A massive pair of biceps is certainly impressive, but forcing your arms to grow can be a lot more complicated than most people realize.  While the common 5 sets of 5 reps of dumbbell curls is fine for beginners and even some intermediate trainers, you’ve got to learn how to take your arm workouts up a notch if you really want to build big arms.

Here are a few bicep training tips that have helped me to pack on over 3 inches to my arms over the years.  Each of these arm workout tips is tried and true in the trenches and I guarantee that they will help you build bigger arms.  Read through each of these tips and start implementing them one by one – before you know it your arm workouts will be forcing your body to build some serious muscle mass and everyone will be keeping their eyes on your arms!

1.) My first tip for an effective bicep workout may seem like it’s completely unrelated to the process of training your biceps, but it’s important to your success.  If you’re serious about forcing your arms to grow, then you need to make sure that you’re performing heavy dead-lifts to failure One time each week. I’m not sure why this works but, I think it has something to do with the amount of testosterone and growth hormone that are released in your body when you perform heavy squats to failure. But rest assured it’s very effective for increasing the size of the muscles in your arms. In the past I’ve experienced an increase in the size of my biceps and triceps by 1.5″ – 2″ inches by really focusing in on my heavy squatting…while not even training by biceps at all!

2.) Also make sure that your bicep workouts are designed around the most effective growth inducing free weights exercises. If you don’t piece together your arm workouts around the right exercises, your arms simply will not grow – basic stuff.  Stick with the bicep exercises that allow you to train “hard and heavy” through a complete range of motion.

The Most Effective Bicep Exercises

1. Barbell Curl
2. EZ Bar Curl
3. Alternating Dumbbell Curl
4. Hammer Curl
5. Dumbbell Incline Curl
6. Cable Curls
7. Preacher Curl
8. Dumbbell Preacher Curl

90% of my personal bicep workouts start with either ez bar curls or barbell curls.  These basic bicep exercises allow me to train my arms hard with heavy weights.  If you consistently pound your biceps with heavy weights, they’ll have no choice but to respond by getting bigger and stronger!

3.) Perform each set of your bicep workout in the 6 – 8 repetition range.   6 -8 reps is in the accepted “muscle building” rep range, but closer to the lower side.  Focusing your arm workouts in this repetition range will allow you to stimulate as much muscle growth as possible by pounding your biceps with heavy weights. Whenever I perform bicep workouts built around this rep range, I almost always see dramatic results.

4.) Design your bicep workout so that you perform only 2 – 6 sets of 2 exercises max. This will force you to keep your workout to as reasonable amount of time while making sure that your biceps get the work they need to lay down new muscle mass. Also make sure to rest for 1.5 – 3 minutes between sets so that your muscles are totally recovered for the next set.

5.) Hit the gym to blast through your bicep workout only 1 time each week.  If you insist on training your arms more frequently than this you’re going to have a really hard time packing on any muscle mass in your arms. Sure you can get away with it for awhile, but eventually you’re going to hit a wall and actually start losing strength and size in your arms. Instead of taking the volume approach to your bicep workouts, focus on making each workout as efficient as possible – this is the key to stimulating muscle growth. Get in to the gym, get through your workout then get out of the gym as quickly as possible so that you can focus on feeding your body the nutrients that it needs to pack on muscle mass.

Take these simple bicep workout tips and run with them…Your arms will start to grow quickly. I know that this advice seems too basic to work, but it’s extremely effective for building big biceps quickly.

Bicep Workout Help is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

If you need a good solid bicep specific exercise that will literally force you to gain muscle mass and increase the shape of your arms, there is no better movement to stick into your training routine than heavy basic curls.  While I usually like to promote compound exercises for building muscle mass, I don’t consider the straight bar curl to be a compound movement. It is however, as close as you’re going to get to a compound exercise that specifically targets your biceps.

Aside from targeting the muscles in your biceps, the straight bar curl also involves a few other muscles in your shoulders, back and chest, as well as a bunch of stabilizer muscles. While most of these additional muscles have limited involvement in making the weight move through the course of this exercise, simply getting a few of the bigger muscle groups in your upper body working at the same time will produce a more anabolic environment in your biceps and will over time lead to bigger arms.

