Ask any beginning bodybuilder or fitness enthusiast what he wants to achieve – this is almost exclusively a man’s thing, sorry ladies – and huge biceps will come up fast. In gyms and fitness centers everywhere, you will see
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| Arnold performing a heavy set of cheat curls |
Huge arms, and especially huge biceps, tickles their imagination, more so than muscular legs or a wide back. They exude power, and they are often the first muscles other people see and admire. No wonder that for many aspiring athletes, huge, boulder-like biceps are at the top of many wish lists.
Nowadays you can find a lot of machines in every gym, ready to attack any muscle group you want. There are all kinds of machines that enable you to work your biceps from every angle too. But did you know that there are a lot of biceps exercises you can do with nothing more than a barbell and a couple of plates?
I investigated this thoroughly, and listed the eight (yes, you read that right … EIGHT!) best barbell exercises for your biceps below, and added clips I found for most exercises, showing you the complete movement (some with more explanation).
| Barbell Curls |
Barbell Curls
The best known, and most performed, biceps exercise is the barbell curl. This is the standard exercise for your biceps, and every bodybuilder sporting huge arms has done this exercise thousands of times. In that respect, you can compare the barbell curl with squats for your legs and bench presses for your chest.
The execution of the barbell curl is simple:
- stand up straight and hold the barbell with an underhand grip (palms facing forward), hands at shoulder width
- let your arms hang down, so they are fully stretched
- now bring up the barbell without moving your upper arms
- when your hand cannot go any higher, hold the barbell in that position and you squeeze your biceps hard
- slowly lower the biceps to the starting point, making sure you totally stretch your arms
Be careful not to swing the barbell forward too much; the whole purpose of the exercise is to move the weight with the strength of your biceps, not swinging the weight up and not working your biceps to the fullest.
| Wide Grip Barbell Curls |
The standard barbell curl works your entire biceps, so both muscle heads together. It is almost impossible to isolate one of the biceps heads with any exercise, but it is possible to make one head work harder than the other, emphasizing that one head during the movement. This is a technique you also use when you are doing calf raises, where you emphasize the inner or outer head, depending on your stance on the machine.
Doing barbell curls, you can also emphasize one side of the muscle. By varying the distance between your hands, you can work the inner or outer head of the biceps harder.
It sounds illogical, but when you place your hands further apart than the shoulder with distance you used for your regular barbell curls, you are emphasizing the inner head of your biceps. This variation to the regular barbell curl is called wide grip barbell curls.
Warning: do not overdo the width between your hands, Your wrists will be placed in an unnatural position and will endure a lot of pressure during the movement, which may cause tendinitis (mouse arm), which is an inflammation of the tendons. I have had this exact problem when I placed my hands too far apart, and am very careful now about my hand placing.
| Close Grip Barbell Curls |
Close Grip Barbell Curls
Of course, when there are wide grip barbell curls, then there must also be close grip barbell curls.
The close grip barbell curl is the same as your regular barbell curl, but then executed with your hands placed closer to each other than shoulder width. You can go extreme here, but watch your wrists and ensure the barbell stays in balance. If not, there will be bad consequences.
The narrow grip ensures that the emphasis of the movement is placed on the outer head of your biceps. A well developed outer head of your biceps will definitely enhance a pose like the back double biceps.
| Cheat Curls |
Cheat Curls
I always advocate proper exercise execution, and now I show you a barbell curl variant that requires the opposite!
The cheat curl is in principle the way most people perform the barbell curl: they use too much weight and use their whole body to get that damned bar up. Arnold Schwarzenegger attributes much of his biceps development to doing cheat curls, and he took cheat curls to the extreme, using his lower back and shoulders to aid the movement.
The idea behind doing cheat curls is that you can use more weight than you can doing the conventional barbell curl, causing the biceps to do more work than they can normally handle. However, it is not wise to use so much weight that you are forced to use your whole body to get the bar up. The trick is in choosing a weight that you can get to move using just a little sway of your body, and that you can get over the inevitable sticking point with a little help of your shoulders and back.
The real power of the cheat curl is in the downward or eccentric movement. Your muscles are stronger during the negative part of a movement (when you extend your muscles) than in the positive part of the movement (when you contract your muscles). Therefore it is very important to slowly lower the bar to the starting point before doing the next repetition.
Be careful doing cheat curls! This movement is so intense that you run the risk of injuring your muscles when you are not careful when you do the exercise. Make sure you control the movement, and you will get the most out of cheat curls.
Drag Curls
This is my favorite barbell curl variant. Drag curls have been popularized by the Iron Gure, Vince Gironda, who always prescribed them to bodybuilders in his gym whenever they needed more muscle mass in their biceps.
