Big biceps

[RobCosimo]

You claim your grip has improved with no focus on biceps training whatsoever, how can you know that your grip woudn't have improved even more with bicep training?
I like having strong arms, from my fingers to my shoulders, and having strong biceps is simply another link in the chain.

because everything's a trade off - you have limited time. I have, say, 45mins to do a workout - am I going to do curls to help my grip? No. In fact, it could actually be detrimental, because it's taking away the time I could be doing something direct for my grip, like deadlifts. Big rocks are better than the small rocks. Learning French would help me learn other languages, but if I want to learn Spanish, i'm better off focusing on learning Spanish.

[Munnings]

I also would like to say this concerning the limitations on iso exercises.
You think your bicep will get bigger if you just do bicep curls rather than pull/chin ups and rows?
Well its going to get bigger (yes i said bigger) if you do compounds.
WHY?
well, ill tell you.
You WILL get MORE extensive hypertrophy over your whole body when you do comp exercises. So of course your bi's are gunna get big, because the rest of you is getting big! Also, you cant expect to get big arms without focusing on your chect, back and legs because your body tries to keep everything in consistent size. so, train whole body=bigger gains. best, easiest way to do that is compounds. Simple.
Look at all the curl boys at your gym for a great example. They would be HUGE if they did comp exercises instead of just hammering away at the iso exercises.... its ok to hammer away at compound exercises. Their arms arent gunna get like 20" without consistent work on chest, back and legs.
And, aside from size, your strength wont be as good if you do iso exercises compared to compounds.

[nburge]

I don't think there's an argument here against compound movements for bicep building, there is a suggestion that your biceps will improve more if you train them directly (isolation) too. If you have the time this seems reasonable. If training them more improves your grip then that's surely a good thing.

I don't have time to focus on bi's and haven't needed to, but I think we should discuss whether someone with the time and inclination to do so would benefit from this rather than whether he should drop deadlifts to do preacher curls as this isn't the point of the discussion and we all seem agreed that it would be counter-productive.

[NorthstarUK]

Your body grows as a unified whole not lots of seperate muscle groups. My arms got much bigger when I started to squat and DL more and EAT more.

Isolation exercises can help with 'detail' and definition in specific areas but if your not where you want to be interms of size and strength, your wasting your time.

[atypical1]

I don't have time to focus on bi's and haven't needed to, but I think we should discuss whether someone with the time and inclination to do so would benefit from this rather than whether he should drop deadlifts to do preacher curls as this isn't the point of the discussion and we all seem agreed that it would be counter-productive.

Good point.

I would say that someone who has time to do curls at the end of their workout still shouldn't necessarily do curls. If they have time for curls then they have time for mobility drills or time to eat a pound of chicken and some brown rice (with some spinach on the side). I'm a firm believer that a beginner strength trainee has no business doing curls. They should be concentrating on their big lifts and eating. If, and this is a big if, they have the time and the knowledge then they can start addressing specific weak points that are holding their big lifts back (maybe specifically addressing their glutes). Anything more is simply a waste of time for them. Again, that's for someone training strength. If they are a budding body builder then all bets are off.

If you're an intermediate then have at it. Ironically I think you'll find most intermediates (at least on this site) are going to be more concerned about dips than curls though.

james

[NorthstarUK]

I don't think there's an argument here against compound movements for bicep building, there is a suggestion that your biceps will improve more if you train them directly (isolation) too. If you have the time this seems reasonable. If training them more improves your grip then that's surely a good thing.

I don't have time to focus on bi's and haven't needed to, but I think we should discuss whether someone with the time and inclination to do so would benefit from this rather than whether he should drop deadlifts to do preacher curls as this isn't the point of the discussion and we all seem agreed that it would be counter-productive.

Good point and well answered by James IMO. Also there is the issue of over training, your Bi's will get plenty of overload from all the DLing, Pull Ups, BORs and also on the negative from BPing and dips. Adding curls will probably lead to overtraining a very small muscle and end up being counter-productive.

However' if someone is hell-bent on doing curls then I say go-ahead and fill your boots, see for yourself. There's plenty of guys got big strong arms without doing curls and there's plenty who have done them, but whether they needed to do the curls is difficult to say because you can't go back in time and repeat your whole training / diet / rest, without/with them.

I'd guess if you did them and got big arms you would say they worked, but if you got big arms without them then they don't. Ultimately there is no definitive answer, but IMO the more reliable evidence suggests they are of little / no value.

[ricepower]

Im also one whos deeply ashamed of the whole bicep curling stigma attached to weight training. If anyone of my friends or family hears that I was in the gym they make curling motions with their arms, it is really embarassing.

I have not done curling ever, and have actually been avoiding doing chin ups to avoid enlarging my biceps. Aesthetically I actually prefer the massive tricep/small bicep look that a lot of olympic lifters have. I am also worried that biceps will interfere with flexibilty for racking which I am having issues with.

[Sam277]

Many powerlifters, for example, dave tate, jim wendler and many more, do curls, because they say it helps their bench, they tell everyone else to do them too, probably for similar reasons. Strongmen too, because the bicep can be just as important in gripping as the forearms, atlas stones anyone? You use your biceps more than your triceps in everyday life because of this; it's damn functional.

Then there's the aesthetics, (and btw rice, i fail to see why you'd be ashasmed to look good, do you mock someone when they treat themselves to a nice item of clothing?). Big biceps look good. Looking big and muscular looks good. Being in proportion looks good. Being out of proportion... doesn't. Nobody has ever said your biceps won't grow from compounds, and most of the people telling you do curls recognise you need compounds first. And from this side of the arguement... bodybuilders. Oh shit, i forgot, they don't curl their way to the biggest bis.

