If there's one muscle group on a man that says you workout, it's your biceps. Whether you check out their development in the mirror to pump yourself up for your workout beforehand or simply want to look buff when you wear a short-sleeve shirt out to the club, a nicely developed set of biceps goes a long way toward developing an attractive physique.
Many men don't go about training their biceps in the right manner and wind up doing 10 different variations of curls until they feel the "pump and burn." Remember that while a muscle pump may temporarily engorge your muscles with blood and make them appear larger to the eye, once the enhanced blood flow normalizes, you're going to be right back where you started.In order to really develop muscle size, you'll want to combine very heavy weight training with exercises that increase vascularity. This pairing is what will smash your biceps and get you arms noticed.
The following workout, which will smash your biceps, should be performed twice a week for maximum benefits. Doing this workout twice a week is enough to develop larger muscle fibers while giving you a proper recovery period.
1. Reverse-Grip Bent-Over Dumbbell Row With Half a Deadlift
The first exercise on our smash your biceps plan is the reverse-grip bent-over dumbbell row with half a deadlift. Changing the grip of this movement helps to place more stress on the biceps, while still working the back at the same time. Additionally, using the dumbbells rather than a barbell will help prevent one arm from working harder than the other to compensate for a weaker muscle, and thus preventing the possibility of a size imbalance.Since most men can typically row more weight than they can curl, the reverse-grip bent-over dumbbell row is the perfect exercise to lead the smash your biceps workout. It’s also an exercise that leads to maximum strength development.
Finally, to add some advanced variation to the movement, once the dumbbells are in the upper position, perform half a deadlift action in order to call the lower-back muscles into play and give a more complete workout. Note that this should be one fluid movement and not done in a jerky fashion.
2. Incline Dumbbell Curls
The second exercise to add when you want to smash your biceps is incline dumbbell curls. The advantage of doing these on an incline bench is that it will reduce any momentum that takes place with standard curls, ensuring that you are only targeting that bicep muscle.In addition to this, since your back is flat against the bench, you will not have to sacrifice strength due to a weak core if that is an issue for you.
When you are executing the movement, be sure that you are moving throughout the full range of motion to work all the muscle fibers to their full extent.
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3. Dumbbell Curls With a Twist
As a variation on the standard dumbbell curl, performing a curl with a twist at the top gives the muscles a fresh stimulus that can boost results to the next level. You'll want to focus on performing these slightly slower than your standard dumbbell curl to really feel the full impact of the movement and, if you can, try to use a short pause at the top before lowering.Also, be careful that you're not using momentum to help you complete the movement (the tendency to use momentum is high since you’re standing upright). Momentum can be avoided if you think to slightly stick out your chest and strictly moving from the elbow joint.
4. Straight Dumbbell Curls With Triceps Extension Superset
Finally, the last way you can smash your biceps into growth is to start including some supersets in your workouts. Supersets will have you pairing two exercises back-to-back and will help to really pump up the arms as they fill with blood.
This is a great technique to use at the very end of your workout, as it will really finish off the muscles and help to considerably boost the temporary size increase you’ll experience.
Some people will choose to superset two different bicep exercises back-to-back, but for the purpose of this workout you want to superset a bicep exercise along with a triceps movement. This has the advantage of allowing you to lift a heavier weight with the bicep exercise, experiencing slightly better overall strength gains.
Be sure to keep rest periods between the two exercises as short as possible, and take about 30 seconds to 1 minute of rest between each superset. You should also aim to work into the slightly higher rep range with this type of setup, closer to 10 to 12 reps total to really get some lactic acid building up within the muscle tissues
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So, if you're looking to boost the size and strength of your biceps, make sure you give some good consideration to these exercises. You don't necessarily have to add all of them to your session each time, but start with the compound exercise of the rows and then add one or two additional biceps exercises to round out the program. Training your biceps two to three times a week in this manner should lead to noticeable results in about a month's time.
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