This depends on your starting point. Our beginner gym workout plan suggests starting with one set of 20 reps and then increasing the reps or weight each week. For people with some training experience, three to four sets of 10 to 12 reps is commonly prescribed for hypertrophy training (building muscle).
The Minimum Effective Volume (MEV) for biceps requires you to perform at least eight sets of direct bicep workouts per week. It means that you need to complete eight sets of biceps throughout the week.
Continue alternating arms for 1-3 sets of 8-16 reps. Avoid using momentum. Keep the movement slow and controlled, and don't swing the weights. Also, take care not to use your hips (or any movement from your lower body) to propel the weights upward.
Within a single week (microcycle) of training, we recommend between 2 and 5 different biceps exercises. For example, if you train biceps 3x a week, you can do a heavy barbell curl on one day, a lighter barbell curl on the next day, and a machine one-arm curl on the last day for 2 total exercises in the week.
In theory biceps, back, calfs, and so on respond “better” to higher reps than triceps, pecs, and so on. This is thought to correspond with their real life usage.
Referring to a more recent systematic review, it found: The best hypertrophy results came from 30-40 sets per muscle per week. A minimum effective dose of 4 sets per muscle group per week. Somewhere around 10-20 sets per week still delivered good hypertrophy results.
4 to 8 sets per muscle per week is now your minimum. If that's what you were doing as a beginner, you'll want to aim for 8 to 15 sets per muscle per week. At this point, your weekly volume will be much more manageable if you train three to five days a week, working each muscle at least twice.
The Weighted Chin Up is the best biceps exercise for hitting all three functions (elbow supination, elbow flexion and shoulder flexion) of the biceps with overload. This exercise will help you build strong arm muscles as well as build muscle mass and should be a mainstay in all your upper body workouts.
Because the bicep muscles are proportionately small, at least in relation to your chest and back, you should always use a weight that allows you to flex and release with isolation (meaning that no other muscle is involved), but heavy enough to cause fatigue at the end of the set.
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.
It really depends on your goals. If you're looking to build bigger biceps, then you should focus on bicep curls a bit more than hammer curls. However, if you're just looking to tone your arms and don't really care about building bigger biceps, then either exercise will work just fine.
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.
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!
Is it better to do 3 or 4 sets per exercise? According to The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), 2-3 sets of 12 to 20+ reps will help build muscular endurance, while 3-6 sets of 6-12 reps will build muscular hypertrophy and 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps will build muscular power.
The best exercise for growing the bicep muscle is any variation of the curl. Curls are best done using a barbell and weights or a set of dumbbells. If you're training in the gym, sitting at a bench or using the preacher curl machine can help to further concentrate tension on the bicep muscle, leading to bigger gains.
Do Push Ups Work Biceps? Whilst the biceps help to stabilize the shoulder and elbow joints during the lowering phase of a push up, they don't directly work the biceps. If your goal is to build your biceps, you'd be better off focusing on bicep isolation exercises such as bicep curls, hammer curls, or chin ups.
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.
If you are doing a dumbbell arm workout at an advanced level, especially for an experienced lifter, doing 3-4 different bicep exercises should be adequate for muscle growth. You will likely want to experiment with different curl variations and incorporate intensity techniques for an advanced workout.
Stronglifts 5×5 is high volume for your shoulders, triceps and legs. It's medium volume for your chest, back and biceps.
This holds that regardless of whether you're trying to build muscle, strength, power, or endurance, performing three sets of 10 reps per exercise is a good place to start. The scheme mostly works, especially if you're just starting out with strength training—because everything works in the beginning.
The average bicep size is around 13–14 inches for young adult males with big biceps measuring 15+ inches. That said, some professional bodybuilders' biceps have reached 20+ inches. Therefore, with regimented training and nutrition, 18-inch arms are achievable.
Rest between set durations should be based on sets/exercise (volume), and not load or training goal. General recommendations include moderate (2 min) rest between sets if performing 2 sets/exercise, long rest (3 min) if performing 3 sets/exercise, and very long rest (> 4 min) if performing 4 sets or more/exercise.