The Road To Huge Bicep Muscles

It's important to know the function of the muscle you're training in order to design a routine that properly works that muscle. The biceps is known as the biceps brachii and is a two headed muscle. This muscle has two functions - Flexion: The action of bringing the arm up to the shoulder and Supination: The action of twisting the wrist, or turning the thumbs away from the body. The brachialis is a small muscle which lies just beneath the biceps. It is not really a part of the bicep muscle but is included in the discussion because an untrained brachialis muscle can add up to an inch to your current arm size.

What exercises work best for the bicep?

The following exercises are designed to help build and increase the strength of the bicep muscle. They are examples of isolation movements since they focus primarily on the bicep.

Standing Barbell Curl:

The muscle at work in this exercise is the bicep. The main role of the biceps is elbow flexion therefore the curling movement stimulates the most amount of muscle in this region. This is the most basic and probably most used exercise to promote true bicep growth.

Incline Dumbbell Curls

Allows variable motion while getting a maximal stretch at the bottom of the movement. The sitting position enables a higher concentration on the arm movements and attempts to rule out other muscle trying to aid the bicep in performing a rep.

One arm Preacher Curl

An isolating movement which focuses stress on the peak of the bicep. It helps add fullness at the lower portion of the muscle.

Hammer Curl

This exercise develops the brachialis, which is a flexor muscle of the elbow, running along side of the upper arm. It helps develop to the overall size of the bicep muscle.

I have devised a basic training programme to develop bicep mass:

Week One:

Standing bar curls - 3 sets of 6-8 repetitions.
One arm preacher curls - 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions.
Hammer curls (both arms or alternating) - 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions

Week Two:

Incline dumbbell curls - 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions.
Hammer curls (both arms or alternating) - 3 sets of 6-8 repetitions.
Standing bar curls - 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions.

How to increase bicep mass? - Intermediate lifters

It is recommended that training the biceps should be limited to two sessions a week, as it receives additional work if one is training the back and chest - this is advisable for beginner or intermediate lifters. The above routine is more then enough for a beginner to develop a good base for his or her bicep, that is easy although once you have conquered the beginner gains and you have put on that inch or maybe more depending on your genes and your muscle mass and tone before starting to workout; it gets a lot tougher! Every millimetre is a struggle, but there are a few things you can to boost your bicep size however a consistent effective routine in the long run will always provide you gains, but to boost those gains there a few things you can do. This theory is based on shocking your biceps into growth, when a muscle of the body is shocked or 'surprised' by some form of variation its almost like beginner gains, your body responds better. In order to shock those bi's there are three things you can do:

Overload: This is a simple concept and very effective and works for all muscle of the body and the bicep is no different, for a short period of time overload your bicep for example, if you were previously working them once a week bump that to 3 sessions a week for 3 weeks and then come back down to the normal routine of once a week and every so often but not too often introduce this overload to continually keep your bicep working at its peak while providing variation with overload and just wait and see how they respond, however this does not mean if you overload them every week you will see massive gains that's not an overload that's an over train! That will leave your biceps stunted and smaller then what you could achieve by training correctly

Drop sets: Also to provide continual variation and really work the bicep effectively, try drop sets. On bicep day, after doing 2 sets on say the barbell curls do your drop set, load the bar up with small weights to a maximum weight that you can only perform 5-6 reps with and then begin your set at the maximum weight performing as many reps as possible and then dropping the weight in small decrements with no rest between sub sets within this drop set. The pump is incredible and provides a real 'shocker' for the biceps.

Supersets: These are also a variation to how to perform sets to provide continual variation for your body. These work best when you work different parts of the bicep, for example doing a set of barbell curls then moving to hammer curls with no rest in-between is an effective way to promote growth, the advantage this type of set has over a drop set is that you don't tire as easily because you aren't working the exact same place on the bicep in succession.

So no matter if you have been working your biceps for a year or two, you can still squeeze more out of them by using the above tips. Give them a try and really boost your biceps, we are always happy to hear your stories on how your training is going so contact us and tell us about your bulging bi's.

In Iron, AJ

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Deep Muscle Soreness And Body-Shock Fatigue

In my experience there are two distinct types of muscular fatigue associated with intense progressive resistance training (only intense training is sufficient to trigger muscle hypertrophy) and these two types should be recognized and understood. The first type of fatigue is direct muscle soreness and is the result of a particular exercise targeting a specific muscle. Scientists are at odds as to the exact cause of muscle soreness but most believe that it is associated with some sort of cellular micro-trauma. Direct muscle soreness is usually the type of pain and discomfort that most folks experience when they begin serious progressive resistance training program.

There are varying degrees of muscle soreness and sometime the intensity of soreness can become so severe as to be debilitating. The muscles are actually sore to the touch. I have self-induced this type of soreness to every degree on every muscle once, as a 14-year old novice, I found a 10-pound solid dumbbell and proceeded to do 50-repetitions in the one-arm curl for each arm every hour on the hour for 10-straight hours. It seemed like a cool idea to my young and dumb mind but that went out the window the next day when both arms locked up to such a degree that I could not straighten my arms. Both biceps were so traumatized that they remained involuntarily contracted for the next 36-hours. My hands were held at my face and any attempt to straighten my arms resulted in excruciating pain. I had to ride it out until the biceps relaxed. This was an extreme example of muscle fatigue but extremely illustrative of this 1st type of muscle soreness/fatigue.

The second type of muscular fatigue is what I would describe as overall fatigue, I call it body shock. The body is a holistic unit and hard intense training done for long time periods has a cumulative effect. After a while a uniform sense of overall fatigue is experienced manifested by an overwhelming sensation of tiredness. This tiredness envelops the whole body. When in the throes of body shock it seems as if you are moving through water. In my experience this type of fatigue is a direct result of an accumulation of intense workouts. Fatigue and soreness come with the territory and if you never experience either version, likely youll not make any significant physical progress.

In my experience, if I dont feel some degree of muscle soreness in the target muscle after a workout I become suspect that I didnt work hard enough or the exercise I selected was technically deficient and spread the muscular effect over too wide an area. In this respect I use controlled soreness (no too much, not too little) as a workout report card. When it comes to body-shock fatigue, to my way of thinking a much more serious type of fatigue, I will cut back on my training and kick up my calories, particularly my protein intake. When body-shock descends training through it is a bad idea: first, training poundage plummets (so whats the point?) and secondly there is a very real danger of fatigue-induced injury.

If you experience severe muscular soreness of the 1st type, avoid training that particular body part until the soreness reduces to tolerable levels. If body-shock envelops you cease and desist progressive resistance training and kick up the food intake. I have found that light to moderate cardio actually helps to dissipate muscle soreness. Accelerating circulation within a sore muscle stimulates recovery, assuming the resistance used is light, easy and not taxing. Use your common sense and be aware that even purposeful primitives paid heed to fatigue.

Marty Gallagher is a former fitness chat columnist for washingtonpost.com. He is also a former world champion powerlifting coach. Marty has written for publications such as Muscle Media, Muscle & Fitness, and Powerlifting USA. His website, http://www.martygallagher.com, assimilates years of accumulated knowledge from the athletic elite and makes them accessible to the common person. The "Purposeful Primitive" way has been proven effective time after time after time for weight loss, building muscle, increasing strength, and improving health.

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