Not too long ago, I gave my son a pull-up bar. He can now do so many pull-ups and in different positions. I wrestle him every now and then, and I'll tell ya, his upper body strength is coming in well. I told him to make use of his strength. He is now in Brazilian Jiu jitsu with Diego Ferreira. I'm proud of him and I say it to him.
Biggest guy in my gym back in the 90’s was a young guy we called Tyson. He said”don’t sleep on body weight workouts”. He did lots of pull ups n chin ups etc. was very naturally big. Not steroid big. Looked like a gymnast but heavier. I always incorporate body weight stuff when I work out. I found after 30 yrs working out is that it gives u a natural look. Not to mention longevity. Warm up. Lift light, high reps. Hold peak contraction. Keep your body guessing. I’m 44 and have the same body I did when I was in my twenties. I’m also consistent in my diet too. However, genetics is #1. Diet #2. Not a crazy diet at all. Just eating clean let than the next guy. Lots of fiber in my daily shake. Intermittent fasting as well. Working out #3. Accept your body style and do what u can. Have realistic results. We all will look different. I’m 5’10 170 lbs for all of my adult life. I just wanna maintain. Not trying to get big. When the shirt comes off at the pool party the hard work pays off. Eat the same year round and stay consistent. Never need to go on a diet. Stay motivated. Adapt to survive is my fav saying post COVID
Lifting light isn't universally good advice. Depending on your goals lifting light can have detrimental effects on strength. If a person is all about aesthetics and nothing else then it's fine. Hypertrophy training at 70-85% RPM I've found gives the best of both worlds in terms of strength and hypertrophy. Plus different peole have different morphologies. Some might benefit more with light some more with heavy it's no one-size fits all solution.
I'm 43 and we are very very similar,,,,, I'm at 175lbs lean as fuck at 5 foot 10,,,, no fast food for me maybe one soda other than that it's juice or water amd I work out daily,sometimes heavy sometimes light sometimes high reps sometimes low reps and I train in boxing. I feel like I'm 20,look 30 and there's no slowing down in sight. Oh one more thing,,,, I keep the drama out of my life stress is a killer
@@stoiccrane4259 I don't think thays what he meant my guy I mean he did write accept your body style and work with that so having said that that would tell you he's not assuming light weight is the answer for everyone.ylure right too though,,,,, the best universal advice is to just stay healthy by doing what works for each amd every Individual and staying consistent
@@marc2638 I hear ya. The stress will kill us. Most ppl aren’t consistent with their whole life and wonder why they get no results. Anyway keep going my friend and stay safe
@@marc2638 What I was trying to say is that there's a science behind lifting. A person's training style should be determined by what goals they seek to achieve. If someone wants to be toned year round light weights are fine but they're not going to develop muscle strength or size with it. If someone wants to look aesthetic hitting heavy 2 rep sessions will make them beefy but it won't make them visually appealing. That's the point I'm trying to get across. Weightlifting is much more nuanced that picking up weights and slinging them.
I’m not a fan of writing comments on videos but I have to say this is one of the most informative pieces I’ve ever watched. As an avid body builder, I’m always looking to enhance my knowledge base in order to get better at improving my strength and condition. This video did just that and I am grateful for the no nonsense, on point information. Please keep sharing your wisdom.
I got to disagree with them at least for me. During covid when the gym s were closed ,there was a pull up bar near my house and every second day I'd go to the pull up bar and do 4 sets of pull ups and 4 sets of under hand pull ups . when the gyms reopened my back strength was the same but my bicep strength , measured by how much I could curl was considerably weaker
@@exploreece945why are you asking???? İts impossible not to see results this is seriously one of the best exercises for bicep growth, forearm and grip strength. With good sleep and diet of course. Does somebody have to see results while doing this to make you do them ?
I wanna add that gymnasts do lots of straight arm strength stuff. Planche, Maltese, iron cross and inverted cross. These exercises put your biceps in a massively disadvantaged position which means biceps need to be so much stronger, which will greatly contribute to bicep growth if you were to progressively overload with it
@@PermanentHigh Steroids won't give you such targeted growth. From my personal experience where I do a lot of straight arm stuff my biceps became one of my better bodyparts despite not doing much curling or trying very hard to grow them. I'm also not genetically gifted, I'm very light and not a easy gainer either. Of course steroids help but the answer isn't always steroids, steroids won't give you muscle if you don't do any activity.
@@PermanentHigh yea steroids this and steroids that. bro those guys who take steroids work twice as hard as you just to maintain it and workout twice as hard as you.. lol
@@koshie6844 Which steroids allow you to do. Natural athletes actually can't work the same way that juiced athletes do. But the combination of nearly always active protein synthesis, hormone elevation, and cortisol suppression gives juiced athletes more of an advantage than most people realize.
I like to alternate variations, I switch b) and c) every other session: a) First 2-3 sets are wide regular pronated grip pullups always because they are the most difficult and hit the back the hardest b) Then its 2-3 sets of close grip supinated chinups c) Then its 2-3 sets of neutral grip chinups Finish off with dumbbell hammer curls if you did c) last OR regular bicep curls if you did b) last -- since the last variation of pullup suffered the most in terms of form/amount of reps.
