Building Better Biceps - Gain Muscle & Tone Your Arms

Building up better biceps comes by combining several exercises. The biceps are made up of 2 heads hence its name. You want to ensure an even build of both inner and outer bicep heads to get a nice full biceps peak.

Variations of "super" and "tri setting", alternating high/lo sets and reps with heavy/light load will help balance the growth of your arms. By using dumbbells you will make each arm work for itself where as bar exercises will allow your stronger arm to assist with the weaker. Combining both of these modes is suggested. Some diet and cardio on top and you will drop your body fat enough to show your sculpted arms.

I would start week 1 with 3 straight sets of 12, hitting the biceps twice per week with 3-4 exercises per session. Week 2 would change to 4 sets of 12, week 3 you will increase weight and pyramid sets of 6, 8, 10, 8, and 6. Week 4 you will use super and tri setting.

Building Better Biceps - Exercises Week 1

• Barbell Curls
• Alternating Dumbbell Curls
• Preacher Curls
• Single Arm Cable Curls

Building Better Biceps - Exercises Week 2

• Chin Ups
• Incline Dumbbell Curls
• Forearm Curls
• Dumbbell Hammer Curls

Building Better Biceps - Exercises Week 3

• Alternating Dumbbell Curls
• Preacher Curls
• Concentration Curls
• Cable Curls

Building Better Biceps - Exercises Week 4

• Hammer Curls super set with Concentration Curls
• Preacher Curls tri set with Forearm Curls
• Incline Dumbbell Curls

This will fatigue your forearms and you may need to rest up to 3 mins between some of your Week 4 super and tri sets. With your alternating and incline Dumbbell curls you will want to turn the pinkie inwards on the way up and release it on the way down. This will help focus contraction on the 2nd head of the biceps for fuller shape.

Making your negative or the ‘down phase’ slower than the contraction or up phase, will also enhance muscle growth. Although Chins do affect the back as well as the biceps, they do use the biceps as your primary muscle involved yet it is more of a compound movement because of the help that comes with your back assisting in the exercise. Most of the other exercise choices are isolated movements used by the bicep with no help from the stabilizers. I include forearm exercises simply because you cannot train a muscle without conditioning the main muscles that help along the way. Forearms take a huge brunt of biceps work and in many cases may hinder your ability to increase weights lifted due to a ‘super pump’ effect where you fell you can no longer move and fail yet it is not due to the biceps fatiguing but due to the forearms being weaker and failing. Keeping them ‘up to par’ will help your biceps enhancement!

A few weeks on this program and you will find yourself happily shaping your upper arms into sleek mean muscle machines, showing not only a round peak but slight separation distinguishing the biceps as 2 (accompanied by proper diet of course).

By Linda Cusmano