The structure of a biceps peak

Building a biceps peak

Complain all you want that muscular arms are overrated or not important, but when the average exerciser decides to hire a trainer, big, muscular upper arms often convey more credibility than any certifications a trainer may have.

Instead of trying to be a voice of reason in an age of arm training hysteria, I admit that I've become an arm geek. I love bulky arms.

Don't get me wrong, I don't judge an athlete or a bodybuilder strictly on how they look in a tank top, but I do appreciate muscular arms when I see them. And more importantly, I've spent many hours increasing the size and strength of my own arms and have learned a few things that other muscular upper arm enthusiasts might find useful.

The long and the short

I'm sure most of you know your arm muscles - and if you don't, you should get to know them better - but it never hurts to review some basic anatomy. There are three main muscles that make up the front of your upper arm: the biceps brachii, the brachialis and the brachioradialis.

• The brachialis is located under the biceps and contributes to the thickness of the arm.
• The brachioradialis is mainly located on the forearm and contributes more to the size of the forearm than to the size of the upper arm.
• The biceps brachii makes up the bulge in the upper arm that everyone loves to show off and is the subject of this article.
• The biceps brachii is a two-joint muscle with two muscle heads that crosses the shoulder joint and the elbow joint and consists of a short and a long muscle head. The term "biceps" means "two muscle heads" and "brachii" means upper arm.
• The long muscle head is located on the outside of the upper arm near the lateral muscle head of the triceps. The long muscle head begins at the supraglenoid tubercle of the scapula, which is located below the end of the scapula bone (the flat bone above the shoulder).
• The short muscle head is located in the middle of the upper arm and is the part of the biceps that is located next to your pectorals, obliques and serratus. The short muscle head of the biceps brachii begins at the coracoid process of the shoulder blade.
• The two muscle heads unite on the upper arm and practically become one muscle that attaches to the radius, although the tendon can split to also attach to the ulna.
• The task of the biceps is to bend the elbow, rotate the forearm so that the palm of the hand is facing upwards and cause a weak flexion of the shoulder (in which the arm is lifted forwards).

The importance of the long muscle head

The primary goal of this article is to help target the long muscle head of the biceps.

You may be asking yourself "Who cares about the long head of the biceps? I'm not a competitive bodybuilder." Well, whether you're a chest & biceps pumper or a functional fanatic, you should care.

The long muscle head of the biceps is believed to contribute to shoulder stability. Remember that the shoulder is the most mobile joint in the entire body and is mainly held together by the muscles.

The long muscle head is the most commonly injured head of the biceps and most injuries occur in the area of its upper insertion. When this muscle is injured, it can lead to reduced stability of the shoulder, followed by pain or discomfort during shoulder presses or bench presses. Ultimately, such an injury can ruin your ability to press anything heavy.

The long muscle head is the primary part of the biceps that is responsible for rotating the forearm so that the palm is facing up. If this part is injured - or worse, torn - it will be very difficult to perform a rotation of the forearm with any kind of load.

Last but not least, it is the long muscle head that is responsible for the famous biceps peak, which makes the upper arm look very muscular. If you want to make some chins drop when you perform a double bicep pose, then you need an impressively long head of biceps muscle to do so.

This should also be of interest to female readers, as most women prefer to develop a visible biceps peak without getting a bulky, muscular arm, so they too should focus on developing the long muscle head.

The great biceps puzzle

So what are the best exercises to train the long muscle head of the biceps? In a perfect world, my answer to this would be barbell biceps curls, as these force the hands to maintain a full underhand grip throughout the range of motion, while at the same time allowing a heavy load to be used so that the long muscle head of the biceps is put under a significant amount of stress.

But there are some things that are good for the muscles but bad for the joints and I believe that barbell biceps curls are contraindicated for the vast majority of exercisers (i.e. should be avoided as they carry significant risk even when performed correctly) as this exercise puts too much stress on the wrists.

As long as you only hold the bar, everything is fine, but when you move the bar upwards with a curl movement, the distance between the hands - especially at the upper end of the range of motion - is greater than the distance between the elbows due to their fixed position on the bar. This puts a lot of strain on the wrists and can lead to problems in the wrist area, especially when using heavier weights.

It may seem cool to put 20 kilo plates on a barbell bar and perform a set of curls with 10 repetitions, but the truth is that the risk of performing this exercise regularly outweighs the benefit.

What can we do? Using a SZ bar is a quick and easy solution, but the problem here is that the long muscle head of the biceps is subjected to less muscle-building stress because the hands are now slightly turned inwards.

Instead, we need to get creative. In my experience, the following exercises are best for stimulating the long muscle head of the biceps while minimizing stress on the wrists.

Dumbbell Scott curls with both arms:

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and position yourself on a Scott bench as you would for performing barbell Scott curls. Place the dumbbells on either side of the pad, mimicking the position of holding a barbell, and perform curls.

Barbell Scott curls:

This exercise is more or less self-explanatory. Use a barbell bar on the Scott bench. You may wonder why I recommend this exercise even though I don't like regular barbell curls. The answer is that when using a Scott bench there is less pressure at the top of the range of motion of the Scott curls and therefore less pressure on the wrists. Having said this, I would like to point out that you should not perform this exercise if it causes pain in the wrist area.

