Trouble gaining bicep muscles

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makaveli777

Bluelighter
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Jan 14, 2006
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I've found that the muscles that grow best on my are definitely my pectoral muscles. Very easy to maintain for me even with minimal time spent on them.

I've been having a lot of trouble getting any biceps worth looking at. The only exercise i know for these is curls. Any recommendations? Techniques?
 
weighted chinups

what do you do for your legs? Sounds counter-intuitive but working your legs hard (squats and deads) will give you bigger arms. It has to do with GH and testosterone release.

Floor presses are also gnarly for getting bigger tris. Do some heavy doubles/triples with a barbell from the floor once a week for a few weeks then tell me your tris aren't blowing up - bigger triceps = bigger arms.

Also hitting deadlifts real hard will work your arms. I always wake up with my biceps sore from HEAVY deadlifting (so sore that its goodpainful to stretch them completely).

bicep curls are worthless until you've gotten competent on the above lifts
 
like sunyata said, its all about compound exercises. as far as isolation goes, ive had good results with 21's, preacher curls, and concentrated dumbbell curls.
 
There's not a lot of point to doing bicep isolation exercises. For me, every combination of chinup and pullup with every kind of grip and different distances between hands, plus negative chinups and pullups, and extremely slow (10 seconds per each side of a repetition) pullups is enough of a bicep workout.
 
bicep curls do feel good after doing heavy lat/back work. Dunno why maybe its an ego stroke thing. But they're nice to tack on right at the end
 
some people flex there biceps throughout the day, not really to fatigue but to get a little pump going and improve on vascular and nerve response.
 
When i was actually hitting the weights hard i got big biceps just by getting big arms. I did dumbbell curls, tricep exercises, bench press and butterflys. I ended up getting big arms all around but i could still pump a pretty big bicep.

I wasent looking to get big biceps i just wanted to get big.
 
an intense regime of hammer curls and standard curls standing up with dumbells with a very heavy weight(example: if you can usually do 20lbs 10reps then go 30-35 and do 4reps) and preacher cure of similar extreme weight low rep. This will build the muscle mass you desire & enable you to later on trim it down into solid defined rock had muscle!

close grip pull up's and bent over rows are also what you want to work the same day u do biceps. Always do back and biceps same day & chest & triceps same day.
 
thanks, you all have been a big help. I don't know if I should open a separate thread for this question but is it bad to try and work out all your muscles in a single day? For example going to the gym and switching from free weights to machine and so forth.

And sunyata to answer your question, I try and go on a 10 mile bike ride at least 3 times a week and that seems to work out my hamstrings quite a bit. Lately with the amount of pollen its been difficult (east coast). I've been resorting to an elliptical <not sure if thats spelled correctly. I also swim for 30 minutes about 3 times a week. Swimming nor the elliptical work my legs entirely too much.
 
it depends. back and biceps should be done on the same day As well as** triceps and chest on another day since most exercises for one uses the other and this will avoid over training. Its important to take time off, if your over working your body wont grow.
 
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Most people try to split their body up into compound sections and work on one section per day. Such as, back and arms, or legs and core. If you are only going to the gym twice per week though I see nothing wrong with working out every muscle group completely both times.
 
To get big arms u need to get big triceps. Only train them once a week. Eat alot of food and sleep 8-10 hours a day. I do 21s for biceps which involves lifting barbell half way from ur leg then half way from a 90 degree angle to ur chin then all the way as u normaly do curls. Look it up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWIyZUY2Hj8

Then do preacher and close grip chinups using ur biceps. Then for triceps do dips and kickbacks. Thats how i got my 47cm biceps. Im all natural now btw.
 
I used to have extremely ripped biceps and tricepts and forearms for my frame size naturally heres the method I used:

1) Eat 3 meels a day with healty snacks in between and whey protein shake twice a day in between meals

2) Take amino acid suppliment/mulitvitamins/flax seed oil daily.

3) Use both high rep low weight curls and low rep high weight curls, switching it up between curl bar, and dumbells, preacher curls, and reverse curls.

4) Use other workouts like seated rows, pull ups and dips at the end of your workout.

5)Only work out your bicepts like twice a week, split up your workouts by body parts like others have suggested.

These things really helped me gain large ripped bicepts but YMMV, my body recovers quickly when I get a workout routiene going. Genetics play a huge role in muscle development as well as nutrition and sleep. My friends accused me of being or roids/HGH but I never touched the stuff.
 
FrostyMcFailure said:
it depends. back and biceps should be done on the same day as triceps and chest since most exercises for one uses the other and this will avoid over training. Its important to take time off, if your over working your body wont grow.
Click to expand...

I'm struggling to think of an exercise that uses both triceps and biceps...
 
yeah i could have worded better but it could've been read either way.


Chest & triceps/deltoids are one group to work on one day & the back & biceps on another since they use each other as supporting muscles for the main compound exercises.
 
Coolio's advice is probably best. You want to use a number of different types of bicep exercises, in order to hit all the components of the muscle, and various supporting musculature. Curls alone will certainly help, but won't do it by itself.

I've actually had good results by throwing in a rowing workout. Bottom line is to just switch it up a little when you're working out the biceps. Don't worry; they'll grow.

I've heard the idea that deadlifts and squats help by releasing extra testosterone... I have to admit that I've become slightly skeptical of these claims. Not saying they couldn't be true, just that I'm less convinced than I once was.
 
do them for an 8 week cycle HARD, have your diet in check (plenty of protein and overall calories) and come back and deny it. You won't.

You'll be 10 pounds heavier and more confident, higher sex drive, etc. :)
 
LOL I love how you all detest bicep-only exercises.

I find a hard day of olympic lifting (especially power cleans) to be most draining on the biceps. Of course pull ups are good too, but they're basically like an advanced curl, and there's nothing like a few 200 pound plus sets of cleans.

Heavy weight barbell rows and deadlifts can help too as mentioned.

My heaviest curl exercises might be from loading the 45 lb plates on and off the squat rack. And I don't really squat much more than the low 300s. =)
 
barbell curls and reverse grip barbell curls help grow biceps, no doubt

I dont detest them, but I also don't have high hopes they are going to add a few inches to my arm. They do bring out the peak a good bit though which is nice.
 
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