Biceps Training Tips

Gain 1 inch on your arms with these 8 tips that will force your biceps to grow.

Training the two muscles that make up your biceps does not mean that you need to do biceps curls only. Your forearms and your grip strength are going to play a big part on how big your guns get. Below are eight basic training tips that might help you increase the size of your biceps.

1. An Overrated Biceps Movement?

Cable curls, whether single or both arms, is an overrated movement because the closer you get to the pulley the more tension will be lost by elbow movement away from your sides, when the weight is lifted concentrically. It's important to note that when your hands holding a weight are above your elbows, the biceps are not fully contracted, they're resting.

When your hands are above your elbows the load is put on the elbows, not the biceps. Good form is keeping your elbows well back, touching your oblique's. When doing a movement like single-arm cable curls you should take a few steps back, away from the pulley to keep the tension on your biceps.

2. An Underrated Biceps Movement?

Probably the best movement for increasing the height or the peak of your biceps is a movement like standing D/B curls. When this movement is done correctly it certainly can make a difference to your biceps peak.

3. Preacher curls

A great movement for the inner-shorter head of your biceps, it will make a difference if you pause at the top of the movement and squeeze, always ensure continuous tension throughout the movement. Full range stretching at the bottom to that extra squeeze at the top.

4. Preacher Curls tip

Start by doing 1 to 2 sets doing 10-12 reps for a pump set, then do drop-sets reducing your max by 25% when muscle failure is reached. Complete the drop-set by doing partials, 6 X bottom to hallway, 6 X halfway to up and full-squeeze. If you've got a spotter try 6 full range of motion to complete.

5.Vary your grip

The width of the grip you use when doing barbell curls could make an enormous difference to your biceps growth. When a normal shoulder-width grip your long (outer) head will get the same amount of tension as your short (inner) head. The wider your grip, the more you'll be using your short head, the narrower your grip, the more your long head will be emphasized.

6. Partial Reps Training Biceps?

Whenever you do full range of motion (ROM) on a movement like barbell curls, you will be limited by the weight you can lift through the weakest part of your ROM (when using proper form). Doing a movement like seated barbell curls, removes the bottom portion of the curl because the bar rests on your thighs, putting more stress on your biceps. This puts greater overload on your biceps, since you'll always be strongest at the top half of your full ROM.

7. Important to cycle

Just like any body-part the biceps adapt to anything that is done on a regular basis. This means you need to make sure that even if you've got a favorite biceps movement that you know works for you, there's still other techniques that should be included to ensure maximum biceps growth.

8. Techniques to ensure growth

Negatives and partials are both very good additions that can be included in any good biceps workout. Additional techniques that have proven to be successful on biceps are drop-sets, forced reps and cheat curls.

For more information checkout Old School Arm Building Secrets.