No muscle group has been the target of such strenuous workouts as the biceps. And as far as arm workouts go, they make up 80%+ of all of em.
Check out any number of men at the gym and see what they’re concentrating on. It’ll be biceps. It’s an absolute obsession.<
The funny thing with biceps is that you can see results almost instantly. Wether they’re good results or not doesn’t matter, as long as the bulge is there, the pumped up look from lifting, then guys will be happy. Men’s clothes are made to enhance the look. Young men, and older men too, compete in bicep size. Women love them. Which is pretty much enough reason to work on them.
Oddly though, there are plenty of guys who, even though working on their arm workouts, don’t have big guns. You can see the guys who are most likely to suffer from this. They do bicep curls really fast, and probably have jerky movements. They spend ages looking in the mirror whilst tensing their biceps. If they were alone, you just know they would be kissing their ‘guns’.
Here are some of the reasons why
Your Arm Workouts Aren’t Working
You overdo it – If training a lot is good I’ll just work on my biceps for an hour solid. Hmm, that’s not really true. What you want to do is do a reasonable amount of sets, say 2 or 3, but to exceed what you did in your last session. Always aim to beat yourself.
You care too much how it looks while you’re doing it – Lifting a weight that’s too small for you may pump up your guns to mega proportions, but it isn’t giving you any long range benefit. They’ll go back to normal afterwards. Push yourself, overload your muscles and they will grow!
You don’t care as much about anything but biceps – Ever seen a guy with massive biceps who isn’t toned everywhere else? Nope, nor have I. You definitely need to have an all-round thing going on. Use exercises that will work more than just your arms. Push ups or rowing for example.
You only know the bicep curl – Yeah, curls are awesome, but there are other things you can do to build biceps. If you have to use curls ensure that you’re upping the intensity as you progress. Using these fantastic exercises that I learned from Vince Del Monte, you can really mix things up with simple weights.
Bicep Exercise 1: “Stress” the outer portion of the bi’s by placing your elbows outwards and using a super-close grip.
Bicep Exercise 2: “Stress” the inner portion of the bi’s by taking a super-wide grip on the bar and digging your elbows into your side (and don’t let them move.)
Bicep Exercise 3: To “stress” the brachialis and brachioradialis stick to good old fashioned hammer curls and reverse curls. Don’t underestimate these two exercises in the slightest.
The final thing you may be doing wrong is to not maintain enough constant tension. When doing curls you are being less effective swinging or jerking the weight and instead you should be keeping a constant motion, using smooth actions without pausing at the top or the bottom of your exercise.
Again, courtesy of Vince, and be sure to check out his No-Nonsense Muscle Building guide, here are the best Arm Workouts I’ve ever seen:
