The Problem with Most Biceps Exercises

Guns. Pythons. Pipes. Whatever you call them, there’s no denying that big biceps are perhaps the most coveted physical quality in the strength training world.

For every person squatting or deadlifting in the average gym, there are 10 people ripping sets of curls, getting a big pump to fill out their schmedium shirt sleeves.

Strong biceps are important for more than just looks. Big guns help you crank out more pullups, hold on to big deadlifts and stabilize the bar during the bench press. They keep your shoulders healthy and balance out your triceps if you do a lot of heavy pressing.

But for all the time and effort people put into training their arms, most people do it ineffectively. Piggy-backing on the popularity of The Problem with Most Chest Exercises, it’s time to break down the issues most people have with training their biceps. The chest article was by far my most-viewed post to date (although the internet warriors over at Reddit didn’t seem to care for it – no matter, I’m assuming they all bench 450 and have 50-inch pecs anyways), so it called for a second installment.

Unlike my gripes with chest training, my issues with hitting the biceps aren’t with the exercises themselves. Rather, it’s crappy technique and poor programming that rob many gym-goers of the mountainous arms they desire.

PROBLEM #1: TIME UNDER TENSION

Time under tension (TUT) means how long the target muscle is placed under stress during a set of exercise. Increasing the number of reps and decreasing rep speed both increase TUT. This can be manipulated by changing the tempo of an exercise, which assigns a certain number of seconds to each phase of the movement. Exercises can be broken down into three phases:

• Concentric or “lifting” phase (e.g. raising the bar during a biceps curl)
• Fully contracted phase (e.g. biceps squeezed at the top of a curl)
• Eccentric or “lowering” phase (e.g. lowering the bar during a biceps curl)

You can get really fancy and add a fourth or fifth number for pause between reps or pause in the stretched position, but we’ll leave it at 3 to keep it simple.

So if you do a curl with a 311 tempo, that means you lower the bar for 3 seconds, curl the bar up quickly (1 second) and pause for 1 second at the top as you squeeze your biceps. This adds up to 5 seconds per rep, so if you do 12 reps, a set should take approximately 60 seconds for a full minute of TUT.

The coaches at Xceleration Sports Training taught me the value of using tempo, which can greatly alter the intensity of an exercise. For example, try doing a set of 10 pushups as quickly as possible. Then, try doing 10 pushups, but take 5 seconds to lower yourself to the floor on each rep. Much harder, right?

Remember, the simplest way to get bigger and stronger is to move big weights. But some exercises and muscle groups aren’t well-served for big poundage. That’s where tempo comes in.

Tempo is another tool in your toolbox for adjusting the difficulty of an exercise, just like sets, reps and weight on the bar. In the pushup example, the first scenario is best served for big strength exercises like squats, presses and deadlifts. Lift the weight as explosively as possible (with perfect form) in order to move the most weight and recruit the greatest number of muscle fibers. For smaller muscles like biceps and rear delts, the second scenario works better. You can’t move a ton of weight, so get the most out of lighter weights but increasing TUT.

Here’s a general rule. Big barbell exercises are most effective with heavy weight and less TUT. “Body building” style exercises and prehab/rehab exercises (rotator cuff, scapular stability, etc.) are most effective with less weight and increased TUT. These are not absolutes, but will hold true 99 percent of the time.

PROBLEM #2: TECHNIQUE

It’s hard to mess up exercise selection for the biceps. Barbell curls, dumbbell curls, EZ bar curls. Preacher curls, hammer curls, pinwheel curls. They all work. Where people miss the mark is the proper execution of these exercises.

The biggest problem you see is “cheating” where the person uses a little body English to help move the weight. This usually involves back arching, hip thrusting and full-body convulsing to get the bar from point A to point B.

A typical cheat curl with a straight bar or EZ bar starts with good form, but as the curl gets hard, the person arches their lower back, leans backward and lets the elbows drift forward in front of the shoulders. You lose all the tension on the biceps and the delts take over. As the reps get harder, the person swings more violently, reducing TUT and turning the curl into some primal mating ritual you’d see on the Discovery Channel.

