What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. Today we continue our popular training with Band
Series, this time how to build bigger biceps when all you've got is bands. Guys that actually don't
have to compromise the results of your training if you know how to do it. When it comes to any type
of bicep training, yeah, you're going be doing a lot of curls, but when you trained, particularly
with bands and you're doing a lot of curls, you need to know how to utilize those bands and
specific ways to get the most of the exercises. I'm going to show you how to do exactly that,
guys. Ten exercises to get you on the right track to building bigger biceps with just bands.
So, I mentioned a whole bunch of curl variations, but I actually don't want to start there. I
actually want to start right here up to the chin up bar. Because for me, one of the foundational
exercises for building bigger biceps is going to be utilizing chin ups in some way, shape or form.
And the band comes in to actually make that job of yours even easier or harder, depending upon the
level that you're at right now. So, if you look at the movement here, you can obviously see that the
supination of the form, the flexion of the elbow and the flexion of the shoulder puts the bicep
in a fully contracted position as a body weight exercise. Now, for some, body weight might be
a lot. So, the band could be stepped into and used as an assistance tool to make it easier as you
build up your strength and movement. Of course, I can make it more difficult, too, because I can
anchor the band to something sturdy and heavy on the ground, put it around the back of my head,
and then jump up to that bar and bang out some chips and a much heavier, more overloaded fashion.
Either way, guys, you can't get around the fact that the chin up is one of the basic foundational
moves for building bigger biceps and the bands make your job that much easier.
And that brings us now to the curling portion of our video. I told you, there's a lot of curls,
but remember, I also told you how you do the curls matters. Because we know anatomically
the biceps have two heads. We have the inside short head that you see when I do this. And we
have the outside long head that you see from the side, more of the peak. And depending upon
the exercises that you choose, you can influence more activity in the short or long head. We start
here with the No Money Curl. This is a short head exercise. Reason being, if you can view the inside
portion of my bicep when I do it, then that is the portion of the biceps that you're actually
going to be working more and with No Money Curl I'm not just getting the resisted flexion and
supination that I get on a typical curl, but I also have resisted external rotation that gives
you that little extra additional benefit to your rotator cuff, which is never a bad thing.
So now that being said, how do we target exercises that get the outer head or the
long head of the biceps? Well, we need to be able to see them when we perform the exercise and one
of the best ways to do that is with a more narrow grip, pulling the band up a little bit tighter.
And this is where this exercise falls and hits the Close Grip Supination Curl. Now, remember I told
you that how you anchor the band matters? Well, this is a particular instance where it actually
matters very much, because what I want to do is make sure that I'm resisting supination and not
just flexion of the elbow. So, as I wrap the band, the way I'm showing you here, you'll see
the final wrap goes around that middle knuckle of the finger. And that actually matters because as
I pull the band up and turn my wrist, I'm actually resisting supination with every single centimeter
that I move into supination. That means a better contraction on the biceps, more work being done.
Now, the narrow position of the hands being done really close together is going to reveal
that outer portion of the biceps more to the person watching this, which in this case is you,
and that means the long head is preferentially going to get more of the activity.
Let's stick with that long head now for a second, because there's another way we can actually
influence the activation of that head of the biceps. And that is by placing a stretch on it
before every single repetition. She might be asking yourself, well, how do I do that?
Well, anatomically, with the tendon of the long head attaching higher up on the shoulder
and it crossing the shoulder joint, we can place it preferentially into a stretched position
by getting our arm back behind our body into shoulder extension. So, if we set ourselves up
for something like this, a bicep stretch curl, we are getting a better stretch on the long head here
and by contracting I have a pre-stretched position, we can get better activation.
Again, another option that's easy to set up just by simply anchoring it to something behind you,
but showcasing once again how you do the curls you do in the ones that you select
will play a big part and the results that you ultimately see from the exercises.
Because, of course, you just can't get enough of the long head--wait--And because long head
exercises are that beneficial, we need to make sure we have another option. And this is one
of my favorites. It's actually the Drag Curl, a favorite of Vince Gironda. What you're doing is,
again, trying to reinforce the fact that you can get that arm back into extension behind your body,
you're going to get a different recruitment of the biceps more favorably, hitting the fibers
of the long head. We do this by anchoring the bend under our heels behind our body and then wrapping
it around our low back to stabilize it and keep it in place. At this point, all we're going to do is
lift our hands straight up to the ceiling, making sure to keep the elbows as far back as possible.
