Biceps: 6–12 sets per week. If you count your back exercises as biceps work, they can handle quite a lot of volume. However, if you're training them directly with exercises like biceps curls, preacher curls, incline curls, and lying biceps curls, you can do well with as few as 8 sets per week.
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.
The current science shows that somewhere between 10--12 sets per muscle group per week is a great place to start to build muscle.
It depends on your goals and current fitness level. 4 sets of 10 reps is a common approach for hypertrophy (muscle growth). It can be effective as part of a well-rounded weightlifting routine, but it's important to also incorporate variety and progression over time for optimal results.
For strength: - Sets: 3 to 5 sets per exercise can also be used for strength-focused biceps training. - Reps: For strength development, lower rep ranges are often employed. Aim for around 4 to 8 repetitions per set, using heavier weights that challenge your muscles.
If you have the time and ambition, you could start with 4 to 8 sets per muscle per week, and work your way up to 8 to 12 sets. Doing those extra sets will likely get you gains a little faster, but not by much.
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.
For most types of biceps exercises, however, the whole 5-30 rep range is highly effective. When constructing a weekly training plan, it's probably a good idea to train the heavy ranges before the lighter ranges.
However, there was a minimum effective dose of 4 sets per muscle group per week. Somewhere around 10-20 sets per week still delivered good hypertrophy results which would perhaps be a more realistic goal for most.
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.
Regardless of whether your fitness goals are to gain muscle mass, increase strength, or lose weight, most people could benefit from doing between 10 and 20 sets per muscle group per week.
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!
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.
Biceps: 6–12 sets per week.
If you count your back exercises as biceps work, they can handle quite a lot of volume. However, if you're training them directly with exercises like biceps curls, preacher curls, incline curls, and lying biceps curls, you can do well with as few as 8 sets per week.
Incorporating arm exercises into your fitness routine is essential for maintaining your strength. But it's also important for healthy movement, stronger bones, better balance, and keeping injuries at bay.
Volume and Frequency
Research suggests that hitting a muscle group 2-3 times per week yields the best results for muscle growth. Therefore, you should aim for 12-20 sets per week for optimal biceps development.
Lack of Variety. Lack of variety in your routine can also be a problem when it comes to biceps growth. If you keep doing the same exercises over and over, your muscles can adapt and stop growing. It's important to mix up your routine with different exercises and variations to keep your muscles challenged and stimulated ...
Genetics certainly come into play, but far more people are capable of building a legitimate 20-inch arm than will ever know. In many cases, if they only did things differently, their arms would grow to their ultimate potential rather than be stalled out one to three inches shy.
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.
If you're looking to get bigger:
Target a rep range of 6 – 12 reps per set. Aim for 3-5 sets. Rest time between sets should be short, about 60 to 90 seconds.
If you are training the biceps directly for strength, it is recommended that you train in the 5-10 rep range, or the 8-10 rep range to minimize overloading the tendons and ligaments of the elbow joint due to the single joint nature of most biceps isolation exercises.
“If you're aiming for muscle growth, training closer to failure might be more effective. In other words, it doesn't matter if you adjust training volume by changing sets or reps; the relationship between how close you train to failure and muscle growth remains the same,” said Michael C. Zourdos, Ph.