Best For Biceps Hypertrophy?

what do you think will give you the best strength and hypertophy?

heavy barbell curls…

or weighted pullups and chins…

Dude, there are so many articles on this sight that are about building the biceps. I’ll try to post a few if I can find them. You really should search for something like that first, though. And for the record, my favorite bicep exercise has to be the reverse curl.

-CJ

Bonsai to Bamboo by TC
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=460030

Arm Yourself! by Charles Poliquin
http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=05-052-training

The “No Curl” Biceps Program by Alwyn Cosgrove
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=746517

These were just a few that I had bookmarked. Hope they help.

-CJ

Well cfj, sometimes they’re a bit out of site.

The best for me has been the same as CJ, the reverse curl.

Are you a beginner or an experienced weightlifter? If your a beginner, do a FEW reverse curls at the end of your workout, but concentrate on big lifts, like deadlift, rows and chins.

Also, consider excercises that build your grip. I have found that grip training helps my whole body to grow.

Chins.

Hi mrl179,

Is there any reason why you couldn’t do both? Or was this just a rhetorical question?

Honestly, I think that not only will weighted pull-ups/chins give you as good of results as barbell curls, but you’ll also be building your lats at the same time (more bang for your buck).

However, I think that one arm chins are even better than weighted chins for building the biceps.

Straight arm leverage movements are also incredibly good at building the biceps (since the biceps must stabilize the elbow joint, and also assist in shoulder flexion/horizontal adduction). These movements put a ton of stress on the long head of the biceps, which also happens to the the head most responsible for the biceps “peak”.

A great article on a straight arm movement that can be done with dumbells is Coach Sommer’s article about the iron cross for bodybuilders which can be found at:

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=05-040-training

Or, you could just go to the archives and scroll down until you find the article.

Good training,

Sentoguy

[quote]mrl179 wrote:
what do you think will give you the best strength and hypertophy?

heavy barbell curls…

or weighted pullups and chins…[/quote]

Well, there are two possibilities.

  1. You said what you meant, which is that you actually want your bicips brachii muscle to be large. In which case you should know that it has two heads and is involved in the following movements:

Elbow Flexion
Forearm Supination
Shoulder Flexion (Weak)
Shoulder Transverse Flexion (Weak)

To get the best growth you’ll need to hit each of those different movements in some fashion.

  1. What you really meant is that you want large arms that give the appearance of big biceps. This sounds similiar, but is not the same. In this case the key is to work all of your major arm muscles:

Triceps Brachii
Biceps Brachii
Brachialis
Brachioradialis
Forarms (A mix of flexors, extensors, pronators and supinators)

[quote]mrl179 wrote:
what do you think will give you the best strength and hypertophy?

heavy barbell curls…

or weighted pullups and chins…[/quote]

Why the hell does one have to compromise between a bicep movement and a back movement? They both do their parts. You’ll never get a good size base without decent compund pulling ie back movements. And you’ll never get the maximum development without variations of curls and reverse curls.

Both

Why don’t you do a tri-set? Pull ups, then chin ups, then DB curls.

Best of all worlds and the pump will be mindblowing.

either/or exercise questions are almost as bad as the “if you could only do x number of exercises for the rest of your life…” questions

its a free world you don’t have to pick one or the other and your two choices can easily be incorporated in a single program

[quote]Majin wrote:
mrl179 wrote:
what do you think will give you the best strength and hypertophy?

heavy barbell curls…

or weighted pullups and chins…

Why the hell does one have to compromise between a bicep movement and a back movement? They both do their parts. You’ll never get a good size base without decent compund pulling ie back movements. And you’ll never get the maximum development without variations of curls and reverse curls.

[/quote]

Good point. I still don’t understand why some people seem to think training biceps directly is somehow a negative. Train your back AND your biceps. That means all types of curls and all types of pulls. Spend a few years on that, eat enough and grow all over.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Ok. One more post.

Sum it up:

Push, Pull, Squat, Deadlift = Hypertrophied biceps
[/quote]

I followed that advice and my biceps got smaller. I had a huge increase in my weighted chinning ability and my biceps got smaller.

I did follow a routine where I did chins, push-ups and dips 3 days a week and my arms didn’t shrink but I was doing a lot of volume. The squat, chin, bench, dead credo seems to be heavy, infrequent and low volume.

Do some curls.

[quote]mrl179 wrote:
what do you think will give you the best strength and hypertophy?

heavy barbell curls…

or weighted pullups and chins…[/quote]

do both, one before the other. and switch them around.

or

do a one arm pullup, and to weight it, in the other hand hold a heavy dumbell, and curl it as you go. then switch arms.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Bram Wiley wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Ok. One more post.

Sum it up:

Push, Pull, Squat, Deadlift = Hypertrophied biceps

I followed that advice and my biceps got smaller.

You then, with all due respect, are a wonder of science. You need to be in a labratory where millions of dollars of research could be spent studying your unique biological processes.

Why? Because it would defy the laws of science for you to gain muscle mass in your legs, ass, chest, back, shoulders, and neck and yet lose it in your arms. Impossible. Completely impossible. It is a proven fact that push (presses), pull (rows and chins), squats, and deadlifts with large volumes of food will increase your overall LBM. And if you increase your overall LBM your arms will grow too.

What you probably did was push, pull, squat and deadlift (maybe) but didn’t eat. Gotta do it all, man. Gotta do it all.

[/quote]

I get the miracle of science thing all the time :slight_smile:

My back and chest got a lot bigger as did my quads and hamstrings. I looked silly, big chest and back and skinny arms. I’m a bit more in proportion now, but I train my chest and back with a lower volume than I used to and my arms with a higher volume.

It would not defy science to have a muscle atrophy from training it less. I have large lats for my frame, I used to get asked if I was a swimmer when I was smaller. My lats tend to do the work when I do back exercises, what a surprise.

You can sit at home with your facts all you want. I don’t care, I’ll do curls and have muscular arms (btw they suck right now due to this kind of bullshit, I used to get complements on my arms. I will curl even harder knowing you disagree with me).