Complex Bicep Workouts
27. Mar, 2011 
4 Comments
Bicep curls, curls for the girls, beach muscle workouts, pump up workouts, or whatever you like to call it; curls for the arms are a favorite of most guys in the spring getting ready to look good for the summer. Although I do not normally exclusively have my athletes do bicep curls; we do them from time to time in certain phases.
Typically when we train biceps we will do complex circuits or finishers at the end of workouts. I wanted to share with you two of these circuits we do. These are challenging high volume sets.
Triple Eight Set:
- These will be done one arm at a time so you can concentrate on the contraction and form.
- Grab a semi-heavy dumbbell that you can curl for eight reps.
- After the first eight reps are complete, set the dumbbell down and grab another dumbbell 5-10 lbs lighter and curl that for eight reps.
- Repeat one more time again dropping 5-10 lbs. This will be a total of three sets of 8 on the one arm.
- Then switch to the other arm and repeat this process.
- When you are done go back to the first arm and repeat back and forth until 3 full sets are done on both arms.
- You will probably have to drop weight down little by little for each full set as you fatigue.
The Rack:
- Do with both arms at the same time. Try to focus on good form throughout the entire workout.
- Grab the heaviest two dumbbells that you can successfully curl for five reps.
- Rest for 5-7 seconds.
- Then grab the next set of dumbbells 5 lbs lighter and curl them to failure.
- Rest for 5-7 seconds.
- Repeat this pattern through all the dumbbells on the dumbbell rack until you reach the 5 lb dumbbells.
- I’ll bet you 5 lb dumbbells never felt so heavy!!!
- Remember, focus on good form and technique. This will be hard to do when you start fatiguing and you can no longer “feel” your arms. This is the feeling you get when you have gone past the burn! Enjoy it!!
Again, as you can see these are challenging high volume sets that produce a lot of hypertrophy in the biceps. In return, this will promote much muscle break down and growth. I must warn you that if you never trained a single muscle group this way, you better be prepared for some muscle soreness the next few days. Enjoy the “pump”!!
To your health,
Jerry
Awesome Jerry! I will have my lineman try them today! They complain I never allow to do curls.
Joe
Awesome Joe! Let me know how it works out for your guys! My guys like to be challenged with these.
Thanks for this post and video Jerry. For me it is really hard to train my biceps, I eat very well and train very hard but they will not grow fast enough. I even had some problems with my biceps. You have to be very careful with injuries on the biceps tendon. If you train your biceps too much and it’s going to hurt a little you really have to stop and let them rest. Otherwise you will definitely end up with a biceps inflammation. And that really hurts, believe me! Nice biceps exercises but remember to be careful not to over train your muscles.
Marcel,
Thanks for the comment! You are correct and over-training is something that always needs to be looked at and considered especially with athletes and their busy practice schedules. A lot of the workouts found on this site are not intended for a novice or beginner.