I just started Canadian Cannons and so far I love it. I do, however, have a question or two.
I work out at home and don’t have access to a cable machine or a curl machine. What exercises can you suggest for me to replace the Rotated Cable Curl and Extended Machine Preacher Curl?
Thanks,
Brian
What DO you have access to?
I would substitute spider curls for preacher curls(lying face down, shoulders, arms off end of bench, curl barbell up toward face (careful!)) return to fully extended elbows. Peak contraction principal remains intact.
I would then replace rotated cable curls with incline dumbbell curls (lie on incline bench (as you would in inc. dbl press) hang arms “behind” you by your sides. Start curl in hammer position, supinate palms up as you near the top.
for the extended set, you can always use an EZ bar and weights on it, or any barbell with weights on it and just do it the same way. put up the weight, do the extended set, go down by the smallest weights you have on both sides. ex: if you did 25 pounds on each site of the EZ, and you only have 5s as the smallest plates, do 20s on each side next time.
as for the cable curl, just do it with dumbbells. i dont think its the same, but its the best advice i have to give.
RIT Jared: Incline/decline bench, preacher bench, chinning bar, squat rack, dipping station, barbell, ez-curl bar, dumbbells, lotsa weight.
derek/bazence: Would either of these work the inner bicep as the cable curls are supposed to? I did substitute incline dumbbell curls but thought it worked the outter bicep rather than the inner.
The spider curls sound like a good substitute for the cable curls. Thanks for the suggestion.
Vyskol, there really is no such thing as an inner biceps. There is only the two headed biceps bracchi and the bracchialis. Since a muscle can only contract in the direction of the muscle fibers IE: logintudinally, one cannot actuall “hit” inner biceps. Preacher curls, spider curls et al “seem” to work lower biceps but there IS no lower biceps. It’s just a matter of body positioning reducing tension on one head of the biceps while adding/transfering tension to the other.
Cool. Makes sense.
Thanks for the info, and the suggestions guys.
yeah what derek said. if you wanna work the “inner biceps” the do reverse grip curls, with palms facing down. works that and the forearms good. hope that helped.
I decided to make the move over to Christian Thibaudeau’s latest biceps workout (mixed regimen super guns program from his newsletter). No machines or cables required. It kicked my ass. The isometric preacher curls are brutal! It was a terribly humbling experience having to lower the weight on my barbell curls by such a large amount. I’m glad I work out at home. I woulda been laughed out of the gym!
I do have one question. The isometric preacher at full flexion seemed rather pointless. My arms are more-or-less “at rest” in this position. And lowering the bar to a more challenging position basically duplicates the 90 degree flexion.
Am I misreading the exercise or doing something incorrectly?
~Brian
Even though you are not moving your should flex your biceps super hard during the iso holds. In the nearly extended position, you flex until you feel a tension in your biceps, don’t let your arms hang freely.
Awesome. Thanks for the prompt reply.
However, my question had to do with the opposite(?) position. The (2 inches from) full extension was by far the toughest for me and I had no problems feeling its effectiveness.
My question has to do with the position where the elbows are fully flexed. The only real strain I felt was in my forearms, keeping the bar up from resting on my shoulders. And I had to use a significantly higher weight to bring the time down close to 60 seconds.
If this is what’s intended, then great. I just want to make sure I’m following the program properly. I’m really looking forward to Exercise 4!
~Brian