Bicep training is not difficult, complicated, and it shouldn’t take a lot of time. I maybe spend 15 minutes, once per week, training my biceps for a total of about 6 sets. I’ve never done much more than this and I’ve got pretty decent sized biceps. I’ve just stayed consistent with it over the years and it’s paid off.
Biceps, in my opinion, are underrated as an important muscle group for overall total body strength. While certainly not on the level of squats, presses, and deadlifts, strong arms are important and if you want to maximize both size and strength in the arms, you need to train them and you need to do lots of loaded elbow flexion – i.e. curls.
Many regard biceps as purely cosmetic (and of course we all have our egos to feed, and big arms are cool) but I use curls regularly in my programming for certain athletes – especially grapplers, and I also use them in my programming for seniors, as an upper body exercise that can be done standing. For many seniors, they cannot perform standing presses well. Presses are excellent for senior who need to do as much barbell work as possible on two feet for total body strength as well as balance. But many senior have very limited range of motion in their shoulders and overhead work is problematic. So I use a lot of standing barbell curls. When you take them fairly heavy there is not just bicep activity but also some work for the abs, low back, and traps.
In a basic strength program for an athlete or for seniors curls are usually performed just once per week for about 3 sets of 8. Occasionally dipping down into the 3-5 rep range for athletes.
In my Power-Building programs, we perform our Bicep Training on our Heavy Bench Press Day after we Bench and do our supplemental chest exercises such as Inclines, Dips, and Dumbbell Presses. I’ve always liked the pairing of Chest/Biceps. Lots of volume on the Bench and it’s variants is fatiguing and after all that pressing work I was never very strong on direct Tricep work. However, after training chest, the biceps and elbows are warmed up, but not fatigued, so I can train them pretty heavy and relatively fresh, and it doesn’t take very long to do, which is also good.
Training the biceps after my back sessions also seemed rather pointless to me as my biceps were pretty well smoked from all the chins, pulldowns, and rows. Plus, overall general fatigue is higher after a hard back session than a hard chest session so I don’t like doing anything on a back day other than back.
Furthermore, for maximal hypertrophy I like stimulating a muscle twice per week. Once directly and once indirectly. I usually train the biceps early in the week (directly) after chest, and then later in the week they get hit indirectly when I do my chins and rows. So this works out perfectly scheduling wise. I use the same philosophy for Triceps. I hit them directly with lots of dips, lying extensions, and cable pressdowns one day of the week, and on another day of the week they are stimulated again when I do my heavy chest training.
A simple routine for bicep strength & growth……
For biceps I rotate each week between workout A and workout B. The biceps only contract one way and so you don’t need 34 different curl variations. But I have found that better growth and less elbow irritation occurs with a small amount of variety in the training plan.
In Workout A, I start with heavy Barbell Curls and I normally do 3 working sets of 8 reps. Following the Barbell Curls I do a Single Arm DB Preacher Curl for 3 sets of 10-15 reps.
- Heavy Barbell Curl 3 x 8
- Single Arm DB Preacher Curl 3 x 10-15
For the Barbell Curl I perform maybe 2-3 warm up sets with lighter weights to make sure the biceps and elbows are thoroughly warm and then I do 3 sets of 8 across with a straight weight, trying to add weight each week. I keep these fairly strict but if I have to “cheat” a little bit on the last rep or two I will. Every 3rd workout or so I will drop the target rep range down to 4-5 and really try to load up heavy. I might do this for all 3 worksets or just the first workset and then back off to sets of 8 to finish out. I find that the occasional really heavy BB Curl workout is necessary to keep strength gains going. I keep rest times on my heavy BB Curl worksets at about 3 minutes.
For the Single Arm Preacher Curls I usually use an adjustable incline bench set around 70-80 degrees. I don’t like the standard preacher curl benches because the angle is too horizontal in my opinion. Usually those benches are around 45 degrees and I think a little more vertical is better. I select a light to moderate load that causes failure between 10-15 reps and I alternate arms with little to no rest between arms. So the reps are high and the rest is short and I’m aiming to pump as much blood into the muscle as possible in order to stimulate growth. I won’t hesitate to the lower the weight from set to set to keep rest time down and reps high and maintain a full range of motion. Aim for a deep prolonged stretch at the bottom of the exercise and squeeze the hell out of the biceps at the top. Keep the wrist as supinated as possible through the whole range of motion for maximum biceps activation.
If you can straighten your arms at the end of this workout you did it wrong.
In workout B I start off with either a Seated DB Curl or Incline DB Curl. An incline DB Curl should have the bench set around a 60 degree angle and this allows a deeper stretch at the bottom of the range of motion and you’ll use a little less weight than you will with a seated DB curl at 90 degrees. Either way, curl with BOTH arms simultaneously. I don’t like the old fashioned alternating DB Curl because it takes tension off the non-working bicep for too much of the exercise and it allows form to get sloppy. I like continuous tension on bicep training. Again, try and keep the wrist as supinated as possible for the whole exercise. These are done for 3 worksets (after 2-3 warm ups) for 6-8 reps. Strict but heavy. 2-3 minutes between worksets.
After the DB Curls, I go back to the Barbell Curl again, but this time the loads are lighter and the reps are higher. Usually 3 worksets of 10-15 reps. Rest times are just 1-2 minutes, but I will very often just perform this exercise as a double drop set. So I might do a workset of 10 reps at 95 lbs, strip it down to 75 lbs and immediately perform another set of 10-12 reps, strip it down to 55 lbs, and then immediately perform 10-15 more reps. So no rest between sets. Yes, you will use some embarrassingly light weights at the end of that double drop set, but the object here is not strength – it’s maximal blood flow and metabolic disruption, which is a stimulus for growth.
- Seated or Incline DB Curls 3 x 6-8
- Barbell Curl 3 x 10-15
That’s it. I find that this very simple routine 1x/week is sufficient for growth, especially if you are doing a back training session on another day of the week, preferrably 2-3 days before or after this session. Lately my Chest/Bicep days have been falling on Sundays and my Back Day falls on Thursday. If you really want to focus on bicep strength and growth, start all your Back Day sessions with Chin Ups, rather than with Pull-Ups or Rows and you’ll get some good bicep stimulation there. I’ve also found that when I regularly train my biceps hard, that I am stronger on my back exercises, especially my chins and pull ups.
So, for all you closet bodybuilders – you now have my permission to curl. Just don’t do it in the squat rack.
