Bicep Workouts

All About Bicep Curls

By Leave a Comment

You must have seen all those buffed up dudes at the beach showing off their overly muscular guns and thought how a simple concept of bicep curls could potentially lead to those seemingly mutated but lady-attracting biceps. Well you’re not alone in that train of thought. For all we know, everybody may do so at one point.

What are bicep exercises anyway? How do they transform a small pad of muscle fibers into bulging mounds of power? And how much of it would one need to possess powerful and sleeve-ripping biceps?

Let’s get a little biological here. Bicep curls are exercises used to increase the strength, tone, size, or endurance of the biceps muscles. The general principle applied in these exercises is the exertion of force by the bicep muscles with the use of weights in a curling direction starting from full extension to full possible flexion.

In this way, the bicep muscles are conditioned to generate enough force to fully curl itself and hold the contraction peak for a couple of seconds for the maximum exposure. This exposure essentially tears the muscle fibers apart and basically wears them down.

Why do this you may ask. Breaking down the muscle cells and fibers is important because without it, stronger and larger muscles will not replace the muscles you currently have. And if replacement of these muscles does not occur, developing bigger biceps does not come to fruition.

The extent of muscle replacement is proportional to the intensity of the curling exercises. At the end of the process, the replaced muscle fibers should be stronger, larger, and more solid than the muscle fibers that were worn and torn. Why? Because the body is a natural adapter. In order to withstand the force the biceps were forcefully exposed to the next it happens, the body needs stronger muscles.

Bicep curl exercises exploit this principle to best use. Barbell curls, dumbbell curls, hammer curls, concentration curls, preacher curls, and bench press curls are variations of this exercise that use the same basic principle and apply it in a variety of aspects that holistically develop all the corresponding aspects of the bicep muscles.

Furthermore, these variations have variations of their own that further takes the central principle into integrated practice. The end result of all these exercises given proper frequency, intensity, progression, timing, rest, diet, and of course commitment is those huge bulging monstrosity of muscles of the upper arms.

However, this does not mean that one would have to perform ALL of the variations to build bigger biceps. The variations were made in order to accommodate separate aspects of the exercise that different individuals would prefer to focus on.

A lot of people after all don’t just target the biceps muscles when bodybuilding. They would logically want to develop the entire body’s muscular system. In this sense, developing multiple muscles at one time may be a prospect of interest for them. They can use different variations of the curls to involve not only their bicep muscles, but also to pectorals and brachialis (forearm) muscles.

So now that we know what these exercises are, what they entail, and what commitment they would need for us to get those killer biceps, we are now a bit more prepared to get our own bicep enlargement regimens underway. With the correct attitude injected into a proper workout routine with, of course, bicep curls involved, we should be seeing results in no time.

Filed Under: Bicep Workouts Tagged With: , ,

Effective Bicep Workouts for Women

By Leave a Comment

Not only members of the male species have desires to engage in bicep workouts and increase the masses of their piston pump biceps. For whatever different reasons, it is clear that women have just as much potential to develop killer biceps as men, and there is certainly no reason why they shouldnt.

The following are some of the most efficient bicep workouts that women can consistently perform. These exercises are designed in collaboration to work the triceps muscles as well as the biceps. Women particularly need balance in exercising these two muscles because of their readier tendency to accumulate fat in the triceps area.

To start off, women who want buffed up biceps can perform concentration curls using dumbbells. This exercise isolates the biceps and forearms from the rest of the muscle groups so youll be sure to expose them to the most of the exercises rigors.

Simply sit on a bench or chair with legs spread apart. Brace your curling elbow to your knee on the same side and let your arm and hand holding the dumbbell hang to the ground. Using only your forearms for movement, curl up the dumbbells until they reach shoulder level while keeping your elbow glued to your knee. In this way, your biceps are forced to bear all the weight without support from your shoulder muscles.

Another great bicep exercise for women is the hammer curls. This exercises the outer portion of your biceps and even helps tone your abdomen and regulate your breathing. Holding the dumbbells in both hands while they face each other at the sides, curl up the dumbbells to your shoulder area without rotating your hands to let the palms face upward. Maintain the peak contraction for a couple of seconds before slowly returning your hands to starting position. You may repeat as tolerated and use one or two hands simultaneously.

