I’d like to know how to get massive legs that will make me look like I’m stealing turkeys in my sweatpants!
…said no one ever.
It’s natural that when you start becoming interested in developing your body and building muscle, you eventually want to know how to get biceps that get attention.
If you’ve ever thought about it, it’s actually quite strange why the bench press is used to compare strength, but the size of your biceps are used to judge your muscularity.
Go figure.
In any case, besides curling in the squat rack, there are a number of ways how to get biceps so they command respect and you’ll learn about 9 of them here.
1. Isolate the Biceps
I hope that this tip doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but how to get biceps faster than all the muscles in your body collectively…
…you have to isolate them.
Granted, as a novice weightlifter you don’t really need to isolate your biceps at first because your whole body is pretty weak and as you perform your major compound lifts, your biceps are naturally going to grow as well.
But once you build a general strength foundation using a program like The Body Shred or Starting Strength, you can focus more on isolation.
And what’s the king of bicep isolation?
You Gotta Do Bicep Curls
There are a lot of variations to this exercise and it’s also the one exercise where if you’re caught doing it in the squat rack, you’ll get exiled from the gym community.
(And I’ll be up front with a pitchfork.)
Don’t let anyone try to convince you that you’ll build biceps with just deadlifts after the first few months of lifting because that’s a short-lived progression.
But now that we go that obvious tip out of the way, let’s move on to some more methods…
2. Add More Volume to Your Bicep Exercises
Ok, say you’re already isolating your biceps, how can you make sure they’re being worked enough?
This is when volume comes into play and it becomes more of a problem with advanced lifters in the weightroom.
However, if you want to continue seeing a somewhat linear progression on your isolation lifts, you should try to work in more volume on these movements.
Here’s a good rule of thumb for isolation movements…
Use 8-15 Reps Per Set
A good starting point is 3 sets of 8-15 reps.
Just for reference, in the weightlifting world, the number of reps performed in each set translate to different muscle-building results.
- 1-3 reps are for displays of strength. If your goal is strength and performance, you’ll find yourself lifting in this range. This range is used in Wendler’s 5/3/1 program.
- 4-7 reps are for general strength and hypertrophy. This range is used by most weightlifting programs to double up on building strength and muscle size simultaneously. This range is common in Starting Strength, the Greek God Program, and Stronglifts.
- 8-15 reps are for muscle hypertrophy. This is where you want to do your work sets for each exercise in order to see your muscles grow in size. This is common in The Body Shred program.
The 8-15 rep range is ideal for how to get biceps because it stimulates muscle hypertrophy and lifting in that range allows you to keep rest times between sets short (about 60-90 secs).
But here’s a volume progression you can use…
Add a Set Progression
A simple way to start with your bicep curls is to perform 3 sets of 8-15 reps and when you reach the upper threshold on all sets, you increase the weight for the next session.
However, there’s another option…
Instead instead of immediately adding more weight you could start by adding another set of 8-15 reps.
So a sample progression might look like this (each bulleted number is a new workout):
- 15×14, 15×13, 15×13
- 15×14, 15×14, 15×14
- 15×15, 15×15, 15×14
- 15×15, 15×15, 15×15
- 15×15, 15×15, 15×15, 15×12
- 15×15, 15×15, 15×15, 15,13
You can see that after you’ve hit the upper threshold on all three sets in workout four, you add another set to the next workout and try to hit that upper threshold too.
3. Work Your Biceps More Often
I used to play guitar and sing in a series of rock bands years ago and there was a guy I knew in the local music scene who I hadn’t talked to in quite a few years.
However, just out of the blue we ran into one another at a house party.
When I saw him, I was surprised to see that his arms were completely jacked and I was itching to know how to get biceps like that.
So I had to ask him…
Wow, how the heck are your arms so jacked?
I figured I’d get straight to the point. And do you know what he said?
Well, I’m a garbage man and I toss heavy cans of trash every single day.
Now I’m definitely not down-playing the role of those who work in waste management because it’s an honest job that requires hard-working people to get up at the crack of dawn to do really strenuous work for hours.
But the lesson here is yes, there was really one variable at play that made this guy’s arms get so big and that was frequency.
