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Building Bigger Biceps
How To Build Bigger Biceps
By
The
"Muscle Nerd"
Jeff Anderson
Clint Eastwood wouldn't have been a very intimidating
Dirty Harry if all he pulled out was a little .22 caliber
pistol to make his point. He knew that to really make
the bad guy's knees shake and the lady's legs quiver,
a .44 Magnum was the weapon of choice?!
So
when it comes to bicep development, why should
you settle for second rate pea-shooters when you
can pack some really big guns?
Let's
face it, all men want big biceps. They're the easiest
muscle to show off without getting undressed, women love
to wrap their arms around them when walking down the street,
and they're small!
Whoa,
hold up there sparky
I didn't mean YOURS were
small. I simply mean that compared with other muscles
of the body, like your chest, back, and legs, your biceps
are a relatively small muscle.
That's
good news for you and me because it means that
it's much easier to target your biceps for growth
than it is to take on larger, more complicated muscle
groups.
So
why aren't YOURS the size of softballs yet?
One
quick look around any local sweatbox and the answer
becomes clear
most
guys have absolutely no clue how to effectively work their
arms!
But
these 3 EASY STEPS are guaranteed to make sure
you don't end up on the "loser list".
STEP
1: DIAL THE RIGHT "FREQUENCY"
Because
the biceps are a smaller muscle, and because they're used
in compound exercises when working other muscle
groups, your arms
are more prone to overtraining than any
other muscles of the body.
I'm
sure you understand by now that your muscles grow when
they're at REST, rather than work. So if you keep
your biceps at work by targeting them more than once
a week, you're setting yourself up for major disappointment!
This
is where the "more is better" crowd will lose
every time! Stick
to only one targeted arms workout per week
and you'll give them the much needed recovery time to
pack on new muscle.
STEP
2: UPGRADE YOUR R.O.M.
No,
I'm not talking about your computer
I'm referring
to your muscle's range of motion.
If
you ever want to grow your bi's to their full potential,
you must concentrate on hitting all of the
muscle fibers. The only way to do this is to take
the muscle from full "pronation" (arm
extended, palm facing body) to full "supination"
(arm curled, pinky turned in toward body).
Look,
you're not impressing anyone, especially that cute
red head over by the water cooler, by stacking up the
EZ curl bar with massive weight and flopping
your body all over the place like a hooked bass,
your arms barely lowering the weight to full extension.
You
MUST start every single repetition with
your arms fully extended. (Yes
I know this
makes the exercise harder, now grab a tissue, wipe
away the tears, and get back to work!)
A
little trick to help you accomplish this is to first briefly
(like a split-second) flex
your triceps before raising the weight each rep.
Since the only way to do this is to fully
extend your arm, you'll know you've begun each
rep in the optimum starting position to stimulate new
muscle growth.
STEP
3: RECRUIT YOUR "MAIN SQUEEZE"
To
get your biceps to become bigger, you first have
to show them what it's like to be bigger.
Here's
how it's done
At
the very top of your curl, when your bicep has
peaked, squeeze
the muscle hard for approximately 1-2 seconds.
Your
curl will make the muscle contract, effectively setting
up a "road block" in your bicep. That final
squeeze you add will literally force blood, water,
and lactic acid into the contracted muscle, causing an
intense "pump".
In
response, the muscle cells themselves begin to thicken,
the capillaries within the muscle grow in number
and size to hold more fluid, and stem cells split
off to form new muscle fibers, already pre-programmed
for growth.
SUMMARY:
Well,
there you have it
but now comes the hard
part. And NO, I'm NOT talking about
picking the weight up and starting your curls.
The
hard part will be forcing yourself to actually DECREASE
the weight you currently use because, chances
are, you've been padding your ego by working too heavy,
while sacrificing the most effective ego-booster
BIGGER
BICEPS!
But
trust me, the growth you'll get from incorporating these
3 principles will more than compensate for
your initially bruised ego.
Jeff
Anderson (better known in the bodybuilding community
as the "Muscle Nerd") is the creator of
Optimum Anabolics, the ground-breaking new bodybuilding
program that has taken the entire industry by storm!
For
more information on Jeff's controversial new mass-building
principles, go to
Optimum Anabolics.