What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, AthleanX.com.
Today I'm going to show you a great way to add some serious size to your biceps, especially
if you're a beginner and even better, even if you're and advanced lifter.
This exercise should make its way into anyone's program.
It's the underhand barbell row.
You see, this one actually made it into what I call my "Four Horsemen".
Those are, if I could ride with just four exercise and I've got to live and die with
them, what would I do?
This is what I would do because I can target a lot more than the biceps here which makes
it a great way to build – not just arm size – but foundational strength in movement
patterns that we need, especially as beginners.
So watch as I do it because, here it's not just about the name of the exercise, it's
how you do it that makes all the difference in the results that you see.
You can see that, first and foremost I'm pulling the bar a lot higher than when I normally
would be.
You might know of having the bar come up to your ribcage, or to your belly button, people
have told you.
But the movement engages much more bicep if I bring it up higher.
That's for the simple reason that, look at the difference that I'm getting in the amount
of elbow flexion by pulling the bar higher up.
You could see when I pull it just to, again, ribcage height, or down to the belly button
I'm getting about 90 degrees of elbow bending.
That's no different than just doing this in terms of flexing you bicep.
We know we can get a much bigger contraction if we go beyond 90 degrees.
Now, as I pull the bar up higher, look at the amount of elbow flexion I have now.
We've gone to about 120 degrees, a much stronger contraction in the bicep and that's great.
That's exactly what we're trying to do.
The cool part though is this is a compound movement that's also targeting our back.
As you see from the overhead here, it's not just working our back, it's working our upper
back, which tends to be one of the weakest areas, particularly on beginners.
Not just that, look at the position that is teaching me here in terms of maintaining stability
through my lumbar spine.
That becomes crucial as you start to lift heavier and heavier weights.
Learn it now.
Become a master of this posture now and you'll be much stronger when you move on to your
bigger lifts.
I’m also reinforcing and teaching the hip hinge, which is going to become crucial as
you move on to exercises like the deadlift.
For all these reasons, this is a great exercise.
Underhand versus overhand; pretty obvious.
Again, supinated grip targets more of the bicep than it would if we were overhand.
With just a few tweaks to this exercise we can turn it into much more than just a bicep
exe3rcise, but it allows us to load up the weights pretty high because we're doing an
exercise that incorporates not just biceps, but the back too.
That makes it a perfect option for someone who's just starting out that needs to add
some size, but doesn’t want to waste all their time focusing on the minutia.
Barbell curls; I love them.
Dumbbell curls like preacher curls and concertation curls; not so much.
This is not the best way to spend your time, especially if you're a beginner trying to
add some serious size to your arms.
Again, as the advanced guys, another weapon in your arsenal to start adding some new ways
to target your biceps, because it gets pretty damn tiring and old doing the same old curl
over and over again.
Here's a new way to start targeting your biceps and giving yourself a chance to load up on
more weight than maybe you're used to.
Guys, if you're looking for a way to add some serious size to your arms we've got a whole
program devoted to it.
It's called Ultimate Arms.
What else would it be called?
It's available over at AthleanX.com.
It's literally all that I learned din my transformation.
This is one of them.
I started out doing underhand rows back when I was a kid.
My brother showed me that doing them this way was a better way to target my arms.
I kind of stuck with it and ran with it.
I give you all my best tips and put them together in a condensed training program over six weeks.
You can get that over at AthleanX.com. in the meantime, if you've found this video helpful
make sure you leave your comments and thumbs up below and let me know – I don’t care
what level you're starting out; beginner or advanced.
Let me know how you do with this exercise.
I'm sure it's going to help you out.
All right, guys.
I'll be back here again in just a couple days.
See ya!