3 Bicep Training Mistakes #1 Cheating too early Biceps curls are probably the easiest exercises to cheat. Whenever your arms are not resting on a bench (as during a preacher or machine curl), all it takes is a little swing to shift some tension from your arms to your front delts and make a hard rep easier. Cheating is a valuable tool for pushing sets beyond strict, full-rep failure, but if you do so before then, it’s unlikely you will ever thoroughly stress your bi’s. In an effort to hump up heavier weights than they could otherwise use, many bodybuilders start cheating on curls from rep number one and increase their swinging as the set wears on. Solutions Do strict reps until you reach failure. If necessary, stand with your back against a wall during barbell or EZ-bar curls and/or press your elbows against your sides. To remove your legs and hips from the movement, do dumbbell curls while seated. To push sets beyond strict, full-rep failure, do two or three extra reps with a slight arm swing. # 2 Doing too much The popularity of biceps doesn’t make them any larger in relation to their peers. Compared with your lats and quadriceps, your bi’s are puny, so if you’re pumping out as many sets in your biceps workout as your back workout, you’re likely piling on the “little guys.” More than any other muscles, biceps are frequent victims of overtraining, which halts or even reverses their gains. Solutions Beginners should do only six sets for biceps. After four months of training, you can gradually add sets. Advanced bodybuilders should typically do nine to 12 sets for biceps. At maximum, push only the final set of an exercise beyond failure via techniques like cheating, forced reps, negatives and drop sets. #3 Missing the target More pabulum has been published about arm training than any other bodypart. For example, not long ago it was preached as gospel that to accentuate your lower biceps, “thou shalt do preacher curls” and to accentuate your biceps peaks, “thou shalt do concentration curls.” Neither “tenet” is true, so it’s no wonder that so many bodybuilders fire off curls but miss their intended targets. In fact, you can’t put any greater emphasis on your lower biceps than the rest of the muscle, and merely focusing on peak contractions won’t raise your peaks. Solutions Focus on the two heads of your biceps, which rest side by side. Perform biceps curls with a grip that keeps the pinkies even with or higher than the other fingers to better recruit the biceps brachii short head (inner side). You also use the short head more when you take a wide grip on the bar. Perform curls with the thumbs higher than the pinkies–as when taking an angled grip on an EZ-bar or when using a parallel grip for hammer curls–to better target the biceps brachii long head (outer side). You also engage the long head more when you take a narrow grip on a bar. Growing the long head can boost the slope of your biceps, thus accentuating the peak in poses such as the front double biceps.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 20:01:55 +0000