Mike Mentzer used to tell us this back in the ‘70’s. He was right. He said he would only do curls for the magazines. We watched him and his brother get massive pumps from their back workouts using crazy weights. It was a golden age and I got to be a part of it. Good times. Gyms now are a joke
I'm a truck driver and these pull ups are great to do in the truck without being able to have weights in my cab. I also do push ups. I'm 51 and these two exercises keep my arms, chest, triceps and back looking pretty good. ...for legs I lift my 120lbs black lab in and out of my truck ten times a day..lol
The late Mike Mentzer did a variation of this with a lat pull down machine: he would grip the bar, kneel upright, and pull the bar down to his chest, then slow negative until his arms were fully stretched. I’ve done this exercise and it really does hit the biceps.
I was 220 lbs 5'-9" 16 inch arm. Hammercurls and dumbbell curls was my weakness for years. I was strong at everything except arms. Was stucked for 8 years with the same weight. No matter how heavy I would go on curls. Was also my lagging muscle. Then I went down to 188 lbs and now I have 17 inch arm. My forearm looks way more vascular, veins, solid and 2 inch bigger on my forearms in 1 year. I started to do armwrestling workouts in the gym for the past year. Finally I broked that plateau. My problem was my wrist and forearm. Working those small muscles helps u for the big lifts. Now I can hammercurl 60 lbs dumbbells at 188 lbs. My next goal is 65 lbs and then 70. By strengthening my forearms and wrist now my elbow pain of years went away and bicep injuries went away for once and all and now I get stronger and stronger. I wish I knew this before DON'T NEGLECT FOREARMS, WRISTS IN ALL ANGLES...AND ALSO GRIP. I'LL SAVE U YEARS OF PLATEAU.
I am so weak in bicep curls. I can feel my bicep when curling, but my forearm look big and veiny but my arms suck. Whay specific workout you did ? I have watch some arm wreslting excercise but whats is the best. I guess my mind muscle connection is bad to
Damn I never thought about this. Thankful I did so much forearm work then. I was ripping up to 90s when I was 19 & 220lbs on the hammer curls (worked my way up from the 40s) But I made it to 19” & 5/8 at only 5’8” I lost a lot of gains from almost dying from overtraining with little sleep and lean bulked back to 185 with 17s too
Strengthening your forearms will give you better gains in anything upper body related . It is your foundation , your first block of your foundation because it’s where your body connects to the weight. If you strengthen your forearms you have greater leverage and can do more weights .
I've been telling clients about this for some time now. I wanna say since about 2014. Every one has always given me the side eye response until I explain it. Much like you did haha. I like that the tension origin changes! You almost never lose tension if you curl with the lat pull down and chin up positions unlike when you reach the bottom position of a dumbell or barbell curl. Don't even have to think about it. I like to use the phrase "like an inverted spider curl".. keeping that tension throughout and curling to the forehead.. it helps tremendously I think.. cheers all!
What i love about this channel is that they do not try to project the image that "gymming" is THE way to build muscle or losing weight... They compliment the positives in other areas such as gymnastics or even doing construction work that could build muscle or gain strength... such diverse presentation of knowledge...
I am 36 years old. Been lifting and working out since I was 20. Just started CrossFit 3 months ago my arms have never looked better. Compound exercises for unlocking your full potential.
When you do a bicep curl and you fully contract, you have to squeeze the biceps to get the full benefit, the weight itself doesn't strain the biceps unless you're in a spider curl position. Then you lose range of motion at the bottom of the lift. When you fully contract on a chin up and hold it, you don't need to squeeze the biceps to feel it. Assuming you don't lock out at the bottom of the movement, the time under tension on a chin up is constant. Makes sense.
Arm wrestlers are face palming. Full.rom is.benifical bc its safer and u get more bang for ur buck but it doesnt build more muscle as u load the muscle less. U just recover better and will gain more over a longer period of time.
I did curls for 10 years. Built up all the way to 45lb db and the occasional 50lb db. Then I switched to chin-ups and torn my my left bicep tendon within 8 months. No warning that it was being worn down whatsoever. No leading pain at all. I always did double overgrip deadlifts, so that was not it either. I was never able to fix it due to financial reasons. I regret every day ever switching. Now I'm disabled on my left arm. The weight of Curls is managable. But Chin-ups has no warning, because the muscle gets stronger faster than the tendon. Its an instead load overwhelms the tendor instantly. If somebody reads this. Please don't make my mistake. Occasional sure. But you have to give it a while to rest. Much more than Curls. And build up the reps over years, not months.
Shouldn’t your tends already be built from 10 years of curls?? Doesn’t seem too make since more of an unlucky thug and bad timing. There’s calisthenics athletes that only do chin up for their main bicep work
I have really bad genetics. It takes me forever to grow muscle. However I have decent endurance. I used to run a full marathon once a week for a solid 2 years. I was only getting stronger, slowly, but no bigger. So I had to quit running completely to start making progress. And even then it took a while for the body to adapt. I've been training now for 12 years as on this month. 7 days a week. I'm 5'8" and my average/sustainable weight is 165lb. Curls is managable because once can lower the weight, and have a feel before comitting. Chi-ups is much more sudden. Once something goes wrong, it's already too late. When it happened I was doing Chip-Ups daily, 7 Days a week. So that's why I'm not saying is bad, just give rest, because you can't deload like you can with Curls.
