When it comes to how to get bigger biceps, the truth is that it’s no easy feat. But if you’re serious about maximizing and prioritizing your biceps growth, then there are a few strategies (e.g. selecting the right bicep exercises and structuring your bicep workout correctly) we can employ. In this video I’ll go through what these strategies are and how to employ them so that in the next 8 weeks of your training you can build big biceps fast. I guarantee that even if you’re a “non-responder” or just haven’t been seeing much results with your current biceps regimen, that implementing this plan will help you build big biceps, or any muscle that you apply these strategies to.
The first thing we’ll want to do to build big biceps is to increase your weekly biceps volume. And it seems that we may be able to get to as high as 30 sets per week while still seeing a benefit in growth. This doesn’t mean you should throw in 30 sets of biceps into a workout and do that once a week. Within each workout, you don’t want to perform more than about 8-10 hard sets per muscle. So, knowing that, we’ll want to split up our weekly biceps volume into 2-3 workouts per week to stay within that per-session limit. What I’d personally recommend is using something like the upper/lower split or a push pull legs split, and split up your weekly biceps volume accordingly. Once you have that set, slowly increase your weekly volume throughout the weeks.
Next, to get big biceps fast, you want to bias your recovery to favour your biceps growth. All of the other muscle groups we train require energy, effort, and nutrients to recover and grow. So if our main goal is to increase the size of our biceps, it’s a good idea to reduce the volume we devote to our other muscle groups. Cutting volume down to about 9 weekly sets seems to be enough to maintain or in some instances even grow a muscle, and is therefore a good recommendation to stick to.
Next, we want to ensure that the weekly volume we do has the right variety of bicep exercises. We want to do this so that it helps 1) ensure that we are targeting both the short and long head of the biceps adequately, 2) trains the biceps through different strength curves in order to maximally stimulate all of the various regions and fibres of the biceps, and 3) it’ll better prevent us from overuse injuries and the wear and tear that would accumulate very quickly if we packed a ton of volume into just a couple repetitive movements. To simplify this, here are 5 biceps exercises that do just that and provide a good variety of stimulus on the biceps for the reasons I’ve noted down.
1. Incline dumbbell curl (emphasizes long head and challenges the peak contraction of the biceps the most)
2. Dumbbell preacher curls (emphasizes short head and challenges the stretched position of the biceps the most)
3. Barbell curl (for heavier loads and challenges the mid-range of the biceps the most)
4. Cable curls (provides constant tension to biceps)
5. Standing dumbbell curl (emphasizes supination function of biceps)
Simply distribute 4 or 5 of these movements and/or similar variations of them into your weekly biceps workouts as needed, and then as previously explained, gradually increase the sets you devote to each of these exercises throughout the weeks.
Next, we want to manipulate the order of our workouts to again favor the growth of our biceps. During whatever workouts that you’re throwing your biceps exercises into, move them to the beginning of the workout when you’re fresh in order to further prioritize them. Lastly, when it comes to how to get bigger biceps, you cannot forget about nutrition. Ideally, if you want to maximize your recovery and growth throughout these 8 weeks, then you’ll want to be eating at a slight calorie surplus. And of course, even more importantly is we want to ensure that we’re intaking enough protein throughout this period by having at least around 0.8-1g of protein per lb of our bodyweight.
And that’s basically all there is to it! But also keep in mind that your nutrition throughout this period and during your training in general will always be the most important factor to building muscle and losing fat. That’s why within my science-based programs, in addition to the step by step training plans you’ll receive, I’ve also created a nutrition tracker that’ll do all the guesswork for you and show you what to eat, how much to eat, and how to adjust this overtime to avoid reaching plateaus. To gain access today, just take the analysis quiz to discover which science-based program would be best for you and where your body is currently at below:
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE BICEPS GROWTH PLAN HERE:
https://builtwithscience.com/biceps-template
Subscribe to my channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/jeremyethier/?sub_confirmation=1
MUSIC: https://soundcloud.com/iamryanlittle
Here’s a link to the free downloadable 8-week biceps plan mentioned in the video: https://builtwithscience.com/bws-biceps-template/ . Enjoy the gains and let me know in the comments below what other muscle groups you’re struggling with!