The thing is, cheating the RIGHT way can actually make curls SAFER and MORE EFFECTIVE. Blasphemy, right?

At the bottom of a curl, there’s minimal tension on the biceps muscles. The biceps also have lousy leverage in that position, so it’s tough to get the bar moving. The muscles don’t get appreciably involved until the elbows are slightly flexed AND the biceps tendon is most vulnerable to injury in the fully stretched position. So why not cheat a little to get the bar going and avoid irritating the often-cranky biceps tendon?

The key to proper cheating is to keep the chest tall, elbows tight to the sides and use just a little hip “bump” at the beginning of the movement ONLY. Thrust the hips forwards like you’re locking out a deadlift or finishing a kettlebell swing, creating just enough momentum to get the bar moving. Then the biceps kick in and you get a great contraction at the top without the shoulders taking over.

Watch this video to see the difference between “good” cheating and “bad” cheating.

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People mess up dumbbell curls just as bad. There’s a tendency to start with the palms facing each other and then supinate (e.g. turn the palm up toward the ceiling) as you curl the weight up. This reduces TUT by letting the biceps relax through the majority of the movement. It also increases the tendency for the elbows to drift away from the body, which brings the weight toward the outside of the shoulder and reduces tension when the biceps are fully contracted.

A more effective approach is to keep the palms up the whole time and never let the biceps fully relax. Start with the palms up, curl the weight forcefully but only go to the point where the elbows are fully flexed – NOT until the dumbbell touches the shoulder or upper arm. Then lower down slowly, imagining the biceps stretching to lower the weight rather than letting gravity take over. This will burn like hell and you’ll have to use less weight, but will be safer and more effective for growth in the long run.

Take a look at this video to see the difference between good and bad form for the dumbbell curl.

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PROBLEM #3: POOR PROGRAMMING

The final problem is simply a matter of poor programming choices: too many exercises, too many sets/reps, too much weight. Or the complete opposite. I’ve heard many functional training tough guys brag about how they don’t train arms because it’s “not functional” or a “waste of time.” That’s a one-way ticket to pencil-neck town.

The biceps are a small muscle group, so they generally don’t need a ton of volume and can recover quickly. That means they can be trained more frequently, pending you don’t completely annihilate them with an “arms only” day. Hitting biceps twice a week on upper body days with one or two exercises for 30-50 total reps per session (60-100 reps per week) should be more than enough for novice-to-intermediate lifters.

Try something like this at the end of an upper body workout:

Upper day #1

1A. EZ Bar Curls (311 tempo) – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

1B. Bodyweight Dips – 3 sets of max reps (one rep shy of failure)

Upper day #2

1A. Incline Dumbbell Curls (401 tempo) – 3 sets of 8-10 reps/side

1B. Triceps Pushdowns w/ Band – 3 sets of 15-20 reps

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Pairing a biceps exercise with a triceps exercise helps keep everything in balance and aids in TUT because they’re opposing muscle groups. When one is active, the other is too, no matter how hard to try to shut them off.

Start with an easy weight, be strict with the tempo, and shoot for the low end of total reps to begin with. Keep the weight the same over a few weeks until you reach the high end of the total reps, then increase the weight. Most people can ride out this progress for awhile.

Advanced lifters trying to get pythons like Jay Cutler’s might need a different approach like more volume, more exercises, super sets, drop sets and so on. But if you have 12-inch arms and can’t do 10 chinups with perfect form, stick to the basics.

And remember, the biceps get smashed during pullups, rows, deadlifts, shrugs and the like. If you’re smart and train arms at the end of an upper body workout, they’ll be fatigued already. That’s just another reason to keep the weight low, volume moderate and use extended TUT to your advantage.

MORE BRAINS = MORE GAINS

Fixing these three common mistakes can help you get out of an arm-training rut and fill out those shirt sleeves. All it takes is a little planning and a little understanding of how the biceps work.

Keep it all in perspective: the biceps are a small muscle group, so treat them as such. But don’t ignore them – they can have a big impact on strength and, most importantly, confidence.