 The best exercise for your biceps, it's not curls Alright guys, I know, I know everybody's like big biceps gotta do the curls Where do we even go? You know from here Alright, I'm gonna tell a story right now of when I really pieced this together I had a gymnast that worked for me as a trainer years ago It was a this dude was about I don't know 5'10 Jacked like incredible arms like you ever seen like competitive gymnasts Male gymnasts in particular female gymnasts too, but male gymnasts They just have like these like amateur bodybuilding looking arms And I asked him once like what do you do for your biceps? Do your arms look crazy? And he goes chin ups like that's a back exercise He goes no, it's a it's a bicep exercise if you do it like this and he jumps up on the bar Gets a curl grip and rather than pulling his chest to the bar He does this kind of like compound lift for his biceps and then it dawned on me If I want my quads to really grow. It's not leg extensions. It's squats, right? If I want to build a bigger back. I'm not it's not, you know pullovers It's it's rose right so it's like a compound lift for the biceps In fact, we often accept that for triceps like close grip bench press or dips right for some reason biceps We don't do that anyway started doing them and they're hard so they're really advanced and Made a huge it put the curls to shame in terms of hard. Yeah, I think that's where it is Right. It's so much easier to just look in the mirror and Pump pump it up. Is that what you think we do? You know, that's a that's that's a really good point you bring up And I wonder why that is that so we everybody is pretty familiar with close grip bench press for your triceps We talk about it all the time. I've it's not the first time I've heard anyone time. It's popular But it you don't hear that often about, you know supinated pull-ups as a great bicep exercise like people But it's that's a perfect comparison. It's very similar to the what trice or what the incline Press is for triceps, but for biceps. Yeah, I think that one talks about it I think it's big Justin hit it, right? It's hard as hell So first off doing a supinated grip chin up or pull up is hard anyway But now rather than pulling your chest to the bar, right? You're kind of focused on the biceps and because it's so supinated some people have issues with their wrists So one thing you can do is you if you can find a bar PRX has this right? So we work with a company called PRX and they have I love their handle grips Yeah, multiple grips and one of them is supinated, but it's almost like an easy curl bar So it's kind of like this That's excellent for doing what I'm about to you know what I'm demonstrating But you do got to pull with the biceps not as much with the back So you're not doing this you're pulling like this and it just blows up the biceps You know who does a lot of it those that little protracted with your shoulders as opposed to Yeah, just like with close grip bench press like you're putting the the emphasis on the triceps with this kind of a pull-up You're putting the emphasis on the biceps You know what there's one athlete that does a lot of those types of friend of ours no no No, we don't know anybody that does but there's one category of athletes That relies on very very strong arms and biceps size of gymnast besides the gymnast arm wrestlers arm wrestlers do lots of Those kinds of chin-ups in fact if you watch really do you have them athletes? Yeah, bro. Come on You ever you ever arm wrestle like no, I know I I'm gonna offend everybody. I'm just like I It's like a novelty thing. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if you let's call math Yeah, well, I mean if in the Olympics they have you know, baton twirling. I'm pretty sure I feel like if I can call men's physique a sport you should be able to call arm wrestling for sure a hundred percent Yeah, but but those guys and girls and they do exercise like that and then you'll see top arm wrestlers They'll often demonstrate one-arm pull-ups and you'll notice that it's like it's all bicep when they do the pull-up and It's what they're and their arms are for strength athletes They have incredible looking arms and biceps but yeah, I did this and I still do this every once in a while and There's no bicep exercise that I can that I've done that will hit my arms the same way No, I like I like that a lot and in that elbow position, too There's not a lot of bicep exercises that emulate that either. That's another part another feature about that Yes, compound lift heavy hard novel all those things for sure and then also how many machines Do you know where your elbow is positioned by your ears? Not just that it's up by your ears And then as the exercise progresses it now moves through this this wild range of motion Yeah, my elbow goes from behind my by my head to in front of my body to my side all within the same Exercise so what happens essentially is if you look at the bicep that's connected in two points We're gonna simplify there's two heads, but let's just simplify right there's two points when it contracts It brings them together, but what bicep curl exercises bring this part of the bicep closer to this one, right? So when I do this it's the part that's pulling my lower arm up when you're doing a chin up It's doing this almost to both sides So it's a very different feel different pull and I'm gonna give everybody a warning if you do these Be careful because they will wreck your arms like nothing you've ever done before they're really really tough and The pump is absolutely insane, but it's a compound lift for the bicep So you're probably right Justin That's probably what they are really hard because it's hard for people to do regular pull-ups