Have you ever thought about this? Your arms are probably the most widely seen muscle group on your body. Think about it for a minute. From the time you were a kid, if somebody said to you, “Show me your muscles”, what did you do? Boom…bicep pose. Try it on any 10 year old or for that matter, any 30 year old!

Massive arms are very impressive and actually quite intimidating to non lifters. Anytime you see a huge set of arms busting through a tight fitted shirt, it’s impressive.

As with most muscle groups, some people have an easier time building up one part of their body over another. For me, my arms, especially my triceps have always been fairly easy to build. I’ve found in over 25 years of lifting that one of the biggest mistakes people can make with many body parts and especially their arms is that they overtrain. Have you heard me talk about this before? It is something I keep harping on because it is true! As I mentioned in one of my previous articles, Why Can’t I Get Bigger?, over training is the number one reason most guys do not succeed in the gym.

I wish I had a dollar for every time this happens: I walk into the gym getting ready to do chest and back or maybe legs. I’ll see some guy who has just arrived there starting his arm workout. Over an hour later while I’ve finished blasting one or two huge muscle groups and am wrapping it up by doing some ab work, this poor guy is still hammering his poor arms into oblivion!

The fact is that your biceps and triceps are actually not that big of a muscle group. Why would you think you need to train them 2 or 3 times a week?

Here is a routine for biceps that has worked for me and others. As with all exercise routines, what works for one person may or may not work for you. Don’t let me or anyone else tell you that “this is the way to do it”. My suggestion is to try it for a month or so and see how you’re progressing.

As always, remember to warm up your joints and connective tissues thoroughly before using your working weights and that all poundages here are for illustrative purposes only. Be sure to use weights that are comfortable for you that allow you to barely complete your last reps.

Let’s try some dumbbell curls for warm ups:

Dumbbell Curls

• 30 - 40 lb x 15 reps
• 30 - 40 lb x 15 reps
• 30 - 40 lb x 15 reps

Remember, when doing dumbbell curls, try to start with your palms in (facing your outer thigh) and as you bring the weight up, supinate (turn out) your wrist so that your palm is facing straight up at the top of the movement.

Once you’re warmed up, let’s hit a curl bar. For some people like myself who have joint issues or tendinitits, you might want to use an EZ curl bar for your bicep curls.

Barbell or EZ Bar Curls

• 80 lb x 8 - 10 reps
• 100 lb x 8 - 10 reps
• 100 lb x 6 - 10 reps

When performing curls, Keep your form strict! Don’t worry about how much weight you’re using. If you’re arching your back, throwing the weight up and letting it fall down you are wasting time and energy and probably risking injury. Keep your shoulders stationary and just bend your elbows. On the final reps of your last sets it’s acceptable to cheat some

Okay, at this point your bi’s should be starting to get nice and pumped. Let’s try some preacher curls.
For those who are not familiar with them, preacher curls (or Scott curls) are performed on either a seated or standing position. Your chest is pressed up against the back of the preacher curl pad with the top of the pad tucked into your armpits. The front of the pad is angled so that the bicep is nicely stretched.

One important note: Do not extend your arms completely when using heavy weights as the risk of hyper-extending your elbow is increased on the preacher curl. You can perform the preacher curl with either a straight bar, an ez-curl bar or with dumbbells. For our example here, we’ll assume a bar rather than dumbbells.

Preacher Curls

• 90 lb x 8 - 10 reps
• 80 lb x 6 - 10 reps
• 80 lb x 6 - 8 reps

At this point your biceps should be on fire and completely gorged with blood for a full pump. Let’s hit some concentration curls with dumbbells. Remember that the point of these is to strictly focus on the bicep and use maximum effort by completely contracting the bicep at the top of the motion. You don’t need super heavy weight to achieve this! My preference is to do these while seated or standing and alternate each arm on each rep. In other words, rather than performing your reps on your right arm and then moving to your left, try going right/left, right/left etc

Concentration Dumbbell Curls

• 50 lb x 10 reps
• 40 lb x 6 - 10 reps
• 40 lb x 6 - 10 reps

If you have worked with extreme intensity and made each and every rep count, your arms should be completely blasted and fatigued at this point. Continuing for much longer could actually be catabolic in the long term but let’s finish up with hammer curls.

Hammer curls are an amazing and often neglected exercise that actually works the side of the bicep and to a lesser degree, the brachialis muscle that extends downward from the bicep to the forearm. If you work your hammer curls with regularity you will be amazed at the difference they can make in the overall shape and size of your arm.

Remember when doing hammers, you simply lift the dumbbell as if you were lifting a coffee mug (or beer mug!). You start and end with your palms facing inward.

Hammer Curls

• 40 lb x 10 - 12 reps
• 40 lb x 8 - 10 reps
• 40 lb x 6 - 10 reps

Remember that your biceps are fairly small when compared to other muscle groups and over training them can happen easily and not only will you hamper growth, you risk the chance of injury. Tendinitis is a common injury when over training biceps. Additionally, joint pain and inflammation is common. You might want to consider using ice when experiencing inflammation. There are also some good Joint Repair supplements that can help you.

Remember my motto that less can be more when training your bi’s or any other muscle and see if you don’t get stronger, bigger, faster!

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