The biceps are the anterior muscle of the arm, divided into a long head and a short head. They are composed frontally by the biceps muscle and laterally by the branchial which completes the volume.
The biceps exercises are both multi-joint exercises dedicated to the development of strength and general volumes such as the standing barbell curl or the standing dumbbell alternating curl and isolation exercises to develop details. It’s a small muscle, so a few intense sets are enough to train it.
The biceps are heavily involved in the training of other muscle groups such as the lats, where they are recruited in each traction movement and that is why the training of the lats precedes that of the biceps by exploiting the pre-workout effect.
Best Biceps Exercises For Mass | Ultimate Guide 2024
Bicep Anatomy
Before you begin your training plan, take time to understand which muscles you need to train and the role they play in your daily life. Understanding their function will help you understand how to use and manipulate these muscles in the exercises for optimal biceps training.
The biceps consist of three main muscles: the biceps brachii, the brachialis, and the brachioradialis.
Biceps Brachii
This muscle attaches to the forearm bone (radius) and originates from the scapulothoracic process. It is a muscle tissue that runs along the anterior surface of the humerus (upper arm bone) and accounts for about 1/3 of the muscle mass of the upper arm.
Coracobrachialis
This muscle is the smallest of the three and is also attached to the coracoid process of the scapula, with the other end attached to the humerus. The arm is carried forward and toward the trunk by this muscle.
Brachialis
This muscle crosses the elbow joint, originates from the lower segment of the humerus and extends to the ulna. Although it belongs to the biceps brachialis muscle, the brachialis is the strongest flexor of the elbow. However, it is connected only to the ulna, not the radius, and therefore cannot be involved in the extension and lengthening (rotation) of the forearm.
Top 8 Exercises for Increasing Biceps
It is actually difficult to choose the best bicep exercises because all exercises that apply tension to the bicep and flex the elbow can work well.
Among the best, in addition to the multiarticulars already mentioned with work on the biceps, there are:
- Barbell curls
- EZ barbell curl
- Dumbbell curls
- Hammer curl
- Bayesian cable curl
- Cable biceps exercises in general
- Curl on an incline bench
- Curl with elastic
In practice, they are all variations of the exact same movement.
Optimal frequency
The biceps is a particularly small muscle and cannot undergo enormous damage within the session. At the same time, however, it is a muscle that is able to recover with good speed. Added to this is that the various curls do not have such a demanding systemic impact, as the flat bench press can be, or the various fundamentals and consequently, especially during a specialization it is easily possible to train it 3-4 times a week.
Biceps exercises and recovery times
Highly overrated in general, generally for heavier exercises I recommend waiting for 2-3 minutes between sets, while for pure pump exercises 60 seconds or less.
The biceps should be trained no more than three consecutive days per week. This means that you need at least one day off between biceps workouts. If you lift heavy weights, you must take at least two days off between biceps workouts.
Bodybuilding Biceps Exercises
Let’s try to make a practical example using the theory exposed so far.
A bodybuilder will want to train their biceps a minimum of 2-3 times a week with direct work.
A practical example:
Day 1:
- 3 × 8 barbell curl
- Curl on inclined 3 × 10
Day 2:
- 3 × 10 EZ barbell curl
- Hammer curl 3 × 10
Day 3:
- 3 × 12 cable curls with drop-sets
- Bayesian curl 3 × 12 with rest-pauses
In this example, the biceps undergoes direct work of 18 training sets per week, from different angles and with different variations of the same exercise.
Powerlifting Biceps Exercises
If you’re a powerlifter who uses a lot of pulling exercises like chin-ups and rowing, you probably don’t need anything else.
Adding 4-6 weekly sets of at least biceps isolation can still be good and right.
Other considerations
The biceps is probably the muscle par excellence for metabolic stress work, and pump research, with high repetitions and intensity techniques.
This doesn’t mean running only that.
Above all, it does not mean not paying due attention to fundamental multi-joint exercises such as rowing and chin-ups, which will build a solid foundation on which to then go to work on the pump.
The biceps are a great muscle to work with with the famous bodybuilding mind-muscle connection.
Increasing the activation of the biceps with this mental focus technique is highly recommended.
The biceps also lend themselves well to various intensity techniques that have always been used in old-school as well as modern bodybuilding:
- Drop sets
- Giant series
- Superseries
- Peak contractions
- Slow eccentrics
One of the techniques that I find inadequate (and often used!), Especially for beginners, are the cheat reps.
Best Biceps Exercises For Mass | Video Explanation
FAQs
Why are my biceps not growing?
There are two main training mistakes that hinder biceps growth. These are overtraining the biceps and lack of variation in training methods.
When to gain weight?
Whenever you succeed, with the same quality of execution.
How to define the biceps?
How every other muscle is defined: You build the muscle mass of the target muscle and lose fat to show it off.
There are no tricks, there are no shortcuts, and there are no other ways.
How to do bodyweight biceps?
Pull-ups and chin-ups must become your best friends.
How do do biceps at home?
If you have barbells or dumbbells, you are already well on your way.
Follow the advice in the article.
Bands of varying tension can also be instrumental.
If you don’t have any equipment, buy it, there are no other ways to train your biceps than with tractions (and even for those you need specific equipment).
Conclusion
The biceps, like other muscle groups, should be trained in this manner once a week, or at most twice a week if the biceps are very weak. Strength training is a great way to get the ideal biceps. Good luck.
Hi, I am Matt Storace and I am a former personal trainer and founder of Beast Biceps. We had to find ways to train at home. When I started looking for the equipment I needed, I quickly realized that there were no good resources online. So I created Beast Biceps. It is a treasure trove of information developed from my experience and research. Read More Here
