Sooo My Biceps suck. I have hit them with Pullups, iso exercises, high volume, high intensity, high frequency but not structure.
I made a linear progression periodization for Biceps. Basically Max Reps at a weight then add a bit more next workout. When the reps go below 4 I reset and start over.
I chose Bar Curls, Rev Grip Bar Curls and Hammer Curls for this. I will also continue doing Pullups 2+ times a week.
Questions:
Any tips for Biceps?
Favorite exercises for Biceps?
Is periodizing Bicep work ridiculous? but will it work?
I wouldnāt call this āperiodizationā. Everyone I know who has big biceps did something similar to this in the 90s without even a fixed plan for progression so Iām surprised this is even a novel concept. So you are absolutely not nuts lol.
The key is not to sacrifice the quality of the contraction of the biceps for the weight used.
Favourite Curls AKA fluff exercises: DB Non Alternating Strict as Fuck Curls, Hammer Curls and Cable Curls
Iām the first one to throw āprogressive overloadā at anything related to hypertrophy lel but overloading isnāt just about weight and in the case of biceps IMO it shouldnāt be.
Biceps are just hard to expose to load and increased loading effectively in the first place. e.g. if you add 10kg onto your bench youāre exposing your pecs to that increased load stimulating growth whereas if you throw more weight onto curls even a little bit youāll be cheating little by little in no time. When its hip thrust and shoulder front raising momentum thatās doing more and more of the work as well as torso lean and manipulating the angle the arm is working at to get to make the torque requirements easier on the biceps it all gets a bit ineffective. Adding weight isnāt as effective at overloading the biceps as one would think.
This pretty much but is kinda a easier said than done thing.
Progressive overload is more than just weight tho. Increasing volume over time is just as good stimulus for muscle growth. For curls I reckon this is a good approach coupled with regular progressive overload on chins and other pulling movements.
For example say week 1 we do a super super super strict curl variation 10kg/hand for 5 sets of 10 reps per week. We got plenty of options here to overload while using the same weight.
More reps: strict of course so when you start pausing to rest or swinging a bit youāre done. This way you can progress to 15-20+ reps over time.
More sets: workload over time includes workload per week and this can be overloaded. Say you do 5 sets of biceps the first week and 20 weeks later youāve worked your way up to doing 25 sets of bicep curls. This is progressive overload/stimulus for muscle growth while still using the same weight as week 1.
Other shit: Like intensity techniques e.g. drop sets, blood flow restriction training or reducing rest time can be effective as well but I donāt use it much myself because you can go so far with the first two strats.
When youāve exhausted the above add 2.5kg and repeat.
I like to work up strict curling as much as possible on the way up and cheat curl till Iām up to 6 rep sets. Exaggerated eccentrics on all. I also like finishing with drag curls sometimes. Bands are good too for keeping tension, throughout the whole range of motion. I like doing them from a dead start off pins occasionally too, but usually just if Iām stuck at a weight for awhile.
Pick just one excercise to get progressive with and push the weight up, something like hammer curls 5x5/4x6 .
After that tons of contraction work and technique focus just trying to get a crazy pump , basically thisā¦
