Bicep Blaster

How to train your biceps?

When it comes to biceps, we all want bigger guns 💪🏽 - it’s basically the first thing that comes to mind when we mention strength training. It’s the icon of your body.

If you go and ask any child “how strong are you?” the first thing they will do is to flex their biceps.

So the questions that most people ask are:

How can I get bigger biceps?

How can I keep them pumped?

How can I make them strong?

Should I do more reps and light weight or few reps and heavy weight?

I will answer all of these questions, but first, my questions to you are: How often do you train your biceps? How intense do you train them?

So in order to answer all of these questions we have to understand the nature of muscle itself, to be able to decide how we train them and how intense we can go. That requires that we dig slightly deeper into the science behind it.

There are three types of muscle fiber and they each require different types of training.

Type 1: Slow twitch muscle fiber

Type 2A: Fast twitch muscle fiber (Oxidative).

Type 2B: Fast twitch muscle fiber (Glycolytic).

Type 1 muscle fiber are so resilient to fatigue. They are aerobic and can put out a little bit of power for a very long period of time. Where does it get its energy? It prefers fat for fuel and fatty acids.

Type 2A is a fast twitch oxidative muscle fiber. That means its a mix of fast twitch Type 2B and slow twitch Type 1 muscle fibers. In other words, they require more volume training as opposed to high intensity training in order to achieve a state of hypertrophy. They use fatty acids and glycogen for fuel. They use aerobic respiration initially, but because they may switch to anaerobic respiration (glycolysis), can fatigue more quickly than slow twitch fibers.

Type 2B is glycolytic muscle fiber which use glycogen for fuel. This is used in glycolysis to generate ATP (adenosine triphosphate) quickly to produce high levels of tension. That means they are not resilient to fatigue but they are more explosive muscle fibers. They require high intensity training opposed to high volume training to achieve a state of hypertrophy. So, if youthink of a sprinter running a 200 meter sprint, in the first 10 seconds or less of the sprint they would fire up these type 2B muscle fibers until they are fatigued, and then they will have to rely on type 2a oxidative muscle fibers to finish the 200 meter sprint. The characteristics of Type 2B muscle fibers are not resilient to fatigue, they are not aerobic, are extremely explosive, extremely anaerobic, and extremely powerful.

So now that we learned about the differences between muscle fibers, we have to know that every muscle group has a more dominant type of muscle fibers. As well we have to know that genetics play a big role in it. Some people are genetically born with more dominant fast twitch muscle fiber than others, these are the ones that can sprint with explosiveness and power, but when it comes to running slow for a very long time their bodies can’t do that and vise versa. So our genetics determine most of it.

So now that we understand how it works, let’s go back to biceps and their characteristics.

Biceps contain 55% of type 2 muscle fiber. They require moderate to high intensity training, moderate volume, with long rests between sets, and they should be trained with moderate frequency (twice to three times a week).

Intensity: Moderate to High

Volume: Moderate

Rest: Long

Frequency: Moderate

One of the biggest mistakes that coaches make when it comes to training biceps, is they do it as an accessory exercise; they leave them until the end, even if the goal for them or their client is to grow their biceps.

Biceps are a prime mover. They have more fast twitch muscle fiber and we need to train them accordingly. If your goal or your client's goal is to grow their biceps, you have to treat them as a primary movement. That means no more 50 reps burnout by the end of the session or 21’s. By these types of training you’re basically creating muscle endurance not mass.

We have to put the bicep in an intense, heavy movement for mass - like Barbell Curls and Drag Curls with no more than 8 to 10 reps. Put it as an A and B in your training day,

don’t leave it until the end of the workout and do some volume.

If your goal is size you have to respect the muscle fiber type.

Here is a full day of training with bicep focus oriented, and some shoulder accessory work for bicep definition.

A1. Barbell Bicep Curls

4 sets of 8 to 10 reps heavy

A2. Dumbbell Lateral Raises

4 sets of 12 light to moderate

Rest 90 seconds to 2 minutes between sets.

B1. Barbell Drag Curls

4 sets of 8 to 10 reps heavy

B2. Dumbbell Rear

Delt Flys

4 sets of 12 light to moderate

Rest 90 seconds to 2 minutes between sets.

C. 3 Rounds For Time of:

20 Push-ups

15 Chin-ups

10 Bent Over Rows

5 Power Clean and Jerk

D1. Hammer Curls

3 sets of 10

D2. Waiter’s Curls

3 sets of 12

Rest 90 seconds to 2 minutes between sets.

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