He was stressing the muscles in his arms almost every single day of the week and because of that, his arm muscles needed to adapt by growing bigger and stronger.
Now that doesn’t mean that every workout has to be “bicep day” or that you should go to the gym 7 days per week.
Here are a couple options instead…
Option 1 – Do 2-3 Bicep Exercises 2x Per Week
A reliable plan for building bicep mass is to perform 2-3 bicep-centric exercises in 2 different sessions, for example:
- Barbell curls – 3 x 10
- Dumbbell curls – 3 x 12
- Spider curls – 3 x 15
If you keep the rest times short between sets, it shouldn’t add more than 10 minutes to your total training time and you get to speed up the build process.
And the 2x per week approach should give just enough frequency for faster bicep gains without killing recovery.
Here’s another approach…
Include One Bicep Exercise in Every Session
If you’re trying to keep your workout sessions short and want to make sure that more important muscles are also accounted for, then you don’t have to let your bicep exercises completely dominate each session.
Instead, you can simply include the same bicep isolation movement at the end of each session.
For example, each workout can look like this:
- Main compound exercise
- 1-2 Accessory exercises
- 1 Bicep exercise
Again, you’re just simply adding a little focus on your biceps in each workout to sort of trick your body into thinking you use this muscle more often…
…that way it’s forced to grow and adapt.
(Another quick way on how to grow biceps fast.)
4. Hit All the “Heads” of the Bicep
Now here’s something you may or may not know…
There are two “heads” that make up the bicep altogether and to know how to get biceps that look full that will actually stretch out your shirt sleeves, then you need to make sure they’re worked equally.
And despite what you might think, not every bicep exercise adequately works both heads.
That’s why you should be a little more selective about what exercises you add to your workout.
(As opposed to just grabbing a pair of dumbbells and swinging them like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man.)
The Long Head Builds the Bicep “Peak”
Both “heads” of the bicep start at the scapula and attach to the forearm, but the long head creates the bicep “peak”.
This part of the bicep is most pronounced in bodybuilding and will be hit in most bicep movements, but there are a few that will actually provide emphasis on the long head specifically.
It should be no surprise that these movements are all curl variations.
- Incline dumbbell curls
- Concentration curls
- Narrow grip barbell curls
The Short Head Builds the Bicep Thickness
The short head of the bicep actually lies underneath the long head and so it’s sometimes referred to as the “inner head”.
Just because you can’t actually see this part of the bicep doesn’t mean that you should ignore it because you need to know how to get biceps that have some actual girth.
In fact, it’s arguably better to work this part of the bicep more if you want to see a real change in circumference next time you compare weekly measurements.
So what can you do to work the short head of the bicep?
Well, without doing any significantly different curl variations, taking a wider grip on barbell curls will actually place emphasis on the short head instead of the long head.
But a few exercises that do a pretty good job of targeting the short head include:
- Preacher curls
- Wide-grip barbell curls
- High cable curls
5. Use Compound Exercises with More Bicep Activation
The basis of your workouts should revolve around compound movements that work multiple muscle groups at the same time.
When you direct your focus to these kinds of exercises, you train more efficiently and can see some time-savings.
Yes, you should include a couple isolation movements in order to stimulate your biceps directly, but your bread and butter are going to be compound movements.
So what compound movement is the best bicep builder?
Chin-Ups/Pull-Ups
Chin-ups and pull-ups are going to have the most bicep activation of all the compound movements.
Bench press and overhead press will do a good job of building your chest, shoulders, and triceps.
Squats are going to build your legs and deadlifts are going to build your legs, and lower back.
Some sort of row like pendlay rows will recruit your upper back and some bicep muscles, but they’re not going to be as dominant in the exercise as a chin-up or pull-up.
Honestly, if I were creating a program with the sole goal of how to get biceps that are proportionately larger, I would dictate a single workout session as “chin-up day“ and perform at least three sets of five reps with this exercise as the first on the list.
6. Add More Fatigue to the Biceps
Fatigue is an interesting subject when it comes to muscle-building.
In some cases additional fatigue can seriously inhibit your body’s ability to recover from one workout to the next.