The big benefit to performing barbell curls is that you can lift very heavy weight, which in turn stimulates new muscle growth with each and every. Even with good form, you will be able to hit your biceps with a much heavier weight than you would with any other bicep exercise. Just in case you haven’t caught on yet, training with heavy weights through a complete range of motion is the best way to stimulate new muscle growth and increase your strength levels – so stick with what works here and focus on hitting your biceps hard and heavy!

I always make it a point to include heavy straight bar curls into each of my bicep workouts so that I can make sure and stimulate new growth each time I blast my biceps.  In order to get the most out of this exercise, create your biceps workout so that you’re performing heavy basic curls before you jump into  any isolation exercises.  This will allow you to make sure that you’re working your arms with heavy enough weight to make them grow before you incorporate any lighter weight isolation exercises. I will typically perform anywhere from 2 – 4 sets of barbell curls followed by  2 – 3 sets of some other isolation style exercise in order to round out my bicep workouts.

How To Perform The Basic Barbell Curl

If you really want to build bigger arms, you need to learn how to perform the straight bar curl with god form.  If you neglect your form you will eventually wind up hurting yourself and you may not be able to lift at all. So make it a point to learn how to train with proper   form.

In order to perform the barbell curl:

1.) Spread your feet out about shoulder width apart
2.) Bend at the knees and grasp the bar with an underhand grip
3.) Stand upright with the barbell hanging in front of you
4.) Hold your back straight with your shoulders back
5.) Curl the barbell up to the top of your shoulders
6.) Pause for a second and then lower the barbell (under control) back down to the starting position

If you really want to build big biceps and you want to do it quickly, then the simple basic curl should be a staple in your everyday bicep workouts.  While there is certainly nothing too exciting about performing barbell curls, over time you will be able to pack on some serious muscle mass on your arms.

The Barbell Curl is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

photo credit: Life of Sport

In comparison to some of the bigger muscle groups on your body, the muscles in your upper body are tiny. Even though there is no other muscle group on your body that will grab attention quite like a a muscular pair of biceps, one of the biggest downfalls of most guys is that they devote too much time to working on their arms and too little time training the bigger muscle groups on their bodies.

If you’re serious about building bigger biceps, then you need to prioritize your training in the following order (or at least somewhat close to this). First off target the larger muscle groups on your body and work your way down the list.

First train your…

• Legs – (quads/glutes)
• Chest – (pecs)
• Back – (lats)
• Shoulders – (delts)
• Triceps
• Biceps
• Calves

You’ll need to expend an bunch of energy hitting the bigger muscle groups hard and heavy.  If you do this, what you’ll find is that your smaller muscles (like your arms), will begin to get bigger incidentally without direct training due to the amount of muscle building hormones released by your body when you work your way through heavy sets for the bigger muscle groups on your body. So by focusing on the bigger muscle groups first and making them the focus in your training program, you will begin to realize an increase in the strength and size of your biceps.

Also keep in mind that when you perform many of the pulling type exercises that are the focus of your back training, you will be utilizing and in turn training your arms (usually with a much heavier weight than you usually would), so make sure to space your bicep and back workouts a minimum of a day apart.

Now that you’ve got your muscle building program designed properly and everything is in balance.  Then you’ll want to move forward and start working in a few basic bicep workouts.  Don’t make the mistake that nearly every guy in the gym makes and work your biceps non stop – it’s counterproductive to your goal of building bigger biceps and it will wear down your arms after too long.

In order to build bigger biceps, you need to pair down your bicep workouts to 1 arm workout per week.  That’s all the work your biceps really need to grow.  If you hit your biceps hard and heavy any more than this, they will lose size – so try not to do it!

Now that you understand how to properly prioritize your workouts and how often you need to be hitting your biceps, here’s a simple bicep workout that will help you pack on some size on your biceps quickly without taking up too much of your time in the gym.

