subject: Top 5 Best Biceps Exercises [print this page] Top 5 Best Biceps Exercises Top 5 Best Biceps Exercises
Check out the original article over at our biceps exercises page.
We all love big biceps, but most people don't know the first thing about training them! First of all, the bicep is a very small muscle with only two basic functions, which are palm rotation and curling your arm. The bicep muscle is actually split into two smaller muscle, the inner head and the outer head, that is why it is called biceps and not bicep. Underneath the biceps sits another muscle called the brachialis, but for you generally work both muscles together.
1. Standing Barbell Curl
The first thing that comes to your mind when you think of biceps exercises is always this exercise, and with good reason. Its a very good compound movement which is very good at building mass on your biceps. What most people do wrong on this exercise is that they put too much weight on the bar and end up swinging their back to lift it. As mentioned before, the bicep is a very small muscle and it doesn't need a lot of weight to train. Instead, what you should be doing is putting on moderate weight on the bar on focusing in contracting at the top, and slowly bringing the bar down. The grip should be shoulder width. These focus more on the bicep than the brachialis.
2. Barbell Preacher Curls
Another very good exercise is the barbell preacher curl. This exercise will put more emphasis on your brachialis and is more of an isolation movement. Again you should use low weight on this and focus on the contractions at the top.
Check out the original article over at our biceps exercises page.
3. Rope Hammer Curl
A compound exercise that focuses on the brachialis, as well as hitting your forearms hard. You should use relatively heavy weight on this exercise, as long as you still use good form. You can superset these with bicep curls for additional burn!
4. Drag Curl
Invented by the legendary Vince Gironda, this is one of the few biceps exercises that comes close to truly isolating the biceps. You perform the exercise by grasping the bar using shoulder width grip, and then dragging the bar on your torso, while your shoulders move backwards. Be warned that this is a very hard exercise and should be done with light weight.
5. Wide Grip / Narrow Grip Curls
As i mentioned before, the bicep is split into two muscles, the inner and the outer. If you need to put more emphasis on either of the heads, you can modify your grip.
Using a wide grip (more than shoulder width) will put more stress on the inner head, while using a narrow grip (less than shoulder width) puts more stress on your outer head. A good way to go is to superset these two biceps exercises together.
Check out the original article over at our biceps exercises page.
