5 Tips for Bigger Biceps

 Tweak your workout for bigger arms and use our form tips to power up your biceps curls

Getting bigger arms in the gym comes as a result of your body’s response to the stress of weight training,' says personal trainer Guy Stockwell. 'If your arms muscles were sentient beings they’d think, "That was hard. I'd better do something about it so it’s not as difficult next time".’

When you perform arm resistance exercises, microscopic tears occur in your muscles. Your body responds to this micro trauma by overcompensating: the damaged tissue is repaired and more is added, making your muscles bigger and stronger so the risk of future damage is minimised.

This also means that over time you need to steadily increase the weight you lift, because your muscles quickly learn to deal with the stress to which they’re exposed.

It’s thought this damage to your muscle fibres is the reason for delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, the symptoms of which include muscle soreness and stiffness in the days after a tough workout. That’s why you should leave at least 48 hours between arms sessions.

Here are five other tweaks from Stockwell that you can make to your workout for big arms gains.

Change your grip

When doing exercises with a barbell or E-Z bar, try gripping with your thumb under the bar rather than wrapped over it. This reduces the role of the forearm in the move and places greater emphasis on the biceps or triceps, forcing these muscles to work far harder for each rep.

Don’t ignore your triceps

It’s easy to concentrate on blitzing your biceps, but your triceps are actually the bigger muscles in the upper arm. Focusing on triceps exercises that isolate the muscle, such as dips, narrow-grip bench presses and lying triceps extensions, will lead to bigger gains so you fill out your T-shirts in double-quick time.

Perform big lifts

Biceps curls are all well and good, but you’ll see better results from big compound moves that involve the arms, such as reverse-grip bent-over rows and chin-ups. These exercises require multi-joint movement and allow you to lift heavier weights, flooding the body with muscle-building hormones so you get bigger and stronger.

The Key For Big Biceps:

Take your time

The golden rule is one second up and three seconds down for every rep. Three times as many muscle fibres are activated during the eccentric – or downward – phase of the exercise, so lowering the weight slowly and under control will work the biceps and triceps far harder. Taking your time also keeps the muscle under tension for longer.

Work to failure

To build muscle you need to fatigue the arms, forcing them to grow back bigger and stronger. Each set should last around eight to 12 reps, at which point you should reach failure. If you feel as if you have a few more reps in you, the weight is too light. Also make sure you ‘squeeze’ the muscles at the top of every rep to really work them.

Biceps Exercice Video...

Tips For Getting Bigger And Stronger Biceps

Stress more on your compound steps: Increasing biceps mass is only a matter of right movements. Consider taking the aid of Olympic barbell biceps curls and slender weighted pull-ups to add more strength to your bicep muscles. Cable rows, deadlifts and bent over rows are also a well suited option.
Avoid under training or overtraining your arms: Lending your entire energies in performing isolative movements can put extra pressure on your arms. Since most of the back exercises also involve biceps training, you can easily tailor your training to suffice to your biceps needs. Likewise, if you are preparing for a contest or doing non-mass cycles, concentrating heavily on the isolative movements such as deadlifts or concentration cable curls can prove to be quite beneficial for your training workouts.
Increase or decrease weight as required: Compound movements essentially require certain weights for good performance but the condition is that you can manage to maintain a good physique. If too much weight is outbalancing your form, try decreasing weights to get the most out of your reps. Same way if you are doing well, work on increasing weights by 5 to 1o pounds at each new workout to get a drift on your progress.

Manage your tempo: The tempo rule states that while performing the positive (up) motion you should go more rapidly than when doing the negative (down) motion. This is essential in handling weights and aids in the building up of supportive tissue in the arms and joints and managing tendons. The general rule of thumb is to do a 1-up or 2-up with a 3-down motion. Don’t try to overdo your down motion or you may cause injury to the tendons.
Boost your muscle fiber recruitment: You will notice an extension in the number of muscle fibers recruited if you employ standing bicep curls or preacher curls. The experience is felt when there is greater contraction felt and a full range of motion (ROM) achieved. Using preachers will help you to stretch your range of motion fully and will help you in receiving your isolative training for your arms. Recommended preachers are those that use low cables.
Give yourself some time to recover and keep your workouts simple: The key point here is not to over exercise. A gap of 5-6 days between each workout is ideal but you can also give yourself a full 10 days gap too if you wish. Remember that recovery time is imperative for your muscles. Moreover, ensure that your workouts are designed in a simple and subtle way which helps in keeping you fit and energized instead of draining you out completely. Avoid complications and don’t make the mistake of exercising your biceps when you are performing back, chest or leg exercises.
Avoid overstraining and focus more on pulling exercises: Intense back workouts can exert a lot of pressure on your biceps. Sketch your workouts strategically so that you are training biceps alternatively with back exercises and avoid training schedules that tend to overstrain your bicep muscles as it can wreak havoc with your targets.
Rotate your set types (drop set, superset, 21s) and change your exercise equipment: When you do one type of workout every day, your body adapts to the training and gradually requires less effort to carry out those exercises. Shift your lifts a little and change set types so that your muscles have to work more for the new workout. Likewise, changing exercise equipment like using barbells instead of dumb bells can also help to induce more energy and vitality in your workout.

Be fair and honest with yourself: Perseverance and consistency is the essence to successful and fruitful workouts. Steady progress means that you should be fair with yourself and not miss out on workouts. Moreover, be honest when lifting and use only your biceps to train them fully.
Incorporate variety in your biceps training routine: – Training with variety like hammer curls, narrow grip curls, high cable curls, preacher curls, concentration curls and straight bar regular grip can help to train biceps from all sides.
Drive off your ego to push yourself towards success: Building up biceps muscle mass is probably the dream of every guy but you have to let go of your ego first. If you require lighter weights to build up your muscle mass, then do it. Your motto should be to drive to whatever limits it take to achieve your target.
Diet matters: Your diet is the foundation of all your mass-building efforts. The entire phenomenon of mass-building depends upon your diet. Consuming more protein and carbohydrates and increasing your calorie intakes is the basic requirement for boosting biceps mass size.
Use deadlifts frequently: Using deadlifts more and more often is helpful in working out the entire body and biceps muscles thoroughly. It also strengthens the muscles and the tendons and gives your biceps the grand fortification they need.
Successive progress: Try to measure your success in terms of your workout progress. Include new variety each week and integrate new and innovative routines to witness a positive and lasting change.