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Instant biceps: build bigger guns in five minutes - Quick Fit - Brief Article

Men's Fitness, August, 2002 by Bobby Lee

I want my SUV! Supersize it! Size matters! On all fronts, from all directions, society tells us that bigger is better. It's no different with biceps: Everyone wants theirs larger.

Indeed, bigger is seductive--but there's usually a price to pay. SUVs can run you 50 bucks for a tank of gas. A supersized meal carries tremendous amounts of gut-stretching calories. A longer or thicker unit (ahem!) is achievable, but only through painful and potentially disfiguring surgery. What's the drawback with bigger guns? Thankfully, only lost time.

Or so most men mistakenly believe. While we can't decide for you whether you really need a superdeluxe SUV or a more physically imposing member, we can tell you affirmatively that you don't need to spend an hour performing 30 sets of curls to bulk up your biceps. In fact, doing so is counterproductive.

"Most guys spend entirely too much time working on one muscle," says Santa Monica, Calif.-based personal trainer Ray Velazquez, "under the false impression that the more they hammer the muscle, the larger it'll grow." While that may work for a brief period of time, it's not a sound long-term training strategy. Sooner or later, when the stress placed on the targeted muscle becomes more than the muscle can recover from, your body will start to suffer from overtraining. When that happens, muscle growth stops and injuries occur.

If you've been working your biceps hard for more than half an hour every other day and the results have ground to a halt, give the following five-minute cable biceps workout a go. Designed by Velazquez, this routine hits the entire biceps via a giant-set approach. The cable provides constant tension on the muscle while easing the stress placed on the joints.

Use this workout once or twice a week with at least two days' rest between each session. The results will be more than you expected.

THE WORKOUT

Perform the workout as three giant sets, doing the exercises one after the other until you have completed three sets of each. Do not rest between movements; rest only 30 seconds after each giant set. For example, a wide-grip curl followed by a standard-grip curl followed by a narrow-grip curl amounts to one giant set.

Do the routine no more than two times per week, allowing at least 48 hours of rest between workouts. During the recuperation period, avoid training your back, since this will hit your biceps when they should be recovering.

THE EXERCISES

1. WIDE-GRIP CABLE CURL (biceps) Attach a long bar to the lower pulley. Stand tall with your knees slightly bent, and hold the bar with a palms-up grip, hands spaced wider than shoulder width and the bar almost resting against your front thighs (1a). Slowly curl the bar to shoulder height without moving your elbows outward (1b); squeeze for a two-count at the top. Slowly return to the starting position. After eight reps, immediately begin the next variation.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

2. STANDARD-GRIP CABLE CURL (biceps) After completing eight reps of the wide-grip curl, bring your hands inward to shoulder width. Stand tall with your knees slightly bent, and hold the bar with a palms-up grip. The bar almost resting against your thighs is your starting position (2a). Slowly curl the bar to shoulder height without moving your elbows outward (2b), then squeeze for a two-count at the top. Slowly return to the starting position. After eight reps, immediately begin the next variation.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

3. NARROW-GRIP CABLE CURL (biceps) After completing eight reps of the standard-grip curl, bring your hands inward again until they are four to six inches apart. Stand tall with your knees slightly bent, and hold the bar with a palms-up grip. The bar almost resting against your thighs is your starting position (3a). Slowly curl the bar to shoulder height while keeping your elbows as stationary as possible (3b), then squeeze for a two-count at the top. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

GIANT-SET CIRCUITS

Do three of the following circuits, resting 30 seconds between each giant set.

                          REPS

Wide-grip cable curl       8
 immediately followed by
Standard-grip cable curl   8
 immediately followed by
Narrow-grip cable curl     8

Instant biceps: build bigger guns in five minutes - Quick Fit - Brief Article

Men's Fitness, August, 2002 by Bobby Lee

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