Here is something easy you can do every day for big biceps. All it is going to take is a minute or two in total, and it has the potential to totally change the way your biceps look and what you get out of your bicep workouts. It all has to do with getting a better mind muscle connection with your bicep muscle.
Let me start by telling you a little story. When I was growing up, I used to tag along with my older brother for his workouts. He was four years older than me and didn’t really want me hurting myself working out. Not to mention, I was a bit too young to be lifting weights any way. So, he gave me a little 5 lb Marcy dumbbell and told me to stay safe.
There weren’t a lot of exercises I could effectively do with that little of a weight, so I wound up doing a whole bunch of curls. What I learned from doing curls with that little dumbbell however would change the way my biceps would develop not just then but in all the years after. Am I saying that lifting 5 pounds was the key to bigger biceps? No not at all. What I am saying however was that learning how to make that light weight feel heavy by slowing down every rep and contracting my biceps through the rep allowed me to build the mind muscle connection that is necessary for building big biceps – and is often missing in those who struggle to build theirs.
Ask yourself how your arms felt during your last set of either barbell curls or dumbbell curls.
Were you just worried about getting the weight from the starting position to the end position or did you focus more on the quality of the work being done by the biceps in order to get you there? There is actually a simple way to determine which one you did. Ready? Tell me whether you were counting the reps when you did them. If so, then there is a high chance that you were not focused on the quality of the contraction but more the quantity.
In order to get your biceps to respond best to stimulus through your bicep workouts you have to be mindful of getting them to participate in each rep without substitution. This means, learning how to squeeze and contract the biceps through all three parts of their contraction pattern. Flexing the elbow, supinating the forearm and flexing the shoulder or slightly raising the elbow at the end.
This phenomenon has actually been backed up recently with some research coming out of Stanford University by colleagues of Dr. Andrew Huberman. They found that the ability to contract a muscle to the point of discomfort was a positive indicator of one’s ability to grow that muscle. If you lack the ability to create the strength of contraction needed to feel uncomfortable, then this was a sign of a lack of a good mind muscle connection and even the most stimulating of biceps exercises will become more challenging to translate into results.
My early years of lifting were comprised of just two exercises for my big biceps development. The heavy eccentric barbell curl and the chinup. Doing both of these exercises and really only these two bicep exercises was enough for me to build up the strength, size and definition of my arms. That said, many others can do the same two movements and not have any appreciable gains to show for their effort.
Now I can tell you this, I did not have good biceps genetics to speak of. Nobody else in my family has the type of biceps development that I do. It was literally the practice I got at an early age to ingrain the type of motor recruitment necessary to a strong muscular contraction. This led to faster bicep gains as I broadened my training focus.
So how do you get the same to happen for you? Practice.
Try attaining a complete biceps contraction 2-3 times per day for 4 reps of 10 second holds. Bend the elbow by acting as if someone asked you to flex for them. Supinate the forearm and try to increase the intensity of the contraction in the biceps muscle as you do. Finally, raise the elbow up just a bit and see if you can further intensify the cramping feeling. At this point, hold the squeeze as hard as you can for 10 seconds.
The goal is to get the ability to move towards a contraction discomfort over time so you can start getting your biceps to respond neurologically and ultimately lead to getting big biceps.
If you found this helpful and want to get a complete arm training program that will speed up the rate that you achieve big arms, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below and grab the Ultimate Arms program.
If you want more videos on biceps workouts and how to get bigger biceps and triceps, be sure to click the link below to remember to subscribe to our channel here on youtube and turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.
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Chris Wright
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I have been doing this. I felt less contraction in my left bicep, however over time it is improving.
Jikes late again?
Before watching this I would have bet big that Jeff’s advice would be ambidextrous self-pleasure.
Hey Jeff, can you please refresh the mind muscle connection series from scratch all over again (from head to toes) cause the videos I found in this regard are old and the sound and video quality doesn’t seem as good as it is today.
What did you do to your arm Jeff?
I have a good connection with the biceps, as do many of us… but most of us probably need to do this with our other muscles…
Great content Jeff !
This man has got a solution to every problem related to fitness. Jeff is the reason I became a fitter person and started eating healthy
@Mijo Livaja I actually do care and relate to it so.
@Mijo Livaja friend*
What does your eating healthy looks like
@Mijo Livaja friend*
Fixed more pain issues than the healthcare system managed with free info delivered by this legend.
Jesse, if you’re reading this – you’re as much of an inspiration as Jeff at this point, show up more in the videos! Especially to us hardgainers.
@Abhinav also, the first question I had was – are you a hard gainer or just lazy? I am not trying to be offensive but what I mean is – being a hard gainer is something that most people wish they had but any hard gainer will tell you they rather have the opposite problem. Being lazy and not following a diet plan and workout regimen and once you put in the work does not mean you are a hard gainer. You are just a normal unmotivated person who when they worked out and got their mind on the right place they started to see gains. It is not like for hard gainers, we need to train so much harder and also watch out diet by eating as much carbs as we possibly can. Our jaws will start to hurt on how much we have to eat throughout the day with the workouts that we do. It took me a solid 3 years and the WFH pandemic helped since no driving, extra workout time – to gain 15 or so lbs. Last September I had a scheduling conflict and I broke my 3 year streak of working out 5 days a week. I literally lost 6-7 lbs for not working out in 3 months. It was like in the cartoons where someone uses a pin and deflated me. Everyone who was complimenting me was like what happened, you were doing so good. A few people pulled me aside to make sure I was okay. My schedule opened back to normal in Jan and I was able to gain most of it back way easier than the 3 years it took me to gain it. Now my schedule changes tomorrow actually and I am trying to figure out how to keep going because I do not want to lose it again. Hard gainers are something else.
