in the gym is to expose the muscles to enough controlled stress, enough time, and enough intensity to convince your body that the current version of your biceps is no longer up to the job. Once you accomplish that, your job is done. Real muscle growth happens later, while you eat, rest and recover.
This is where many beginners get behind.
They think that muscles are built by doing more exercises, more sets and spending more time in the gym. In fact, the opposite is often true. The biceps are a small group of muscles. They don’t require twenty different curl variations or marathon arm workouts. They need focused effort, strong execution and enough stamina to push beyond their current capabilities.
In other words, quality beats quantity every time.
Before we talk about exercise, there is one piece of anatomy that will immediately improve your training. The front of your upper arm is made up primarily of two muscles: the biceps brachii and the brachialis. Everyone knows the biceps because they are the muscles you see when you bend over. The brachialis sits beneath it, quietly doing its job while being completely ignored.
That is a mistake.
How To Make Your Biceps Look Bigger Without Adding Extra Exercise
Developing the brachialis can actually make your arms look bigger because as it grows, it pushes the biceps up, creating more fullness and improving the appearance of your top. It’s one of the best-kept secrets of bodybuilding, yet many lifters spend years doing nothing but traditional curls with their palms facing up.
A complete arm cycle trains both muscles.
The holding position plays a big role here. Traditional curls with your palms facing up put more emphasis on the biceps. Hammer curls, done with your palms facing each other, shift more of the load to the brachialis while contracting the biceps more. That’s why an effective arm program includes both.
Another point that beginners often overlook is that biceps are not only worked on arm day. All heavy rowing movements, chin-ups, pull-ups and pull-downs get the biceps as the second muscle group. By the time your scheduled arm workout comes around, they’ve been working for the week. That means more is not better. If you’re creating the type of intensity training we’ve discussed throughout this series, eight quality sets of biceps, followed by a few sets that emphasize the brachialis, are usually more than enough to stimulate growth.
Why Stress Is More Important Than Choosing to Exercise
Choosing to exercise, despite what social media would have you believe, is largely a personal matter. Barbell curls, dumbbell curls, instructor curls, cable curls, incline curls—they all work when done correctly. There is no magic workout hidden somewhere in the gym that will suddenly add two inches to your arms. The best exercise is the one that allows you to isolate the target muscles, maintain a strong posture and generate maximum intensity.
That is a common feature.
No matter what type you choose, remember why you are doing it. You’re not trying to move a weight from Point A to Point B. You’re trying to force your biceps to do enough quality work, under enough stress, to trigger an adaptive response that leads to muscle growth. A dumbbell doesn’t know how much it weighs. Your muscles don’t know whether you’re holding a straight bar, an EZ-curl bar or a cable handle. They see the tension.
That is why principles are always more important than exercises.
In Part Two we’ll apply all of this to a complete arm routine designed to build big, strong biceps while giving the brachialis the attention it deserves. We’ll be revisiting one of the worst old-school shooters ever designed—a 21’s legend. They are not complicated, they are not fancy, and they are certainly not comfortable. But if you’re looking for beach ball biceps, they might be your new favorite form of abuse.
