 What exercises best to build your biceps? Everybody thinks it's curls, but you can actually do compound lifts for your biceps. I used to have a trainer that worked for me that had most incredible looking biceps. He was a gymnast when I asked him what he did. He said, I do a lot of chin-ups and a lot of straight arm tension exercises. He did almost no curls. And then I thought about it. We think of compound lifts as great exercises for building big legs and chest and back. Why not the bicep? A supinated grip pull-up where you really focus on the bicep. This is a compound lift for biceps. It'll build bigger biceps than any curl you can think of.