These bicep workouts for women also include barbell curls. If you think women cant handle the barbells then you are sadly mistaken. Standing with the back straight and feet apart, hold the barbell in front of you with palms facing forward and curl the barbell up to your shoulder level. Hold the peak contraction at the top for a second or two before returning to starting position. You may repeat as desired and tolerated.

The last two bicep workouts make use of weighted pulleys. With low-pulley curls, you simply hold the handles of the pulley machine palm up with forearms parallel to the ground. Exhale as you pull the weights attached to the wires running through the pulleys as high as possible as long as your elbows stay in place. Otherwise, the force will be transferred to the front side of your shoulder muscles and we dont exactly want that when exercising our biceps.

With the high-pulley variation to top off your bicep exercise routine, stand in between two pulleys at head level, grab hold of the handles while keeping your upper arms parallel to the ground. Then pull on the weights as you bring the handles to your ears. This efficiently tones not only your biceps, but your triceps, and forearms as well.

With every exercise comes the need to stay committed to them and with regular regimens, a couple of weeks is enough to see positive results. Just dont forget to exercise your triceps as well to go with these bicep workouts to achieve the best results.

Filed Under: Bicep Workouts Tagged With: ,

Trying Out the Bicep Workouts for Men

By Leave a Comment

The first step to getting ripped biceps is to choose to most appropriate of the different bicep workouts to perform. Depending on the individual’s commitment, preferences, and tolerance, the following bicep exercises may be used with varying personalized intensity and frequency.

Number one is standing barbell curls. Simply stand, keep your feet apart and your back straight, and use an underhand grip on the straight barbell or EZ bar. With the barbell hanging in front of you at arm’s length, start curling your biceps by bringing the barbell up to your shoulder area. This exercises both your biceps and your forearm muscles.

For maximum contraction force, hold the curl for a second or two before lowering the barbell back to starting position. Be sure not to lift excess weight and to use the momentum to bring the barbell to your shoulders fully. Repeat this as tolerated.

The second of the men’s bicep workouts is the variation of the barbell curls – the preacher curls. This utilizes a special preacher bench to isolate your biceps from the other muscle groups of your body.

How this works is you sit on the preacher bench and rest your arms facing up on the pad in front. Hold the barbell securely with both hands and then use nothing but your bicep power to curl up the barbell again up to the shoulder area. You will need a partner to hand you the barbells in this way. Using this variation gives the maximum weight bearing force to your bicep muscles and places the secondary force on your forearms – a great way of conditioning your biceps.

Another of these bicep workouts for men is the standing dumbbell curls. It isn’t principally different from using barbells but the variation of the weights allows for individual arm exercises.

Stand the way you do with the barbell curls and hold the dumbbells at the side of your body with your palms clenched sideways. Simultaneously or alternately curl up the dumbbells using only the forearms for movement until it reaches shoulder level. Your palms must be clenched facing up at this point. Hold this position to prolong maximum muscle contraction and then slowly lower after a second or two. As with the above exercises, repeat this movement as tolerated.

A variation of dumbbell curls is the hammer curls. They are essentially the same except for the fact that you do not rotate your palms to face upward when the dumbbells reach shoulder level for the hammer curls. This extends the weight for contraction to the brachialis muscles of the arms as well

One final variation of the dumbbell curls that we will enumerate in this article is the concentration curls. In this exercise, the biceps and forearms are isolated from the rest of the body muscles in much the same principle as with preacher curls.

This is done by sitting on a bench with legs apart and placing your curling elbow firmly braced against your corresponding knee. Curl the dumbbell up to shoulder level all the while keeping the elbow braced securely to the knee. Repeat this and alternate usage of arms as tolerated.

Whichever exercise you choose, it is important to note that they all need commitment and consistency and that not all of these exercises may work for everyone so a healthy combination and variation is advised. But with patience and hardwork, these bicep workouts will definitely pay off and make you a buffer man.

Filed Under: Bicep Workouts Tagged With: ,