@RedWildBear good idea
@jeremyethier
Will this be added to your courses as well? (Previously purchased your first two courses)
shoulders and back
What if i just going to start lifting should i do upper=lower=upper=lower body workout or full body workout three times a week im a hard gainer
Solution for mucle imbalances
Digging the fresh cut Jeremy!
Lmao what in intro. Started my lifting for the first time this year to change up my routine. Thanks for all the preloaded science ive been able to tuck into to get me ready
In Calisthenics I train mostly triceps & core and getting a big biceps is – at least for me – very difficult. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Try pelican curl eccentric
I have no idea what kind of stuff ur doing that you mainely work triceps and core
@saar cohen static exercises like planche, human flag, hollowback etc – do you even know Calisthenics?
Do you? Simplest calisthenic for biceps are chinups and pushups (yes certain pushup variations also focus on biceps). As a supposed calisthenics practitioner how do you not know this.
@When you realize Bill the Butcher was the good guy chin ups I agree, but push ups? Maybe the pseudo planche push up. Do you know Calisthenics? You do pull, push and static. Everybody who does Calisthenics knows that triceps and core is trained mainly, and biceps (and maybe chest) is the most difficult to train
hope there is a plan to do this video on triceps
You just apply the same thing…you can just look up different workouts to fill your 30 sets
Me too! 🙂 or just a video on how to get back from when you’ve lost a lot of weight during quarantine… I’m down 7-9kg…
Need one for triceps!
Just do The same thing like in this vid. Focus more on triceps volume n lower volume from other muscle groups to 6-9 sets per week. Include skull crushers, kickbacks, pushdowns, dips, close grip bench press.
Shredder1997 do i really have to lower the other musclr groups volume
Step 1: Adjust volume 1:03
Step 2: Manage recovery 4:09
Step 3: Exercise variati 5:22
Step 4: Exercise order 6:20
Step 5: Nutrition 6:55
Edit: This is just time stamps and I would recommend watching the whole video since he backs up every word with science. But if u are in a hurry or anything that makes u unable to watch the whole video u can ofc use these. This comment was made for me so i can go back and watch special parts of the video.
@dad exactly
❤️❤️❤️
You my friend get a cape…cause you’re a hero. Even though not all heroes wear capes.
@MegaSolidNinja thanks bro, i didnt think anyone would care about this comment tbh. This really makes my day
Am I the only person here who also hears that intro music a lot on another particular type of video hosting website… prior to my left bicep workout?
Free youtube music
LMAO
Damn times have changed. I can’t believe we’re getting this for free, thanks mate!
Heavy BB curls and a variation of DB curls can spark serious growth, use a slow eccentric too never hurt!
Me after 3 years of non growing biceps: THIS BETTER WORK
Do a plan for Triceps!! They take 2/3 of your arms
I found that lowering weights and using higher reps helped my biceps grow in size. That along with hammer curls which helped increase my bicep peak.
Same, lower weight Burnt my bicep and hammer curl helps too
@NinGangsta yeah I had epicondylitis from trying to curl too many, I used to do 8 reps absolute failure on heavy weights (38 pound curls on each arm), dropped it to (28 pound curls on each arm) for 15-16 reps failure and its grown so much in just the space of 4 months. I’ve started to lower weights on most of my lifts and its actually benefitted me so much I was actually shocked because it seemed counter productive at first but it really does work!
@Mersak No I did those 8 reps well, I don’t swing my shoulder and keep my forearms straight. Its probably because doing higher reps places more metabolic stress on my muscle and thats a stimulus to growth. Besides once I was curling 38 on each arm I had no chance to increase the weights (only reps – which was hard because the weights were heavy).
Also to add to this. I stopped doing “arm day” and instead just do bicep/tricep workout once a week at the end of my main muscle group workout. I think this partly helped due to my muscles getting more time to recover. Its very easy to overtrain arms so remember to take a couple days off between training them
Hey Jeremy, thank you for the info! If I may make point something out, the audio is a little echo-y in the new gym…
Since no gyms are open, I’ve had good results by attaching resistance loops to a wooden broom handle and curling that.
the coolest, the calmest, most educated and informed fitness guru on the internet today
I agree
But has the personality of a wet towel
And the smallest
Jeff cavalier and Coach Greg would like to have a word with you
I’ve heard the intro melody so many times, but in incognito mode
“Reduce work across other muscle groups.” Got it, just train biceps every other day