Biceps that are large signify that the person has worked hard at the gym. To grow biceps takes time, knowledge, and intelligent programming. Your biceps not only help you lift things, but they also help you bend your elbow. If you didn't have muscles, you wouldn't be able to lift your beer to your lips or pick up your child. The biceps not only look good, but also serve a real function.
Training your biceps is easy, you just need to do a lot of curls. Some exercises are better than others at achieving the desired result. In order to help you determine which biceps exercises are best for you, we have compiled a list of 16 exercises along with some additional information on the muscle itself and how you can incorporate biceps training into your routine.
Best Biceps Exercises
Barbell Curl
The barbell curl is a classic biceps-builder. This exercise is great for targeting the biceps and can help add serious size and strength to the muscle as a whole when done correctly. This exercise allows you to curl more weight than other variations because you are using both hands to lift a singular object. It’s also straightforward to do. Grab a barbell with both hands and lift it towards your chin. Rinse and repeat.
Benefits of the Barbell Curl
- It’s simple and effective. The barbell curl offers a small learning curve, perfect for beginners, and more advanced lifters will still benefit from the basic mechanics.
- You’ll build stronger biceps more quickly as you’re able to load your biceps with more weight.
How to Do the Barbell Curl
Hold the barbell with an underhand grip that is slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. To expose your biceps, pull your shoulders back into the socket and raise your chest. Your elbows should be in line with your shoulders, or slightly in front of your ribs. Lift the barbell by curling your biceps, making sure to keep your torso upright, shoulders back, and elbows in front of your shoulders.
Chin-Up
The chin-up is a great bodyweight exercise that can help you build serious muscle in your biceps (and back) with nothing but a pull-up bar. If you have a door-mounted pull-up bar in your home gym, you only need that to do sets of chin-ups. The biceps are exposed to heavier loads than what one can lift with a barbell since the lifter is pulling their own bodyweight. However, lifters may often perform these incorrectly, engaging their shoulder and grip muscles rather than their latissimus dorsi muscles.
Benefits of the Chin-Up
- To do a chin-up, you only need access to a pull-up bar, making it one of the more accessible movements on this list.
- The chin-up has you lift your entire bodyweight, taxing the biceps with more weight than one can usually curl.
- Your grip and shoulders will also gain some strength.
How to Do the Chin-Up
Pull your body up until the chin is over the bar Grab a bar that is shoulder-width apart, or slightly wider, and hang from it with your palms facing you. Pull your body up until your chin is over the bar. From a dead hang, squeeze your shoulder blades together and pull your body up, making sure not to let the body fold inwards (so many people do this) until your chin is at or above the bar.
EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
Performing the curl exercise on a preacher bench increases the range of motion. If you keep your elbows close to your sides while doing bicep curls, your biceps will be under tension for a longer period of time, which usually leads to more muscle growth. The EZ-bar is more comfortable on the wrists and shifts the angle to target different muscle fibers in the biceps.
Benefits of the EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
- Using the preacher bench creates a longer range of motion and creates more muscular tension for more biceps growth.
- Using an EZ-bar is more comfortable on the wrists.
How to Do the EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
Sit on a preacher bench with your back against the pad and your triceps resting on it. To perform the biceps curl, start by setting your body in the same position as you would for a standard barbell biceps curl. Your chest should be up, your shoulders back, and your elbows slightly forward. Grasp the EZ-bar handle on the inner angled pieces. This will place your hands at a width slightly narrower than shoulder-width and at a semi-supinated angle. Begin the curl by contracting the biceps and keeping the body stationary. pause at the top of the curl to flex the biceps before lowering the bar. Lower the weight under control.
Concentration curls
Concentration curls are ideal for isolating your biceps muscles because, by bracing your elbow against the inside of your thigh, you automatically remove other muscles from the equation.
The bicep curl is an effective exercise for adding mass to the inner head of the biceps. This is the part of your bicep that everyone will see when you flex, so don't skip concentration curls even if it means lifting a bit lighter than you would on the standing variation.
- Grab a relatively light dumbbell with an underhand grip and sit on the edge of a weight bench.
- Rest your arm against the inside of your leg and let the dumbbell hang so that your elbow is completely extended.
- While keeping your elbow still, curl the weight toward your shoulder by squeezing your biceps as hard as you can.
- Pause for a second as your biceps come into contact with your forearms.
- Lower the dumbbell under control until your arm is once again fully locked out.
- Do 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps per arm.
Zottman curls
The Zottman curl is an exercise that many people skip because it is not like the other exercises for the biceps brachii muscle. Instead of using your biceps, Zottman curls make use of your brachioradialis and brachialis muscles during the eccentric part of the rep.
By doing Zottman curls, you'll be working the key arm muscles that most lifters overlook, which will make your arms look thicker overall in the long run. Zottman curls are a great way to end a workout because they are slow and controlled, which tears down the remaining muscle fibers.
- Hold a set of dumbbells by your sides with a supinated grip.
- Curl the weights toward your front delts.
- Rotate your hands to a pronated (palms-down) position at the top of the rep.
- Slowly lower the dumbbells back to your sides.
- Switch back to the original underhand grip and repeat for 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps.
Spider curls
Without cheating, spider curls are one of the best biceps exercises for muscle isolation. Your biceps are under the most amount of resistance when doing spider curls, which is why they often create an incredibly intense arm pump.
To get the most out of your spider curls, squeeze your biceps as hard as you can at the top of each rep. This will help you connect with your muscles better and activate more muscle fibers.