It's even harder when you you're trying not to let the back involve the backs The the biggest part of that movement and when you take it out and you try and I mean it's gonna be involved And then in plus you have so many cable machines and different like Machines specifically geared for bicep because it's like a favorite muscle of people work And so you have all these other options that are like much easier to just get into That's just something like you really have to it's a lot more demanding to get to do something Yeah, my tip would be if you've never tried this is to assist it with a band first So you could really concentrate on the form and hopefully get like five to ten reps versus, you know Struggling just to get one or two. You can also make this a pumping exercise with a lat pulldown bar So you can use lighter weight Like you're gonna do a lat pulldown grab that supinated grip and then do what I said where you're focusing on the biceps on the way down And because the weights lighter you can get do more reps You'll get a crazy pump but it's again, it's a compound lift for the bicep So I actually used to do a lap pulldown bar and bicep curls behind my head So that was like an extra because again trying to try to go after that that elbow position They're just that's not a lot of machines and you can't with with gravity I do obviously do it with free weight stuff. So you have to find creative ways to Target the bicep from that elbow position And so that used to be an exercise that I love to do which is the lap pulldown bar behind yeah, yeah sitting down And then I'm just I'm curling to the back of my neck. That's a gnarly squeeze by the way It is a very very strange squeeze. You don't feel like with any other exercise but you know again if you If you examine if we listed the top one or two exercises per body part in terms of just sheer Muscle and strength building effect, you know effectiveness and I want to be clear all exercises have value if applied Appropriately this includes isolation exercises correctional exercises and compound lifts But if you were to list the top two or three Like just muscle building movements for each body part What you'll see are our compound lifts Like the the number one shoulder builder is going to be a press right the number one chest builder is a horizontal press The number one back exercise a row or a pull down or a pull up. Yeah, they just skipped right over biceps I think that is really interesting. Yeah, that we we've associated even triceps Like you said with like depths and you can do things where you're doing a compound lift But biceps just you know just seems like there isn't anything Yeah, and I think if people did it and then started to understand how to feel it because once you do it It's going to feel kind of weird at first, especially if you've always done pull-ups in a particular way It's like a different kind of a pulling yourself up and again The risk of injury is high because the tension is high and you might not have the technique or form So I think what you gave was great advice Adam to start light with assistance or even like I said with lap pulldown bar But once you get into the groove of it and feel it you'll be like what the hell I've been I've been missing out on such an effective advice You could also use the tips that we've given around isometrics to to help you figure this out too, right? So I would get a band underneath there have somebody do an isometric hold at the bottom thinking about squeezing and flexing bicep And then another one where you're all the way the top squeezing and focusing on there. Oh, like you're just holding yourself Yeah, exactly just holding yourself at the top and holding yourself at the bottom Will help you engage the biceps more when you try and practice a movement like that that you're not used to Is it one of the other great values of isometrics is when you when you when you're trying to do an exercise That traditionally isn't for that specific muscle group doing an isometric contraction for the muscle You do want to work in that will help you connect. They're just good for you familiarizing yourself with that Yeah, that contraction that movement and what you're trying to produce out of it. You know, it's funny I've been going through studies on isometrics funny. You bring this up, right and the studies show that so There's obviously when you work out use resistance the goals typically our strength and muscle building Isometrics the muscle building effect you get from them now it's shorter lived But the initial muscle gain and strength is actually faster than you get from traditional lifting So what happens when you incorporate isometrics is you get this very steep And dramatic rise in muscle and strength now it starts to plateau if you don't incorporate traditional exercises, which is why It's my belief that isometrics are best used to supplement traditional Resistance training but man if you read the literature on the strength gains and the muscle gains in short periods of time It's nothing matches. I know what's your effective way to summon the troops What's your theory on why it does have quicker results? That's why yeah, because it's it's a neuromuscular. It's it's you're You're tapping into that central nervous system response of like, hey Like i'm gonna need to activate more muscle fibers because i'm placing more intensity and demand On this particular squeeze and so you can actually ramp that up and and get more of a response But now you actually have to then from there Like you said you have to go into those lifts where it actually places the load and everything else to account for Yeah, so you think you're actually recruiting more muscle fibers isometrically contracting