Just so that you have some expectation of where to start, most individuals can recover from biceps training at a timecourse that allows for 3-6 sessions of biceps per week at MEV-MRV volumes.
3-4x per week is pretty excessive. There's plenty of studies that advocate that you shouldn't be doing more than 20 sets for larger muscles groups and should keep the minor muscle groups like your arms in the 10-15 set range per week.
4 sets per week is absolutely 100% enough to see consistent progression if output intensity is at max effort and recovery demands are being thoroughly met.
Bicep Building Tips
Work your biceps up to three non-consecutive days per week. This means at least one rest day between bicep workouts. If your goal is building muscle mass, lift heavier weights and perform six to eight repetitions. The last couple of reps should be difficult.
Research suggests a slightly higher frequency of training for building strength training, with a minimum of three days a week required for strength gains but five days being optimal.
Downtime between workouts (whether you're lifting, doing cardio or training for a sport) is when our bodies have a chance to actually build muscle. Strenuous workouts cause muscle breakdown, while rest allows our bodies to build it back up.
Therefore, you must give yourself enough time to recover in between your bicep workouts. Generally, a 24-48 hour resting period is sufficient to avoid any injury. In case you're using heavy weights, make sure to rest at least for two consecutive days.
The biceps are a secondary muscle in compound exercises like underhand grip rows or chin-ups, therefore they are still working. As a secondary muscle in a compound lift, the biceps encounter even more volume and muscle breakdown than during a biceps curl. Avoid overtraining the biceps after an entire workout.
Within a training session, we recommend including between 1 and 3 different biceps exercises, but no more than that in most cases, as doing more than 3 biceps movements in one session is likely just a needless burning of potential exercise variations you can save for later mesocycles.
Doing push ups every day is good for building upper body muscles and even strengthening your core, back, and lower extremities. You can start with 10 push ups a day and then work up to doing 50 or 100 push ups everyday. Breaking them up into smaller sets throughout the day can make it easier to start as well.
For optimal results when starting out, consider training your biceps no more than twice a week. Two sessions a week gives your muscles enough post-workout recovery to perform at their maximum capacity during the next session.
There is a minimum effective dose of 4 sets per muscle group per week for hypertrophy. For increasing strength, both higher volume and frequency contribute. However, results diminish beyond 4 sets per week. There is a minimum effective dose of 1 set per week per muscle group for strength gains.
One of the biggest mistakes made by gym goers is training two big muscle groups in the same training session. Combining leg and back exercises, for example, requires a lot of energy and puts pressure on the nervous system.
So, no, you probably shouldn't strength train the same muscle group two days in a row.
There are two main training errors people make that keep their biceps from growing. These are overtraining the biceps (often unintentionally) and a lack of variation in training techniques. Adding additional biceps focused workouts and trying multiple biceps exercises doesn't work.
Liz Au, FITWELL coordinator at UCLA Recreation, said the lack of a sufficient rest gap between exercise bouts can lead to overtraining and possible muscle breakdown, depending on the individual and the intensity of the exercise. “The imbalance of training and recovery leads to negative physiological impact,” Au said.
48-72 hours is the recommended time for muscle recovery. In order to speed muscle recovery, you can implement active rest after your workout session and have the right macronutrients in your diet.
Is 2 bicep exercises enough? Two basic bicep exercises is really not enough for training biceps and achieving serious arm growth. You should incorporate 3-4 different variations of the curl into your dumbbell biceps workout.
Typically, it takes around 6-8 weeks for you to start noticing changes in the appearance of your arms. At around the 12 week mark, this is typically when you can expect to see more significant changes, especially if you didn't already have a large amount of muscle mass in the area!
Consuming enough protein on your rest days is just as, or perhaps even more, important as consuming it on your training days. Generally speaking, your total protein goals for the day should not change whether its a training day or a recovery day.
As you rest, fibroblasts repair the microscopic tears resulting in stronger muscles and increased muscle mass. Without the right training intensity, the muscles won't be challenged adequately to see results, and without rest, the muscle repair needed to see results is inhibited.
Try to plan one recovery day for every 2 to 3 days of training. Except after a competition or a very intense effort, it is ideal to avoid choosing 2 consecutive rest days.