- Set the backrest of a weight bench to 60 degrees.
- Hold two dumbbells with an underhand grip, and then sit on the bench in a reverse position with your torso pressed against the back pad.
- Let your arms hang down and slightly forward so that your elbows are fully extended.
- Curl the weights toward your shoulders and squeeze your biceps forcefully.
- Hold the contraction for a second, and then lower the dumbbells under control until your elbows are once again locked out.
- Repeat for 3-5 sets of 10-25 reps.
Facing-Away Cable Curl
The lifter needs to stand between the two cables of a functional trainer or cable tower, facing away from the equipment. The following text is about the benefits of incline dumbbell curls coupled with the cables' resistance. This setup allows you to have a greater stretch due to the cables' resistance which keeps tension on the muscle throughout the movement, giving you the same benefits of the incline dumbbell curl.
Benefits of the Facing-Away Cable Curl
- Barbells lock your arms in place. Cables are mobile. Curling with cables lets the lifter line up the resistance with their preferred arm path — allowing for less discomfort throughout the movement.
- Curling with the cables set behind you increases the movement’s range of motion while using cables creates more tension for a one-two punch of more overall muscle stimulus.
- This movement is great for challenging the biceps and loading them in its lengthened range — a range that doesn’t get loaded enough.
How to Do the Facing-Away Cable Curl
Attach the D-handles to the lowest setting on the cable pulleys. Pick up a handle in each hand. Tighten your upper back muscles and let your arms hang straight down. Curl the weight toward your shoulders without moving your shoulders. Keep your arms straight and hold the top of the movement for a second before lowering the handles slowly and under control.
Reverse-Grip Bent-Over Row
This movement is a traditional back exercise. It is. This variation of the bent-over row uses a supinated grip, which engages the biceps more than other variations. Weightlifting with a barbell allows you to manage more weight compared to other exercises that work the biceps. This exercise will help to build up your biceps alongside your back muscles for a more defined appearance.
Benefits of the Reverse-Grip Bent-Over Row
- The reverse-grip bent-over row targets your back muscles in addition to your biceps.
- You can lift more weight compared to other biceps moves.
How to Do the Reverse-Grip Bent-Over Row
Pick up a barbell with your palms facing your body and your hands shoulder-width apart. To properly do a bent-over row, start by positioning your back flat and chest up. Row the barbell to the stomach. To perform this exercise, pull with both the back and the arms while lowering the weight under control. Repeat this movement for a set number of repetitions.
High Cable Curl
In this variation of a high cable curl, the cables are curled while the shoulders are flexed and the palms are facing up (supinated). You will be attaching the cables just above shoulder level when you do this exercise on a functional trainer or cable tower. Curls performed with your arms in a high, extended position are thought by many to target the shorter biceps head, which is what creates that coveted biceps peak.
Benefits of the High Cable Curl
- The ability to focus and train both arms at once.
- The use of cables over dumbbells allows for an altered arm path, creating new stress on the biceps — challenging them in their contracted, shortened position.
How to Do the High Cable
Attach D-handles to each cable pulley of a shoulder-height cable pulley. Grasp the bar using an underhand grip (palm facing up). Make sure you keep the tension on your biceps throughout the entire movement, then slowly lower the weight back down to the starting position. You should maintain your shoulder position and not allow your elbows to dip in order to make this exercise easier. If you maintain tension in your upper back, your shoulders will be more stable and your arm position will be more constant. This will increase the tension in your biceps.
Cable Rope Supinating Curl
This variation of the low cable curl has the lifter curling with a rope attachment and twisting it, focusing on both the supination and elbow flexion functions of the biceps brachii muscle. When you stand further away from the machine, your biceps will be engaged the whole time. twisting your hands inward toward your face will increase the tension on your biceps (which you will be able to feel)
Benefits of the Cable Rope Supinating Curl
- The ability to train both primary functions of the biceps brachii — supination and elbow flexion.
- The addition of the Fat Gripz allows an object lever for your biceps to fight against during supination compared to the rope alone.
- The use of cables allows for an even resistance across the entire range of motion.
How to Do the Cable Rope Supinating Curl
Position yourself in front of a cable on a functional trainer or cable tower. To lower the rope's tension, hold the handles with your palms facing each other and adjust the cable's setting. Coming one-third of the way up, begin to rotate your hands so they are facing upwards as you continue to curl. To make this exercise more challenging, wait to supinate until you've lifted the weight a third of the way. This will force the muscles responsible for supination to work harder.
How to Train Your Biceps
You should aim to do 10-14 sets of biceps exercises per week. If you're new to the gym, start with eight sets per week. Even though the biceps are small muscles, they still require a fair amount of work to stimulate growth.
It is recommended that you train your biceps and triceps at the same time as they work against each other (your biceps bend the elbow and your triceps straighten the elbow). You can also save your biceps training for after your back workout or, if you follow a push, pull, legs split, for your next pulling day. Since your biceps are used in most upper-body pulling movements, it is efficient to do them on the same day as those movements since they will already be a bit fatigued.
Exercise Selection
It is important to choose the right exercise in order to be successful.
You will need to do some math to calculate how many exercises to do in each session. If you train your biceps twice per week and do the recommended 14 sets, You’ll perform seven sets of biceps work per workout. Doing three sets of the first two exercises and two sets of the third exercise would be a good workout routine. You should do three to four sets of each movement.