With regular barbell curls, the shoulders assist the biceps during the exercise. The main advantage of drag curls over barbell curls is that the shoulders are taken out of the movement, leaving all the work to the biceps. The reason for this is that the bar is not moved up in an arc but is being dragged up along the body. When you perform a regular curl, your elbows are always coming forward, however slightly, involving the shoulders in the movement. The movement of the drag curl isolates your biceps better than regular barbell curls can.
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| Drag Curls | |
- the starting position of the drag curl is the same as with reglar barbell curls, so standing straight, arms stretched and with the bar held at shoulder width with an overhand grip
- now bring the bar up along your body until your forearms point forward and your elbows point backward
- flex your biceps hard and reverse the movement
- make sure the bar touches your body during the whole movement
Since the range of motion is shorter than with regular barbell curls, you have to make sure to flex your muscles hard to get an optimum contraction.
Gironda’s drag curls were executed slightly different: at the ‘forearms pointing forwward’ point he allowed the elbows to come forward to bring the bar up all the way to the throat. The execution I just described is the way most bodybuilders perform the drag curl nowadays. Your call.
You can also perform the drag curl with an overhand grip, making it more of a reverse curl. Just make sure you always ensure the execution of the curl is correct, and make sure it is not turning into some sort of an upright row. Keep your ego out and use a weight you can handle properly.
Barbell Preacher Curls
Barbell preacher curls were made popular in the 1960s by the first Mr Olympia, Larry Scott. Larry was known for his long, big biceps, that filled up his whole upper arm from shoulders to forearm. Even though that is a genetic advantage he had, he attributed his development to the use of the preacher bench.
| Barbell Preacher Curls |
Whatever it may be, the preacher bench is now an integral part of equipment in every proper gym, and it is a great supplement to working out with only barbells and dumbbells. Regrettably, not all preacher benches are up to standard; many of these benches are too hard, are not of badly adjustable pf the angle of the board is not optimal. If your gym does own a proper preacher bench, I can recommend using it in your biceps workouts.
The execution of the barbell preacher curl is as follows:
- adjust the bench so the arm padding is stuck in your armpits
- hold the barbell with your hands at shoulder width, underhand grip, and place your upper arms on the padding
- slowly lower the bar until your arms are almost fully stretched
- bring up the bar slowly and flex your biceps
Ensure you do not overstretch your biceps when you stretch your arms, this can cause muscle tears. Always execute the exercise slowly and deliberately.
Of course you can experiment using a wide grip of a close grip doing barbell preacher curls. I recommend you do!
| Spider Curls |
Spider curls deliver the same advantages that preacher curls give you, but allow a greater range of movement, making your muscles work harder.
If you have a standing preacher bench at your disposal, then you have the best bench you can use for spider curls. If not, you can use an incline bench, provided there is enough space to allow your arms plus the barbell to move freely.
Instead of the usual side of the arm rest of the preacher bench, you use the other side, the one you normally lean against. A proper standing preacher bench has the padding running straight down on the other side, making it perfect for performing spider curls.
The execution of spider curls using a standing preacher bench is as follows:
- hang across the preacher bench and have your arms – holding the bar at shoulder width and with an overhand grip – hang straight down the vertical side of the bench
- bring the bar up while you keep your upper arms pressed against the padding
- squeeze your biceps at the top of the movement and lower the bar slowly until your arms are fully stretched
If you do not have a proper standing preacher bench at your gym, you can use an incline bench. You lie on it with your abs and chest against the back rest (keep your head above the back rest), and you execute the movement while you keep your arms pointing down as much as possible.
| Barbell Concentration Curls |
Concentration curls are almost always being performed using dumbbells, or maybe with a cable, but with a barbell? Still, the barbell concentration curl is a perfect way to isolate your biceps and allows you to use a heavier weight than you can using a dumbbell.
It is possible to do barbell concentration curls while standing, but it forces you to bent over quite far, what makes this exercise very uncomfortable to perform. The best version is the one using a bench, like you would when doing seated dumbbell concentration curls.
The proper execution of the barbell concentration curl is as follows:
- get seated at the end of a bench and grab de barbell with an underhand grip with your hands slightly less than shoulder width
- bend over, making sure the barbell doesn’t hit the ground when you stretch your arms fully
- slowly bring the barbell up to your chin whilst ensuring your upper arms keep pointing downward
- flex your biceps for a second and slowly lower the barbell to the starting position
As you can see, the barbell concentration curl is very similar to spider curls, only the concentration curl emphasizes the belly of the muscle more.
That’s all eight of them! And to give you even more options, you can also perform all of these exercises and variations using an EZ curl bar or a cable with a straight bar attachment.
So you are really serious about making your arms larger, bigger and more massive? Then ignore all biceps machines in your gym and get down and dirty with free weights. Your arms will expand faster than you can imagine!
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