What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I’m going to put together what I would call the perfect bicep workout.
Continuing the series.
We’re going to put heavy science into what we do, as we always do.
As a matter of fact, we’re going to break out, as always, the muscle markers to show
you why this becomes a perfect bicep workout.
In order to be called that, I feel there are six requirements that we have to make sure
we nail to be sure we’re covering all aspects of bicep training.
So, let’s get through those one by one.
We’re going to use these muscle markers to help us do that.
Right off the bat, we understand that the bicep is a two-headed muscle.
That means we a shorter head here and a longhead, which is the inner bicep and the outer bicep.
There’s more to it than that.
First of all, the muscle marker helps us determine where that is.
You can see on bicep here, right about here, how the bicep turns a corner and comes up
here.
If you follow that line you can see a little bit of that split.
So, if I were to draw it out I would follow this line here.
So, what we have to do is understand that there are ways to hit the shorthead of the
bicep a bit more preferentially.
That is because the attachment is different than the longhead.
The longhead has an attachment in the shoulder which enables us to do some different things
to influence it over the shorthead.
Not isolate, but influence.
Again, I would trace that out by going down, right along here, and around, and up right
here.
Again, this has its attachment up in the shoulder.
In general, we’ve said if we want to train the longhead of the bicep we could do two
things.
Number one: we could take it into more of a stretch by bringing our arm back behind
our body in exercises like a drag curl, like you see here.
Or we could use rotation, a different function of the shoulder, to allow us to work either
the short or longhead more.
That is because when we have the outer portion of our bicep more visible to you in the mirror,
you’ll be working more of the longhead of the bicep.
Whereas if we were doing exercises here, the no money curl, where you can see more of the
inside of my biceps, we would be favoring the shorthead.
We’re going to do that, but we also have to talk about the functions of the bicep because
in order to have a complete, perfect bicep workout we have to acknowledge the different
functions of the bicep.
So, we know it’s an elbow flexor, right?
That’s obvious.
But we should also know that it’s a supinator.
The reason why it supinates the forearm is because of its connection.
All you have to do is take your finger and run it right off the bottom of your bicep.
You should feel a big, thick tendon right in here.
If you follow that tendon – you can grab it – follow it all the way around, it inserts
all the way down here into the radius.
So, if I were to put a mark right there, we’ll call that ‘number one’.
The first thing is to supinate that forearm.
The second thing, as we talked about, was to bend the elbow, or flex the elbow.
So, we could put a number two right here.
Then number three, we know is to get a full contraction of the bicep, we know that because
it crosses the shoulder, it can flex the shoulder.
So, we would put a three up here.
But we know if we want to get the most out of the biceps, we’re going to want to have
certain exercises that are going to do all this.
They’re going to have supination, elbow flexion, and shoulder flexion.
Not just that, potentially put all these in proper alignment with each other so the line
of pull is optimal.
If I take a forearm that’s pronated, we should see that the one and two aren’t lined
up.
Whereas if I supinate it here, you can now see that the one, the two, and three can potentially
work together.
We’re going to do that with certain exercises as well.
The next thing we’re going to do is realize that different exercises influence and have
an effect on the strength curve of the biceps.
Meaning, certain exercises can influence a stronger contraction.
Either in the beginning, middle, or end of the biceps’ range of motion.
I’m going to use my forearm here as a whiteboard – first time ever – with the muscle markers.
We know if we do a regular barbell curl, as you see me doing here, that the strength curve
is pretty easy in the beginning, it gets most difficult in the middle, and it gets easiest
at the end.
Just like if I were to get into this position in a curl, that’s the most difficult part.
But this is pretty simple.
Well, we also know that we can take a band – a resistance band – and do curls.
It wouldn’t be that difficult in the beginning, but it would start to get hard, and be most
difficult at the end because we know when the bands are maximally stretched that will
cause peak tension.
But we also know that certain exercises – like you see me doing here, the incline curl – would
make the exercise most difficult in the early portion of the range of motion.
So, it peaks high, and then it drops off.
You can see what I’ve accomplished here with the right selection of exercises that
we’re going to put into the perfect workout.
We’re going to have the representation of the most tension being directed to the biceps
in the beginning, middle, and the end, across the entire workout.
Which is something we want to strive for.
