Bicep growth

[SAHD]

I have mentioned this before and is simlar to the above....the Natty I know who has the biggest arms I'v seen in person NEVER does direct work. This may differ if you are on but I don't know. He does alot of back work with grips that use the bi's and all his tri work is compound presses. His body is good overall and focusses doing multiple exercises for the big muscle groups instead of bi's and tri's and calves.

Do a woukout and still have fuel in the tank and Bi's don't feel tired....solution is more underhand grip pulldowns, not curls.

I took on this approach and it did a few things - namely shortened my workouts, gave me better arm growth (and overall growth) made me recover faster, lifted more on the big lifts next workout.

Result was a bigger body which has bigger arms.

[bhman6]

I'm going to go against the grain with several comments and say that direct work is absolutely needed and depending on your structure and strengths vs weaknesses, heavy rows/deads/chins may not be enough to do jack shit for your biceps

I've been able to do pretty decent chins with 100+lbs hanging off me for reps, barbell rows in the 400 range, and deads (floor/rack) in the 500-700 range, and my biceps were absolutely shit for years

once I started hitting biceps twice a week, focusing on one basic heavy movement that took my shoulders our of the equation first, then a lighter movement second, did my biceps finally start growing at a rate that was noticeable to other people within 3 months

the biggest thing though is FEELING your biceps during bicep training. I had to remove all standing curl movements and switch to machine, cable, and preacher movements and my results have been staggering considering the lack of progress I've seen over the years

[0001Delta]

I think I'd go with both trains of though.

I think direct work is absolutely necessary, but you also have to progress on heavy compounds. It's a combination of both factors.
My biceps is a weak point, I never actually "felt it" during training until recently and selecting exercises was always a bitch because my shoulder takes over on most exercises except preachers, and preachers hurt the hell out of my arms. My old gym had a Nautilus Curl machine and it was fucking awesome, my inital arm progresses where amazing because I could feel the muscle being worked.

Then I switched gyms and found myself with crappy equipment and resorted to more heavy back work and compounds and my arms didn't deteriorate like I thought it would, if anything they got a bit stronger.

So, the right measure of heavy compounds that secondarily trains the biceps + direct work that match your leverages = big biceps.

[thehazzle]

My biceps only grow when my weight goes up. Get bigger overall and your arms will follow suit. Honestly I can do everything for biceps/arms and they only grow when my weight goes up.

[ch3v3ll3]

I'm going to go against the grain with several comments and say that direct work is absolutely needed and depending on your structure and strengths vs weaknesses, heavy rows/deads/chins may not be enough to do jack shit for your biceps

I've been able to do pretty decent chins with 100+lbs hanging off me for reps, barbell rows in the 400 range, and deads (floor/rack) in the 500-700 range, and my biceps were absolutely shit for years

once I started hitting biceps twice a week, focusing on one basic heavy movement that took my shoulders our of the equation first, then a lighter movement second, did my biceps finally start growing at a rate that was noticeable to other people within 3 months

the biggest thing though is FEELING your biceps during bicep training. I had to remove all standing curl movements and switch to machine, cable, and preacher movements and my results have been staggering considering the lack of progress I've seen over the years

Great post. when I had access to a HS preacher cur, i felt like i was finally feeling my biceps working. Forearms always seem to dominate with most curl movements.

[bhman6]

I LOVE the hammerstrength preacher curl machine, especially for HEAVY sets where you can really dig the elbows in and grind out the reps

cable preacher curls, standing cable curls (done lighter) and rope curls (also lighter) have been my mainstays for a year now with significant improvements