Start out with a few minutes of light intensity aerobics.  I prefer 5 – 10 minutes of light jogging. Followed by a full body flex routine. A lot of guys only stretch out the muscle groups that they train each day – I really like to stretch out the all of the muscle groups each day so that I’m able to prevent any type of tightening up or injury.  After you get your stretching and warm up in, it’s time to jump into the weight lifting warm up sets below.

Quick Bicep Workout

First Warm Up Set:

Exercise: DB Curl – 1 set x 10 repetitions

select a training weight that allows you to move the weight quickly through a full range of motion.  I typically begin with 20 lb dumbbells.

Warm Up Set #2:

Exercise: Alternating DB Curl – 1 set x 8 reps

Again choose a weight that allows you to move the Dumbbells fairly quickly through a full range of motion, but make sure that it is heavier than what you started with. I like to jump up to 45 lb dumbbells here.

Rest for 1.5 minutes

Warm-Up Set #3:

Bicep Exercise: Alternating Dumbbell Curl – 1 set of 6 repetitions

*Perform this warm-up set with a weight that you can move though the full range of motion easily and under control, but this time begin to up crank up the intensity a bit. the goal is to complete 6 reps with a weight that is getting closer to your training weight, but light enough so that it doesn’t make your biceps tired before the workout even begins. I typically move up to 45 lb dumbbells for this set.

Now rest for 2 minutes

Keep in mind the goal of the warm up sets in this bicep workout is to simply get the blood pumping through your arms and to warm up your tendons and ligaments.  That’s the only goal of the warm-up sets. Make sure that you do not make your biceps too tired during the warm up sets by either using weights that are too heavy or by shortening the rest intervals. If you do this your biceps workout will suffer and as a result you will not be able to generate as much muscle growth as you otherwise would!

Now it’s time to jump into the actual training sets for the arm workout.

Exercise #1: DB Curl

After completing your bicep workout warm-up…

• Perform 2 sets x 6-8 reps

**Make sure to use a weight that you can control for at least 6 quality repetitions, but heavy enough that you can’t possibly perform more than 8!

• Rest for 2 minutes between sets

Bicep Exercise #2: – Dumbbell Incline Curls

• Perform 2 sets x 6-8 reps

Again make sure to use a training weight that allows you to complete the exercise with decent form, but a weight that’s heavy enough that you can’t perform more than 8.  that’s exactly how to get your biceps to grow.  If you train with a weight that’s too light, your biceps will not grow and if you train with a weight that’s too heavy you’re eventually going to hurt yourself.

When it comes to building bigger biceps, that’s really all there is to it.  Learn how to put your workouts in the right order to target the bigger muscle groups on your body first, and then move on to 1 solid bicep workout each week.  As long as your muscle building diet is set up right and you make it a habit to get enough sleep each night, you will build muscle mass quickly and your biceps will get bigger!

Bicep Workout And Arm Building Tips is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Today’s journal entry is going to be short and sweet.  I’m just going to quickly go over my biceps and triceps weight lifting workout for today and list what I ate. Tomorrow I’ll make my post a bit meatier and go over my bodybuilding nutrition strategy in-depth and teach you how I came to my target calorie value and how I’ve made adjustments to my diet up to this point.

Thursday’s Weight Lifting Workout – Biceps & Triceps

Biceps Warm-Up:
Alternating Dumbbell Curl: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Alternating Dumbbell Curl 3 sets x 5 reps
EZ Bar Curl: 3 sets x 5 reps

Triceps Warm-Up:
Skull Crushers: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 5 reps
French Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

I was able to get through 3 sets of 5 reps with 55 lbs dumbbells for alternating dumbbell curls and 3 sets of 5 reps of ez bar curls with 115 lbs.  For my triceps I was able to perform 3 sets of 5 reps of skull crushers with 145 lbs and 3 sets of 5 reps of french press with 115 lbs.

Here’s what I ate today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of spinach (in a salad)
• 1 tbs of ranch dressing
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s all for today.  If you want a weight lifting workout that will force you arms to grow, then this is a good one. It targets the strength training repetition ranges and allows you to hit your arms hard with heavy weights – enjoy!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Weight Lifting Workout is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help