@Abhinav I would say that for the large part, his transformation is pretty good. Guy would definitely benefit from adding on 20 lbs to his frame. Honestly though, he is pretty strong given his body weight, but in the grand scheme of both strength and looks, he would benefit from bulking up, because being 150 at that height is very hard to look pretty jacked.
Jesse’s gains are just fine for someone built like him. He actually looks totally different than when we first seen him. Anyone saying otherwise is blind or just uneducated on the subject of what it takes for someone to get where they want to be with their fitness plan.
@John Fitzgerald I think you missed what I was saying, I was saying the pandemic helped me workout more because I did not have to drive. I was able to workout more because of the stupid lockdown. There is a reason why germ-theory is still a theory =F
Thank you so much. Wonderful video as usual with much wisdom.
I am a 74-year-old senior fitness teacher. But I need to well round my work out more. And this is so brilliant.
Because many times I hurt myself trying too hard. Whether I’m lifting small weights or doing stretches or postures. This is a very in visible yet important key. Thank you thank you thank you
Good advice, I hadn’t considered this. Thanks Jeff!
Short sweet and simple! I dont have this issue with my biceps, rather my side delts. So i will try this every day!! Thanks Jeff!
Side delts?
@Cornybeef medial head prolly what he mean
He already has a lot of videos for that
New fan as of a few months ago. I love your explanations and the work you have done with Jesse. Thank you.
Thank you coach Jeff for everything ♥️
Jeff is awesome for making this channel, I appreciate it so much! I’m just starting out and this is great knowledge, thank you Mr. Cavaliere!
I gotta say, this really helps in between sets. (with any exercise, for that matter!) I always flex the muscle I’m training after each set, and it really helps build a good mind-muscle connection.
I like to do it when I’m sore aswell. I used to not have a good mind muscle connection to various hip muscles. But once I got them real good and sore and could “feel” them I could then flex them and activate them during squats/deadlifts.
That’s smart, I’ll have to start doing that.
“Your ability to create discomfort in a muscle is an indicator of your ability to grow that muscle”
Thank you so much for this. I kept thinking I wasn’t doing any gains and plateaued for some time thinking that the fact I tire at about the same range was abnormal. Turns out, I get tired at the same range and it burns/feels more is probably because it’s going somewhere.
Please tell me
This is your second or third language
@Cornybeef lol just dropped ‘shrooms
@Cornybeef You could have just… not said that
The concept of mind to muscle connection has been a game changer to my training. I thank you so much for this advice. Although I must admit that it has taken a quite long time to start feeling my biceps…
@Rudranil Sadhukhan It is the ability to feel a muscle when training it.
@Daniel Mulero through focus ??
@Rudranil Sadhukhan isometric holds, before doing the exercise, works very well
@Rudranil Sadhukhan The easiest way I can think of it is like when I was young and didn’t know how to flex muscles independently at will without training them. Once you work out a bit you learn how to control your muscles more so that shows the brain connection to the muscles is stronger. Keep that focus up while you train and the gains should increase.
@Matthew Clark ya, thats a legit answer
Another great video, thanks a lot Jeff! On the off chance that you see this, would you consider a video on incorporating rest days or just recovery in general? It sounds weird to have to talk about how to rest but I’ve been overtraining myself constantly and it’s made my progress slow to an absolute crawl.
I train both break dance and bouldering, and i can tell you that theres a massive difference in performance with and without mind-muscle activation warmups before a hard workout.
I never had this issue with my biceps, but my lats were another story…started posing for a few minutes a day in the mirror a focusing on contracting each individual muscle and it has helped tremendously! Great advice Jeff!
Thank you for the kind mention Jeff. As a long time follower of your channel and practitioner of the tools and information you provide, I’m honored to be mentioned but above all, I so greatly appreciate the incredible work you do: I’ve learned so much from Athlean-X about training for strength and hypertrophy, adjusting posture, rehabilitating back pain, flexibility and on and on.
I know I am not alone in my gratitude to you and your team. Thank you!
Huberman you’re everywhere! Been loving your podcast since Day 1 (initially saw you on either Tim Ferris or Joe Rogan first). Then I saw you on NINE CLUB! And now you’re referenced on Athlean, which I’ve been following for roughly 10 years now. Glad to see you’re blowing up my man, you deserve it. Keep the content coming.
Okay, I never expected Jeff mentioning you and I’m also happy for the shout-out. Been fan of the podcast for over a year now and can’t wait for another episodes. Thanks and a lot of gratitude for both of you guys.
Jeff on your podcast would make for a pretty interesting conversation I imagine. I’m grateful to both of you.
Joe Rogan, Athlean x, The Nine Club. Seriously is there anywhere where you’re not dropping knowledge on us. You rock Andrew !
I think I’m speaking for a lot of people when I say: a podcast or any other kind of collab with you two would be awesome :D Cheers