What else do we have?
Guys, we know that there’s another muscle here that’s not the bicep, but it’s called
the brachialis.
You can see I’ve already outlined the bicep muscle here.
That leaves me with this area here.
That’s not the bicep, guys.
That’s actually the brachialis.
I’ve talked about this in another video.
The brachialis is very influential in terms of the width of your overall bicep when viewed
from the front because it has a critical role it plays along with your biceps.
We want to make sure we’re choosing exercises that influence that while we can.
We’re going to do that, too.
Then we have to acknowledge two other things, guys.
We’re going to incorporate these into the workouts, too.
We know that there is some limitation on which exercises we can do with the biceps because
we’re talking about a hinge joint.
While it does cross the shoulder and the longhead, the hinge joint is going to ultimately make
everything we do look like some variation of a curl.
No matter what we do.
So, you really have to rely on intensity techniques more than any other muscle group to heighten
the overall intensity and effect of the workout.
We’re going to do that, and I’ll show you many of them that you can incorporate
right away into those.
Finally, you never forget the big exercises.
Just like we did when we did the chest workout.
We still did the bench-press, we still did the dips, but we have to accept that they
have limitations.
If you can take those limitations and plug them in with other exercises within the workout,
now you have the perfect workout.
With that said, guys, it’s time we actually put this all together and look at what the
perfect bicep looks like rep by rep, exercise by exercise.
You ready?
So, we start the perfect bicep workout off with the big exercise, like I said.
This is a different variation though.
It’s a cheat curl, and it’s not just a cheat curl.
It goes into a drop set for a barbell drag curl.
Let me explain.
When we start with a cheat curl we’re giving ourselves an opportunity to create great overload.
That’s why these big exercises work so well.
Not just overload, but a great eccentric overload because we’re cheating a bit through the
concentric.
When we do that, we’ve also setup a bit of a mechanical drop set.
So, it’s not just a regular drop set, but we know that we can take the same weight we’ve
just used, and by shortening that moment arm by taking our elbows from this position out
in front of our body, back here into a drag curl we’re still able to keep the reps coming.
By doing that, remember, the position of the elbow is back behind the body and we’re
achieving another one of our goals.
That is to now hit the longhead a bit more preferentially.
So, in that first combo we take the first exercise to failure, immediately go into the
second portion of it – the drag curl – and take that to failure as well.
Rest and then come back and try to do three total sets.
We move onto the next combo here and it’s another one of those heavy exercises that
gives us the option to overload the biceps.
Probably my favorite of all time.
I’ve talked about it before.
It’s the weighted chin-up.
Again, it’s not just doing that.
It’s doing something else that’s very important.
We’ve already talked about how it’s hitting all three functions of the bicep.
We know that in order to grab the bar and pull we’re going to be flexing the elbow.
We also know that in order to get into this chin-up position we have to have a supinated
forearm.
So, we’re getting there and having that action of the bicep as well.
We also get the action at the shoulder.
The one that helps us get the peak contraction of the biceps because we have our arm out
in front of our body to grab the bar.
So, we’re hitting all three functions.
That’s good.
What we can do is load it up here – I’ve got 90lbs, I’m doing heavy, maybe four,
or five, or six reps.
I take it to failure and I immediately strip the weight off and go into a drop set.
Now we jump back up.
We talked about intensity techniques.
We could do that here as well.
This is the peak contraction chin-up.
What we’re doing here is using this as a burnout to the previous set, where we’re
only going to focus on repping out in that final, contracted state of the biceps.
We know that we already have all three components in place.
So, let’s linger there and do as many as we can to failure.
Again, an intensity technique that takes the normal training to another level because we
realize that we’re limited by options for the bicep training.
While we’re talking about limitations, remember when I told you that the benefits of those
big exercises like the barbell curl, and the weighted chin-up can’t be ignored, and we
have to include them?
Well, we also have to be willing to accept that there are some limitations.
To me, that’s the fact that in both exercises there’s no active supination being resisted.
Meaning, in both exercises I’m isometrically grabbing in a supinated position, but I’m
not going through the act of supination against resistance.
Which means, we have to address that.
We can do that with the exercise I’m going to show you here, called the banded dumbbell
curl.
What’s even better is, I don’t have to stop there.