Strict barbell curls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfmSRScNIKo)

Strict curls are performed standing with a barbell bar, with your upper body leaning back against a wall and your feet on the floor about a foot's length away from the wall. Here too, the reduced range of motion makes the exercise easier on the wrists.

Note: Strict curls are significantly heavier than normal curls - so subtract 20% from the weight you normally use.

Dumbbell curls with palms facing up:

Perform dumbbell curls with your palms facing upwards throughout the entire range of motion. This can be a little annoying with heavy weights, but try the exercise anyway. If you decide to rotate the dumbbells, make sure that you have completed the rotation to the middle of the range of motion and that your palms are facing upwards from this point. In addition to this, the palms should be facing upwards throughout the eccentric (negative) phase of the movement.

Dumbbell curls with an underhand grip in front of the body:

Perform curls in front of the body with a dumbbell held in an underhand grip (palm facing up throughout the movement) so that the inside of the dumbbell touches the opposite front shoulder. Try to perform the exercise over as wide a range of motion as possible.

SZ curls with a narrow grip:

A tighter grip emphasizes the load on the long head of the biceps more. The opposite is also true: a wider grip emphasizes the load on the short head of the biceps more. A simple, if amateurish, rule of thumb for curls is that the part of the biceps (inner or outer part) that you can see working in the mirror is the part targeted by the exercise. The close grip puts a little more strain on the wrists and most exercisers can't use such heavy weights, but this exercise is still good for working the long muscle head of the biceps.

Common mistakes in bicep training

Many exercisers are beginning to realize that using a barbell bar for biceps curls puts a lot of stress on the wrists (and doing them on a squat rack increases the risk of dull sleep trauma from the angry fists of others), but one of the biggest problems is that not all SZ bars are created equal.

• The more a SZ bar is curved, the less the long biceps head is emphasized, which is why you should use a bar that is as "straight" as possible.
• Not all SZ bars weigh the same. In my gym, the weight ranges from 8 to 14 kilos. Weigh your bar to be sure.
• Don't forget the rotation and rotate your hands early enough! Many exercisers rotate their hands during dumbbell curls so that the palms are facing upwards, thinking that this will train the long muscle head of the biceps, but they usually don't rotate their hands far enough or too late or both.
• Performing hammer curls with a slight rotation of the hands at the highest point of the movement does...practically nothing.
• The palms should be facing upward from the midpoint of the range of motion and this position of the hands should be maintained throughout the eccentric (negative) phase of the movement
• Many exercisers perform incline bench curls to target the long head of the biceps. While it is true that incline bench curls place the biceps in a pre-stretch position, I have noticed that most exercisers are unable to fully rotate the palms upwards in this position and the small benefits of pre-stretch do not compensate for this.
• Incline bench curls can also put a lot of stress on the shoulder joint, especially if you already suffer from shoulder problems, so I wouldn't make this exercise a cornerstone of training when striving for optimal development of the long muscle head of the biceps.

The biceps peak program for geeks

As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm a biceps guy. I think biceps are manly, women love them and I would even say they are very functional muscles.

When I was in high school and college, I always had reasonable arms. They weren't huge, but there was a noticeable biceps peak when I tensed my biceps. But sometime after college, I started to lose that peak. My arms were bigger, they were stronger, but they were just kind of thick without a noticeable biceps peak when I tensed them.

As a strength athlete who cares about stuff like the peak of his upper arms, this bothered me, so I spent some time trying to rebuild the long head of biceps muscle I once had. After following workout programs quite similar to those described below, my beloved biceps peak is back!

Of course, my arms didn't remind me of Robby Robinson's and I'm definitely not absolutely satisfied with my curl strength yet, but these programs have helped me make progress.

You have two programs to choose from. The first program trains the biceps once a week, the second twice a week. Both work - just choose the program that best suits your current workout.

Once a week

A. Dumbbell Scott curls with both arms

• 2 warm-up sets
3 x 8 repetitions (use a 6 second negative phase for all repetitions).

B. Strict barbell curls

• 4 x 10, 8, 6 and 20 repetitions.
• Increase the weight on the first sets and reduce the weight on the set of 20 repetitions

C. Dumbbell curls with underhand grip

• 3 x 8-12 repetitions
• Concentrate on keeping your palms facing upwards for as long as possible

Perform the above training once a week or perform the following training session three to four days later:

Twice a week

A. SZ curls with close grip

• 2 warm-up sets
• 3 x 8 repetitions (use a 4-second negative phase for all repetitions)

B. Barbell Scott curls

• 2 x 12 and 8 repetitions
• Increase the weight on the second set.

C. Dumbbell curls in front of the body with an underhand grip

• 3 x 8-15 repetitions
• Concentrate on a maximum conscious contraction at the highest point of the movement. Perform all repetitions for one arm, then switch arms, pause and repeat.

As for the pause intervals, I don't see this as strict and if you want you can mix it up a bit:

• Pause for about 2 minutes if you're not that strong (if you can't curl 45 kilos). This will allow you to use heavier weights and work more on strength.
• Pause for about a minute if you are quite strong (if you can curl 70 kilos).
• Pause for about 30 seconds if you are very strong (if you can curl 90 kilos). If you are very strong then you will probably be able to use significant weights even when you are tired and the short pauses will pump more blood into the trained muscles, hopefully generating a positive stimulus for further growth.

By Tim Henriques | 02/10/11

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/building-a-biceps-peak