than doing a full contraction It's a fact Yeah, it's a fact So so once you're well trained you're squeezing way more potential. Yes So really tapping into and activating muscle fibers is part of the that's part of the The goal right with resistance training and what you'll find with with, um, experienced athletes Especially experienced strength athletes is they could they can activate more of their muscle fibers than the average person I don't know what the number is but it's significant, right? Isometrics make that happen much faster probably because there's a shorter Learning curve. So like you take so I would have said it's easier It's easier to figure out where there's more room for error in a in a traditional full range of motion Lift, yes, there's like someone can do for example Let's take a very basic easy one bicep curls And when they're actually doing a full contraction many times it starts awfully well bicep But then shoulders kick in and momentum kicks in and so you lose some of the value as far as keeping it all Focused on the bicep versus I take a bar and I put it halfway up in an isometric contraction And I just squeeze and flex the bicep. I feel like it's much more localized. Yeah, it's localized It's and it's easy to localize it There's less room for error and like I'm not going to be squeezing that and my calves light up or my Well, you'd have to basically go through each one of those angles isometrically to you know Maintain that same amount of intense tension. So it it requires a lot more focus Yes to get to that point it also it also causes less muscle damage than both eccentric and concentric contraction So concentric is like going up eccentric now that support that I find interesting because you you say that it recruits more muscle fibers But then yet it does less damage. It does less damage really interesting Yes, because of the what is it the sliding filament theory, which is like, okay, so muscle fibers Okay, we're going to get all weird here But muscle fibers run along each other and the the prevailing theories to how muscles contract is They attach to each other while they're sliding past each other And contract and hold but as you do the contraction some of these attachments break and that's what causes the damage or inflammation Well, an isometric hold they attach they hold and they contract. So there's less potential For damage eccentric, right lowering causes the most damage because as you lower you're breaking a lot of these Spread apart. Yeah, and that's the theory, right? So you can do So here's like the cool thing about isometrics. You can do them frequently So I can hammer my, you know, chest maybe a couple days a week or a few days a week I could do isometrics every day at my level, right? So a beginner maybe less But it's less damage, which is cool because you can ramp up volume without worrying so much about overtraining So whatever routine you're doing You may think I want to add a little bit isometrics is a great way to do it. In fact Isometrics is one of those lost arts of resistance training It was so heavily favored at the turn of the, you know At the turn of the 19th century the strongman and all those guys, you know, Eugene Sandow and All those, you know strong men and women that did just incredible feats of strength Isometrics was a staple in their training that also highlights why things like kin stretch Are so much better than just traditional yoga, right? So both of them are taking you in these stretched positions But kin stretch includes the isometric contraction in there where you're really intensifying So you're building you're building muscle in that new range of motion that You know, you know, it's about being strong in those poses, right? You're not just you're not just stretching into that position and relaxing and holding that holding that position You're actually isometrically contracting in there So you're recruiting all these extra muscle fibers and actually building some strength in that new found You know, who's a huge fan of isometrics? I've said this before, uh, Bruce Lee Bruce Lee did Probably he did resistance training. He was one of the first martial artists to do it. In fact, he He worked with bodybuilders at the time and to develop his physique and everything too because he noticed it The story goes that this is legend, but I don't know if it's true He wrote this himself, but he says that he got into a fight He won but then he was so surprised at how fatigued he was And how weak his body felt the end. So he said I need to you know, do more physical conditioning Well resistance training become a part of it and obviously Bruce Lee not a big guy But at the time probably one of the most muscular people on screen actually, um inspired a lot of Pro bodybuilders to become bodybuilders and I'll flex wheeler talked about Bruce Lee Being what does that lat spread in the beginning when he's kind of warming up to fight or whatever And isometrics was a huge part of his routine and it was said that he could hold a I want to say 200 pound dumbbell at arm's length and hold it steady And he said isometrics gave him incredible punching power because of the stability that he developed. So It really does work. Um, it's not so popular nowadays, which is interesting probably because it's not sexy, but Um, I I foresee this being the next big thing in fitness again, of course Usually it's the old stuff that comes back. So it's not going to be the you know The next big thing said next old thing that becomes the next big. Yeah I've been way ahead of my time with a lot of these things. We'll see if it catches or way behind. However, you look at it Either way you look at it Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe