Biceps are an area that I think everyone wants to develop.  While we shouldn’t neglect one muscle group to train another, blasting your slower gaining areas can give you the push you need to reach your size goals.  Over the off season, I was studying how muscles work and which groups are being hit when we do particular lifts.  (I highly recommend as it helps you tune in your mind muscle connection.)  One key area is the biceps, and how different workouts, grip varations and even tempo affects the muscle group differently.  You have to target each part to build the group fully.

Its In Your Head

The biceps are made up of the long head and short head, and for today we’ll include the brachialis and brachioradialis.  Each of these muscles must be hit for overall development.  The guy who only ever does alternating db curls will never grow his arms to full potential.  I like most people used to think this way.  Lets break down what you can do to isolate the different parts of this muscle group for overall growth.  Note: Those doing the Toxic Masculinity Program, all these are hit during the regular routine, but if you are slow to grow in the biceps, you can use this info when we talk about our “expansion” packs.

Long Head:

The long head is that “peak” of the biceps that you would see when doing the rear double biceps pose.  Typically the long head is engaged when your arms are at the sides of your body.   These include Incline dumbbell curls, and hammer curls.  That said, you can use a narrower grip on things like barbell curls to target the long head more.

Short Head

The short head is what give you that “wideness” to your biceps.  This would be more emphasized when hitting the front double biceps pose.  This head is typically hit when your arms are in front of you.  Think preacher curls, lying cable concentration curls etc.  Also, on things like a barbell curl, going just outside your shoulder width would target the short head.

Brachialis & Brachioradialis

The brachialis is the muscle in the upper arm that flexes your elbow joint.  Many people neglect the brachialis when training but since it sits under the biceps, its actually “pushes” the biceps taller as it grows.  Hitting any type of neutral (hammer) grip will work the brachialis including DB hammer curls and rope hammer curls.  If you have access to one of those bars with the vertical handles, you could do neutral BB curls too.  You have to be pretty lean and work the shit out of your arms to see the brachialis, but as Arnie shows us here, its possible.

The Brachioradialis visually this is your “forearm” muscle but I included it with this article because like the Brachialis, it helps with elbow movement and supination and pronation so we want it developed as well.  Hammer curls will target this as well as wrist curls.  Note: I commented to WB the other day that despite no direct forearm work, mine were sore from the program already.

Form

As with all our lifts we should be at a 9.5RPE and our movement should be slow, maximizing TUT.  As you do these lifts, think about what part of the arm is being targeted so you can hone in on that mind muscle connection.  Dont swing the weight, dont go too heavy and end up tiring out tendons (we cant grow those.)  Also, dont be a retard and try to curl too much.  As WB said “If 15# dumbbells are good enough for Kai, they’re good enough for me”

– J. Nyx