We can take advantage of this right here.
Those strength curves.
Remember when I drew on my forearm like a whiteboard?
We can do that again.
We can take the dumbbell curl that peaks and then dives off, and we can add a band to it
that picks up right where it dies off and it continues.
We can have the benefit of having an exercise that’s more difficult, place some more tension
on the biceps throughout the range of motion.
So, here’s what we do: we grab a band, we grab the dumbbells, and we curl them together.
I’ve demonstrated this for you here before.
It’s an amazing exercise.
If you haven’t tried it, you’re going to want to do it.
If you do this perfect workout you’re going to be doing it.
You’re going to be doing it three sets to failure.
Again, I don’t know how much that is, but you’re not going to want to go and grab
lightweights here.
You’re going to want to grab something that will make you fail in the 10 to 12 rep range,
and back off a little bit from there, realizing that now adding the band to this will make
this exercise more difficult.
Of course, we’re wouldn’t want to leave one-third of that range of motion unaddressed.
We can choose an exercise that is going to impact and overload that front side.
That beginning portion of the range of motion, to compliment this entire sequence.
We can do that with the incline dumbbell curl.
One thing I want you to notice here is it’s not just serving one purpose.
Now, because of the position of the arm back behind the body, we’ve just placed a little
more stress on the longhead of the bicep because it’s on more stretch.
Now, we can take that even further with another intensity technique, like I’ve mentioned
all along here.
That is actively contracting the triceps because we know when we do that we can antagonistically
shut off, or at least allow for a greater stretch of the biceps.
Therefore, a stronger contraction coming out of the bottom of the dumbbell curl.
So, you do three more sets of this until failure and move onto the last combo, so we can round
out this entire workout.
So, we wrap it all up here with our dumbbell bicep curl combo.
It’s a trifecta.
It’s three exercises and it’s going to do three different things for us.
Number one: we keep the set going.
So, we’re definitely going to have intensification of what we normally do with a straight 12
reps and be done.
Number two: we’re going to work the rotation of the shoulder to take advantage of what
we talked about in the very beginning, whether we’re going to more heavily influence the
longhead or shorthead of the biceps by what we’re looking at.
Finally, we’re going to hit that all-important brachialis that we haven’t addressed yet.
The first thing we do is the supinated cross-body curl.
You can see as I supinate and come across the body, what are we looking square at right
here?
The longhead, the outer head of the bicep.
You can feel that contraction as you squeeze and supinate, right here, how it’s more
heavily influencing that outer portion of the bicep.
What we do now is, we don’t stop there.
Instead we go for our second rep and now we pronate and lift up this way.
When we pronate we’ve taken away the one action of the bicep.
Which now shifts the load to the elbow flexor, which is the brachialis.
Of course, we can feel that right here more than ever.
Now, we do that, and we don’t stop there.
Why?
We want to intensify this and make it more difficult.
We now want to take the opposite rotation of the shoulder.
Instead of coming and rotating in, now we rotate out.
External rotation of the shoulder, but it does something else.
What is it doing?
It’s squarely revealing the inner head of the bicep, which is the shorthead.
You can feel that contraction more on the inside here.
Again, not isolating, but influencing.
You can feel that here.
So now, you take it up and alternate these positions from one to the other, and to the
other.
So, 24 total reps.
You do this two times, guys.
I promise it’s the perfect way to finish out the workout.
more importantly, we’ve addresses every one of the concerns that we had in the beginning
to make sure we can call this the perfect bicep workout.
So, there you have it, guys.
There’s a workout that I want you to try.
You should feel your biceps like never before because we’ve addressed every, single component
of bicep training, all in one selection of exercises.
That’s the thing.
You don’t have to sit here and bang out your workouts for hours and hours at a time.
If you choose the right exercises and apply the right techniques you can get a hell of
a lot from your workouts in a much shorter period of time.
That’s what we always stress here at ATHLEANX.
And of course, we always put the science back in strength to do so.
If you’re looking for a complete program, head to ATHLEANX.com and get one of our ATHLEANX
training programs.
In the meantime, if you like the muscle marker videos, as always, make sure you let me know.
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Especially as we cover more of these perfect workouts in these series.
All right, guys.
I’ll talk to you again soon.
See you.