The biggest mistake beginners make when training arms is to believe that they need a variety of twelve curls to confuse the muscle to grow. Forget muscle confusion. Your biceps aren’t confused—they’re just working. Growth comes from gradually challenging the muscle, not from inventing new dumbbell curl techniques.
In my last installment I talked about how biceps grow. I covered the Growth Equation, the importance of time under tension, why strength always trumps volume, and why the often overlooked brachialis muscle needs as much attention as the biceps themselves. Now it’s time to put all that information to use.
Remember, your biceps are small muscles. They also help during all the heavy back work you do. Pull-ups, chin-ups, pulldowns and rows all engage the biceps secondarily. When the day comes, they have already done their part of the work. That means quality is more important than quantity. These four exercises are more than enough to get your biceps pumping by the time you’re done.
4 Bicep Exercise Workout For Big Arms
Standing Barbell Curl:
4 sets, 12, 10, 8, 8 reps
Start your workout with standing barbell curls. Nothing fancy. Just you, a barbell and solid form. Forget weight swings, back swings or turning exercise into a full-body Olympic event. Your elbows should stay close to your sides while the biceps are doing the work. If you own an arm blaster, now is the time to use it. Do four consecutive heavy sets of 12, 10, 8 and 8 repetitions. The first set is just a warmup. Each set after that should increase in weight until those last two reps are a real battle.
Seated Dumbbell Curl:
4 sets, 8-10 reps
Once the barbell work is done, move on to alternating seated dumbbell curls. Because the muscle is already warmed up, there’s no reason to waste energy going back through a few light sets. Choose a challenging weight and perform four sets of eight to ten repetitions, focusing on squeezing the biceps at the top of each repetition before lowering the dumbbell slowly under control. Resist the temptation to let gravity do the work. Remember, losing weight is still part of exercise.
Standing Hammer Curl:
1 warmup set, then 4 sets, 8-10 reps
Now it’s time to show the brachialis a little respect. Standing hammer curls are one of the fastest ways to add thickness to the upper arm because they stress the brachialis that lies beneath the biceps. As that muscle grows, it literally pushes the biceps up, making the entire arm appear larger. Do one warm-up set followed by four challenging sets of eight to ten repetitions. By now your arms should be questioning every decision you’ve made since you walked through the gym door.
Straight or EZ Bar 21s
If you really want to find out what your pain tolerance looks like, it’s time to finish a workout with one of the oldest and most brutal arm finishers—21.
If you were born in the ’90s, you probably think the 21 is an aftermarket tire. But if you trained in the gym before health clubs became community clubs, you know exactly what’s coming.
Twenty-one is not a lot. They are the finisher. By the time you get to them, your biceps should be completely exhausted. The goal now is to prolong the time under pressure, drive as much blood to the muscle as possible and push yourself to the point of failure.
Load a straight bar or EZ-curl bar with a weight that you can repeatedly curl twenty times hard, then lower the weight. You are about to do twenty one continuous repetitions divided into three sets of seven repetitions.
Start with seven downward repetitions, curling the bar from full extension to about half way up. Pause in a neutral position before lowering the weight under complete control. Without putting the bar down, do seven repetitions at the top, starting in the middle and curling up to fully contract, squeezing the biceps hard before lowering it only halfway. Finally, do seven full-width reps from bottom to top, flexing the biceps as hard as you can for every rep.
If you’ve chosen the weight correctly, your biceps should feel like they’re filled with wet concrete by the time you finish the set. Rest for about ninety seconds and repeat three or four more rounds if you feel like it.
One of my favorite ways to do 21 is with a training partner. Stand face to face. When you finish your set, don’t pull the bar back. Give it directly to your partner and start seeing him through his repetitions. As soon as he finishes, he hands the bar right back to you. No sitting down. No checking your phone. No wandering around the gym pretending to be in recovery. It’s just a work in progress until you both finish.
Done right, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another biceps workout that’s as taxing on the mind. By the last three reps of your last set, it should feel like someone is cutting your arm off with a dull saw.
It’s a feeling you’ll never have standing on a Bosu ball.
Raise, Repeat, Repeat
Of course, none of this will amount to much if you don’t feed the muscle you just destroyed. Remember the second part of the Growth Equation. Training creates motivation. Recovery builds muscle. That means plenty of protein, fat, quality complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, hydration and enough sleep. Add a quality multivitamin/mineral supplement, enough protein to support recovery and, if you enjoy increased energy and focus, a well-designed pre-workout can help promote a productive period.
Most importantly, be patient.
No one builds quality arms in a month. Building impressive biceps is not the same as building an impressive body. It takes consistency, consistent overload, good nutrition and enough strength to convince your body that big, strong arms are no longer an option.
Keep showing up.
Keep adding weight.
Keep chasing another lawyer.
Do that long enough, and those biceps will be popping!
