Poor Response From Bicep Exercises
Obtaining size-able bicep muscles are usually high on the priority list for guys training to build amazing physiques.
For individuals that are new to bodybuilding, they quickly can become inundated with a plethora of bicep training workouts, many of which vary from high volume to low volume or frequent to infrequent training sessions.
It seems for hard gainers, or guys that have difficulty getting specific muscle groups to grow, the solutions suggested involves a ‘more is better’ approach when all else fails.
While volume or infrequent training may be a problem for a few, the issue may really come down to principles of technique that may have ignored or not considered.
Isolating smaller muscle groups such as the biceps, require a basic understanding of how they function and angles which they can be targeted to properly develop them.
How to Build Bigger Bicep Muscles
The bicep brachii muscles, or simply known as the biceps, are often thought of as one large muscle fiber located in the front of the upper arm.
The biceps are actually consisted of three muscle fibers that helps the arm function with elbow and shoulder flexion, as well as supination of the wrist. The three muscle fibers of the biceps are the short head, long head, and the brachialis.
Before isolating any of the three muscle of the biceps, a trainee should cover the basics of building overall strength with heavy compound movements.
These would be the common back/bicep exercises like the barbell and bent over rows, lat pulldowns, and pull-ups. The biceps, being the assisting muscle in these exercises, should grow stronger and larger over time.
Once a reasonable amount of strength has been obtained with these exercises, you can concentrate on your muscle fibers that may be lagging more than others. Simply doing a bunch of dumbbell or barbell curls won’t cut it.
The long head part of the bicep that’s visible in a double bicep pose from the back or when performing curls across the chest, is targeted best with exercises utilizing all functions of elbow, shoulder flexion, and supination. Exercises would be weighted chin-ups, incline dumbbell curls, and preacher curls.
The short head fiber is targeted by externally rotating the shoulder while lifting the weight.
An example of this would be a dumbbell curl that finishes the contraction of the curl with the pinky finger facing upward. When you rotate your shoulders while lifting the weight, you force the bicep closer to your body (short head) to contract harder.
For a wider, thicker biceps, you want to concentrate on developing the brachialis muscle. The brachialis is responsible for elbow flexion and is activated the most when the weight is curled across the chest.
Exercises for the brachialis would be the Hammer Curls and Crossbody Curls.
Once you have progressed well with the isolation movements for the biceps, you can move onto drop-sets and supersets for additional progressive growth.
Starting with a heavy weight to perform 8-12 reps, you can immediately go into another set targeting the same muscle group or strip the weight down to perform the exercise to failure. Training with supersets/drop-sets pushes the muscles past the comfort zone for additional growth.
The Wrap Up
If you’ve been training your biceps to failure with very high repetitions or frequent training with little to no results, you may be overlooking your technique in your workouts. All three muscle fibers should be targeted when developing the biceps, especially after establishing a strong base of strength from compound movement lifts. Isolate your weak points in your biceps training to see where you can make adjustments to progress further.
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