Look, there's a reason why this has become a legendary exercise and why it's stuck around
for as long as it has, because it can produce legendary games, if you remember to include it.
So, one of the nice advantages that comes from training with bands is that they offer up a
different strength curve that you would normally see on a traditional curl. As you continue,
stretch this band out further and further and further, the resistance level goes up. So,
if we could find a way to match up that peak tension with the peak contraction of the biceps,
then we really have an exercise to hold onto and that's what we get here at the Lip Buster.
And by getting in this position, you can see that I have flexion of the elbow supination here of
the forearm, and I've got that elevated shoulder into flexion that really creates that peak bicep
contraction. And of course, if I want to make it even more difficult and add an eccentric
component to this for more overload, all I have to do is perform a curl, take a giant step back
that will increase that tension even more and try to pull me back towards the bar. This is a must
have exercise when it comes to rounding out these ten great choices for banded bicep exercises.
Speaking of feeling a strong biceps contraction, there's no way I'm getting around a variation of
some sort of the Bicep Weighted Curl. Because with the dumbbell, this is one of my favorite
ways to get that contraction in the biceps. But we can still do the same thing with bands as long
as we are a little bit creative and we know once again how to wrap the bands in the first place
to create a line of resistance we're looking for. So, you can see I step into the band this way and
by positioning it around my hands now I'm getting all the overload right there through the distal
fingers and now all my job is to simply raise my hands, palms up the entire time straight towards
the ceiling. This mimics once again what we're trying to accomplish here when we have a dumbbell
in our hands and we don't have to compromise or get rid of the exercise in the process.
So, one of the best parts about the Preacher Curl is that it actually, again, goes back to working
that inside short head of the biceps. And it does that by positioning your arm out in front of your
body as opposed to keeping it back behind the body like we talked about. The other thing is by
locking it in place, we eliminate a lot of the swing and momentum we use that would otherwise
cheat the exercise and take away some of its benefits. We could do the same thing here with a
band by positioning ourselves like this. By taking the stride stance and anchoring my elbow in place
on my knee, I can double up the band, so I have plenty of resistance out there to make sure it's
challenging me. But I can replicate all the good benefits of a Preacher Curl, without
ever needing a bench, a dumbbell or anything other than the band I'm holding in my hand.
Now no list of "bicep" exercises would be complete without considering the brachialis. Yes, it's a
different muscle, but functionally it's going to have a lot of overlap with what the biceps
do and esthetically it's going to have an impact on how yours looks. So, we want to do is work on
the muscle that lies underneath the biceps and the best way to do this is two exercises. Number one,
we have the Crossbody Hammer Curl. So, I set the band up nice and wide, so I have adequate
resistance here to challenge this muscle. But I also want to pull the band up and across my body.
When I do this properly, I'm actually in this pronated position and we know if we
can remain pronated we're taking away some of the function of the biceps as a supinator so
I can more effectively target the brachialis as a simple elbow flexor. If you do this properly,
you're not going to feel that typical bicep contraction, but something much deeper and
knowing anatomically with this muscle lies, you're going to know you're doing it right now.
There's one downside to the Crossbody Hammer Curl, is that the resistance level that you're
going to be able to use there might be lower than you'd expect. But that doesn't mean you
can't put up with the appropriate exercise choice and that's where the Hammer Curl comes
in. In a slightly more neutral position what we want to focus on here is the ability to handle
more weight or load and in this case, we can do that by doubling up the band. We give this
offset grip. that's important because the more slack we have picking out from under that foot,
the less resistance that's applied to the band and the less slack we have there, the higher
the resistance level. Just remember, this option is going to give you that chance to load up with
some extra resistance, so don't forget to take advantage of that fact and do so.
And with that you've now got ten exercises with bands that you can use to build bigger biceps
without compromise. And talking about bands, guys, a lot of you asked me where we get ours. I
actually have my own high-quality bands available over at athleanx.com, Athlean Elast-X.
If you're looking for programs, guys, we have all of our step by step plans available over there
as well. If you haven't done so, make sure you click, subscribe and turn on your notifications
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up below. What else do you want to see? What do you want to see next in the series? I'll
do my best to cover for you in the days and weeks ahead. All right, guys, see you soon.