But why seperate these 2? Why wouldn't you want to have big biceps? To avoid steryotypes? Do you really think people will look at your big muscular body, go to make a comment, and then not do so because your biceps are underveloped? They won't, whether your bis are big or not, people will always steryotype big guys. Here's the difference though: when people see someone strong, they ask them to flex their biceps. Would you really want to disappoint here? Because the comments will be worse if you do. Personally i don't think you should give a shit what somebody else thinks anyway.

I fail to see why people think that not training a muscle will lead better results than not training it. A 100m runner won't use walking as the bulk of their training... because it doesn't place maximal stress on the legs. If you could squat 100kg, you wouldn't just use an empty bar... because you're not stressing your legs. You won't get big biceps by just using them as stabilisers. People say, "well maybe i don't want the biggest strongest possible biceps, i'm mr fucntional and i only like to train legs." And at the same time laugh at people at the gym for doing the reverse. Irony?

Edit: I strongly disagree about the issue of time. Most people have time to do 20 minutes worth of curls a week. If someone says they don't it's probably a lie or an excuse. Only in extreme circumstances is this not the case.

[Sam277]

Your body grows as a unified whole not lots of seperate muscle groups. My arms got much bigger when I started to squat and DL more and EAT more.

Northstar, not trying to attack you here, just a very common comment. So this is to everyone who's made it.

Can you honestly say that before you started stronglifts, (or whatever program it was that got you onto stronglifts), you had everything else in check as it is now. Was your diet perfect? Was your sleep perfect? Did you even train isolations with a proper plan, with 100% intensity? did you even use the isolation exercises properly, ie bouncing, short ROM? Did you rest for long enough? How much did you drink alcohol wise? How much water did you drink? Did you smoke? And the big one, were you eating enough?

And there's many many more variables. I think the main reason this site is so brilliant is that the advice offered in the articles by Mehdi. If you don't get this side of weightlifting correct then of course you won't see results.

It just so happens that the people selling the basic compound programs also give advice on the above. Programs with advanced details on supersetting etc expect you to know about the above, people treat these as programs, when all they are is methodology to go with your program.

[Sorry about the double post, thought it would be silly to slap all of that in 1 post].

[somebody]

sam277:

A few things:

1. When you say, "I fail to see why people think that not training a muscle will lead better results than not training it," you're misunderstanding the argument that people are making. People are arguing that, all other things being equal, a novice will get better results training the biceps along with other muscles in a compound movement, as opposed to isolating. There is a physiological basis for this argument which is probably open to debate, but it's pretty widely agreed upon.

2. In an novice program, doing curls on Monday is eventually going to interfere with your ability to complete your scheduled upper body reps on Wednesday. A 3x5 program with simple linear progression completely taxes (or should, eventually, completely tax) your body's ability to recover. You may think it's worth delaying your progress on the core lifts in exchange for the possibility of hypertrophy in your biceps, but you need to realize that you are making a choice.

3. Intermediates do curls and other assistance for a variety of reasons, including aesthetic reasons. But more is not always better.

[Mehdi]

I'd say that you're going to get a LOT more grip work through deads and pull ups than if you do curls. You can get very strong arms without doing curls.

Right again. I haven't done a curl in anger in over six months, and pullups (off a 2" bar, I might add) have done more for my arms and grip than curls ever did.

Thick bar works helps grip strength, so do static holds (which is what pull-ups are). Those have more impact on grip strength than increasing biceps strength.

[nburge]

I strongly disagree about the issue of time. Most people have time to do 20 minutes worth of curls a week. If someone says they don't it's probably a lie or an excuse. Only in extreme circumstances is this not the case.

You can indeed make time for these things. I didn't have time for 3x45 minute sessions before I started, but I got up earlier and made compromises to achieve what I wanted (to get stronger). My point about not having enough time is that I don't view getting bigger arms as the be-all and end-all so I don't have the inclination to use another 20 minutes of my precious sleep per week to train them. I also struggle to get the 3x sessions of big weights in per week so I'm not going to waste time on biceps.

[Mehdi]

Many powerlifters, for example, dave tate, jim wendler and many more, do curls, because they say it helps their bench, they tell everyone else to do them too, probably for similar reasons. Strongmen too, because the bicep can be just as important in gripping as the forearms, atlas stones anyone? You use your biceps more than your triceps in everyday life because of this; it's damn functional.

Are you at their level?

Alpha22 doesn't have the basics down. He needs to increase his squat/dead/chin-up strength, that will increase his biceps size more than direct arm work.

[Sam277]

1. I fully agree with you on this, but that doesn't mean this method isn't inferior to doing compounds AND isolations. The thing is, it's not widely agreed that curling is bad in weight lifting. For a runner, it's not needed, for a weight lifter it is.

2. Working your biceps for a few sets per week will not expend much energy to train or recover. Some people say chins work their biceps and give way before their lats. Well isn't this a reason to make sure your biceps are as strong as possible.

3. Yeah, but the reason will normally relate to strength and size, (unless you're doing something like combat sports). I don't believe anyone here is gonig to overtrain their arms, and although more isn't always better, it's still better than none.

[Mehdi]

I believe everyone of us wants big biceps. Even the most clueless person on Earth knows what's a bicep curl.

I don't give a damn about biceps size. And like ricepower wrote, I also get annoyed by people assuming that I train 6x/week in front of the mirror doing curls. Just happened last night again, this guy wouldn't believe I only trained 3x/week and I don't train my arms (and I was wearing a turtleneck, long sleeves, 38cm arms, 75kg/1m73, by all means I'm a light weight).