I have compiled a list of all the best bicep exercises. Remember to vary your workouts from week to week to make sure you are developing your bicep correctly.
The bread and butter of bicep exercises, one most people will know and put into practise. Although it is so simple, I rarely see people doing this exercise perfectly (even I can admit to not doing it properly all the time). The most common mistakes are the use of shoulders and forearms. Namely, moving your elbow up (a shoulder slightly back) when your are trying to lift the weight. Also the bending of the wrist doesn’t work out bicep, it works out forearm, so don’t do it if you only want to work out your bicep.
To start, you should have you feel at a comfortable distance (say shoulder width). Next, grasp the dumbbell or barbell with your palm facing away from your body. You want to lift the weight up with just your bicep, and so don’t lead/rock your body to force the weight up (if you’re doing this it’s too heavy for you).
You want to stop the motion at the top just before you are resting, and so maybe when your fore arm is at 30 degrees with your bicep. Finally, on the way down keep the movement slow and controlled, and stopping just before you lock your elbow. Don’t lock your elbow (as your bicep is resting here).
Tip: keep your elbows by your side at all times! Once you start lifting your elbows to help lift the weight you are using your shoulder muscles (not good).
If have found a great video of a man barbell curling. The reason it’s so great is because it shows exactly how to perform it, and then exactly how to not perform it. Notice for the first four reps, he hardly rocks his body or moves his elbow up. After this, it all goes a bit wrong. In the last three reps he is rockin’ back and forth, exactly how a bicep curl should not be performed. I hope you learn from this video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS9F-xAJjsE
Just a quick not to list a few things you should know concerning bicep curls:
The preacher curl is know as an isolation exercise. This is because it should only use your bicep to lift the weight (rather than compound exercises that use multiple muscle groups). Because it is only using your bicep, which is a relatively small muscle group, the weight you can lift isn’t too great. Most gym freaks (such as bouncers or army men) would struggle to lift over 15kg on this exercise. This exercise can be used to build mass, but is usually used to increase the ‘peak’ of a bicep (height).
To do this all you need is a dumbbell and a bench to which the height can be adjusted. In most gyms there will also be a machine which will be called a bicep curl machine, preacher curl machine, or something along those lines. For this paragraph though, I will assume you are using a dumbbell and a bench.
Put the bench at about a 55° angle to the floor. Now grab the dumbbell and lay your arm on the bench, we only do one arm at a time. Your arm should be on the bench so that your armpit just touches the padded support. Slowly release the dumbbell, with the negative part of the rep lasting 2 – 3 seconds. Don’t fully extend or lock your arm, but only go so far as there is still a little bend in your elbow. Quickly lift the dumbbell up to the starting position in an explosive 1 second. This will increase intensity and therefore increase potential muscle mass.
That is about it, although it was a little wordy. To see a good demonstration of the preacher curl, see the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndp38ePBzok
Similarly to the preacher curl, the concentration curl is a isolation exercise. This means it only uses the bicep to lift the weight. This exercise was a favourite of Arnold Schwarzenegger (I’ll post a video later).
To perform this exercise all you need a dumbbell. Grab the dumbbell and let your arm hang to the ground free in front of you. Next just lift the weight up not moving any part of your body, and so you’re only using you biceps to lift the weight. Return the dumbbell down to the beginning (hovering just above the ground), and that is one complete rep. See the video below of Schwarzenegger doing it.
A few tips:
21′s are a good exercise to target both the peak of your bicep and overall mass. It’s three stages all target muscle fibers in different parts of your bicep, and you will definitely feel the pump after completing this exercise.
The technique of 21s is just a simple barbell curl (see top exercise), but with a twist. It’s called 21 becaue it has 21 reps in the set, with three minisets of 7 reps. To start just grab your barbell and stand in the normal position. The first 7 reps will be performed from rest until your arm is raised half way. Do this seven times, and then on the eighth rep lift your arm up all the way and so your bicep is contracted. Now do 7 reps from the top of the exercise down to half way. The final 7 reps are normal barbell curls, going all the way up and down.
If you didn’t understand that, take a look at Ronnie Coleman performing a set of 21′s with an EZ bar.
A few notes about this exercise:
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