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Building impressive biceps is a common goal for many fitness enthusiasts, but with countless exercises out there, it's tough to know which ones are truly effective.
In this blog, we'll break down the five best exercises for targeting your biceps, explaining why each one works and providing tips to maximize your gains.
Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned lifter, these exercises will help you sculpt stronger, more defined arms.
Let's dive in!
The Biceps are a muscle group that consists of two muscles, or “heads” that work together.
These muscles control the motion of both the shoulder and elbow joints.
Our biceps are used in both lifting and pulling movements, and allow us to bend the arm and rotate our forearms.
The biceps have three main functions:
In understanding these main functions, we are going to go over the 5 best biceps exercises to maximize your bicep gains.
Why It's Effective: Barbell Bicep Curls are effective because they allow for heavy loads and bilateral movement, ensuring both arms work equally.
Tips: Keep your elbows close to your sides to maximize bicep engagement. Avoid swinging your body to maintain strict form and prevent injury.
Why It's Effective: Incline Dumbbell Curls stretch the biceps at the start of the movement, targeting the long head of the muscle more effectively.
Tips: Set the bench at a 45-degree angle and let your arms hang straight down. Focus on squeezing at the top of the curl for maximum muscle contraction.
Why It's Effective: This exercise isolates the biceps, reducing the involvement of other muscles, making it great for targeting and building peak bicep strength.
Tips: Use a controlled tempo, especially on the eccentric phase, to increase time under tension. Ensure your armpit is snug against the preacher bench to prevent shoulder involvement.
Why It's Effective: Spider Curls eliminate the possibility of using momentum, ensuring strict form and constant tension on the biceps throughout the movement.
Tips: Lie face down on an incline bench and let your arms hang. Curl the weights up and squeeze your biceps hard at the top before slowly lowering them back.
Why It's Effective: This exercise keeps constant tension on the biceps due to the cable setup, and the behind-the-back position emphasizes the stretch and contraction of the bicep's long head.
Tips: Stand in a staggered stance for better balance. Keep your elbows stationary and focus on squeezing the biceps at the peak of the curl.
According to a study by Oliveira (2009), it’s important to note that you should train them in various angles to achieve these functions.
Do curling exercises that bring the bicep in front of you.
To describe more accurately, curling exercises that bring the bicep in front of you would be the standing Barbell Curl.
In this exercise, you want to curl your bicep in a forward movement, similar to the shape of the letter “J”.
At the top of this movement, you want to squeeze the bicep for just a second.
Do curling exercises that are “behind your torso”.
To describe this accurately, picture an incline dumbbell curl where your biceps are behind your torso.
The exercise starts at an extended position, so bringing it to the top portion of the movement will provide a strong contraction.
Do curling exercises that are “in front of your torso”.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, doing an exercise like the preacher curl will help the bicep movement in the first part of the rising movement.
One of the more underrated exercises for bicep development is the pull-up.
This assists in the shoulder flexion portion of the movement, targeting the long head of the bicep.
Remember that while you will get bicep development from doing a regular pull up, you may do an underhand (chin-up) to target your bicep more.
Remember that the bicep assists with elbow flexion, so when curling at the top, make sure you extend at the bottom portion of the movement as well – extending your tricep.
Do NOT hyperextend your elbow joint (for safety reasons).
Find the exercise variations that cause better contractions for you.
For example, I find that a standing barbell curl will give huge contractions and a solid workout for the biceps.
However, when it comes to isolated exercises like the preacher curl, I feel the bicep being worked better during a Hammer Curl variation.
Use higher rep ranges when it comes to isolating your biceps.
When doing bicep exercises, use rep ranges of 8-12, 10-15, and 15-20 when you can.
For the heavier bicep exercises, stay on the lower end. For cable exercises, stay on the higher end.
For optimal bicep training and recovery, do at least 6-16 sets per week.
The reason for this is that biceps do tend to get worked when you’re working out your back, so they do tend to get overworked if you push past this amount of volume.
Remember that these muscles are small and they respond quite easily.
I recommend training biceps directly around 1-2x per week.
Incorporating these five bicep exercises into your workout routine can lead to significant strength and size gains.
Each exercise targets the biceps from different angles and emphasizes various parts of the muscle, ensuring balanced development.
Remember, the key to maximizing your results is maintaining proper form and consistency.
Challenge yourself, but always prioritize safety to avoid injuries.
Give these exercises a try, and watch your biceps grow stronger and more defined.
Until next time!
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I felt like I had no control of my life.
It got so bad that I had thoughts of ending it all.
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I saw these incredible weight loss transformations, and decided to try weight loss.
Initially, I thought that was the ticket to happiness, and jumped at it.
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Let's dive in!
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Hahn is in his 50s and JACKED.
When I am grappling with him in Jiu-Jitsu, he is a fun roll because he's a friendly guy.
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