As in the case with compound movements, you don’t want to overly fatigued the muscles so that you can’t recover for the next workout since those kinds of movements are already pretty taxing on your central nervous system.
On the other hand, when you finish your workout with isolation movements, there is less risk of stalling your progression by overly fatiguing the individual muscles being targeted in those accessory exercises.
That’s why I would make this suggestion for the very last bicep isolation movement you perform in your work out…
Finish Your Workouts With Drop Sets
Drop sets are a series of sets in which the weight is decreased with each sequential set until the muscles being worked are either fatigued to the point of not being able to contract, or the weight being used isn’t sufficient enough to create any more muscle stress.
A simple example would be to drop the weight on your very last set of bicep curls perform another set of 8 to 15 reps, drop the weight again, and rinse and repeat until you run out of weights or your biceps can’t handle it anymore.
Here’s a more practical example for barbell curls:
- 95 x 12
- 95 x 12
- 95 x 12 < This is your last work set.
- 85 x 12 < First drop set.
- 75 x 12
- 65 x 12
- 55 x 12
- 45 x 12 < You probably won’t make it here.
- etc.
As you can see, this is a very effective method on how to get biceps based on extra volume and fatigue, but the trade-off is it eats up more time in the gym.
7. Add More Time Under Tension
Another variable that can be manipulated in very effective training programs in order to stimulate more muscle growth is the amount of time in which the muscle is under constant tension.
In other words… “Time under tension“.
Here’s an example method of monitoring the time under tension for a standard bicep movement to make sure that each contraction is getting the full benefit…
One Second Up and 2-3 Seconds Down
Most guys simply flop right through a bicep curl without thinking much about their form let alone how much time it’s taking to move from the top of the movement to the bottom.
Well, if you want to control the time under tension and know how to get biceps a little faster, a good starting point is to dedicate a full second to the concentric portion of the movement and 2-3 seconds to the eccentric portion of the movement.
(I’ll cover concentric and eccentric soon…)
To put it more simply, curl fast and release slow.
This simple tweak to the standard bicep curl will add more fatigue that translates into more gains.
8. Give Equal Attention to the Concentric and Eccentric Motions
The concentric portion of the bicep curl is when you actually lift the weight from the bottom to the top position and contract the muscle.
The eccentric portion is simple the reverse where you actually lower the weight from the top to the bottom starting position.
Like I mentioned earlier, you might be tempted to focus intently on the concentric portion of the movement and completely abandon the eccentric…
…but if you do this, you’re gonna miss out on some gains.
That’s why I have a pretty cool tool you can use…
Isolate Parts of the Curl Using 21s
This is actually something I learned working out with the football team when I was in high school.
(Don’t act impressed. I was still a skinny, weak wuss.)
But what this rep routine does is force adequate tension through all stages of the bicep curl by hitting partial movements.
To break down 21s, here’s what you do:
- Partial bicep curl from the top position to the middle – 7 reps
- Partial bicep curl from the middle position to the bottom – 7 reps
- Full bicep curl – 7 reps
This ensures that all positions in a single bicep curl are hit adequately for full development.
(Plus, they burn like a mofo.)
9. Switch between Barbells and Dumbbells
The last recommendation I’ll give on how to get biceps is to make sure that you’re not restricting yourself to one single tool.
It’s easy to get caught up in the barbell versus dumbbell argument, but (without making it complicated) why not use both to maximize stimulation?
(In case you’re wondering, I’m not a huge fan of machines. That’s why I don’t mention them in the tradeoff.)
Here’s an example of a mass gaining bicep workout that uses enough variation to stimulate both heads of the biceps, and target the full range of motion.
- Chin-ups – 3 x 5
- Barbell curl 21’s -2 x 21
- Incline dumbbell curls – 3 x 10
- Cable curls – 3 x 12
That’s How to Get Biceps that Rip Shirt Sleeves
As you can see, you got a lot of tools at your disposal to build biceps that command attention.
Whether that’s time under tension, hitting both heads of the bicep, or simple adding more movements…
…you should be able to build the biceps of your dreams and make plenty of jokes about having huge pythons or getting people tickets to the gun show.
What’s your plan on how to build biceps?
Leave a comment below and let me know!