@@Venezuela305 ok first off thanks for sharing in so much detail. Second I think your proclivity for endurance training (marathon a week) is what led you down the wrong path with strength training. More is not better when it comes to strength. Classic case of overtraining hence you not getting the results you were hoping for and your tendon tearing from overuse. You do more harm then good by training a single muscle group more then 2 to 3 times a week.
You can use gymnastics rings to do chin up which will help people with their supination limitations. Also it will allow a bicep contraction through active supination instead of passively on a bar The things that gymnasts do to get big biceps is high volume rope climbs and back lever pull outs
Rope climbing cannot be underestimated because just a few reps on a standard rope will make you feel like you have the hands of The Incredible Hulk I’m not even kidding. Climbing rope rocks. Do it whenever you have a chance!
I'm loving this. Learning lots. In the Army I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer but it was caught early. Surgery and Radiation Therapy and back at it in a few months. Had an accident and tore a bicep tendon, torn rotator cuff and fx scapula all at once. Put on Temporary Disability to rehab. Trying to avoid a joint replacement (2002) that would end my Army career. While rehabilitating at home I found out I had stage 3 Brain Cancer and was retired anyway. Had so much Radiation Therapy it caused Avascular Necrosis and had to have my Right hip replaced, in my mid 30's. It's slowly effecting my Left hip and both knees. Minor relapse with the Brain Cancer but I beat it, obviously. Trained in martial arts since 12 and was always active. Push ups my favorite exercise. If I were not in great physical condition there's no way I would have survived everything I had been through. I know there's many people who make me seem like I had scraped knees, just wanted to share a part of my story and how Fitness literally saved my life. You need a fit body and mind and NOTHING can stop you! I've survived Cancer, bullet to the head and knife wounds. I know soldiers who have see survived hand grenades! The body is amazing.
Yup!!... The key is doing them slowly and getting a hold at the top, even better!! I swear by chin ups for the bicep part of my arm and has been one of my staples for years. They're, by no means easy at first, but as you continue to build enough strength to pull your body up w/ control, you'll be far ahead of the herd!! What makes them so difficult is the fact there is no adjustment to the weight - You either curl your bodyweight or simply turn to dumbbells!! These guys are right, it's not talked about much due to the fact they're quite challenging. For those of you who've never tried it, it's never too late!!!
Mike Mentzer said the best biceps exercise was the reverse grip pulldown or chin up. Curls work the bicep from one axis at the elbow. Chins work the bicep from two axis points, the elbow and the other end of the bi where it ties into the shoulder.
Before i even watched the video, i already searched in comments to see any one would mention mike mentzer! Now i have the biggest biceps in the gym as a natural athlete 😆💪
The problem with chin ups is if you only do them you will have very flat biceps. The strong peaks come from heavy cheat curls one of Arnold favourite exercises also still some of the best biceps of all time.
@@bloodscent5687 i agree, he had the best biceps in the game, but that has way more to do with genetics than which exercises you choose. Proof: millions of people have bought his Encyclopedia to Bodybuilding and followed his exact routine for years, even decades. Do they have arms like Arnold... no.
as an armwrestler, don't underestimate this sport, it takes lots of dedication and hard work and lots of technique and strategy... RUclips is filled with videos of tiny guys beating huge giants just because they have better technique, and if you know what is happening and where to look it's also a great and very entertaining experience for the viewer too. (plus makes you look really cool at parties)
I'm a small guy and after doing chin ups religiously during my work outs after a while I added a weight to my waste and my arms exploded. I couldn't agree more. This works great!
To work on biceps, can I do just this workout or should I add a combination of moves for biceps for the workout? What I currently do is multiple different bicep moves when I do arms.
I was 10yrs old when i started doing calisthenics, i did a lot of pullups and felt a massive bicep pump and growth from that. Thanks to pullups i always had big biceps from a very young age
I can confirm this, I have been lifting for a decade but my biceps really grew exponentially and became a lot stronger once I started incorporating calisthenics and thus a lot of chin ups. I definitely recommend chin ups and if it's possible combining lifting and calisthenics.
I think Calisthenics should be the foundation for any athlete. Weights should be complimentary. Calisthenics demands self control, which you must have before you can master the external (weights). This principle applies in all areas of life, so I always do Calisthenics first.
@Doomguy's ancestor I incorporate both during my workout sessions. I just get the Calisthenics out of the way first, because they take up the most energy. I then compliment with weights for more reps and a deeper burn.
@@CeluiEtSeul, they mostly choose candidates who are strong enough from before, the military tries to build endurance and mental toughness of soldiers, so there's mostly super high rep joint breaking bodyweight exercises in their routine.
9 years as a paratrooper…we do tons of chin ups daily….yes your arms get big….tough exercise…let body hang from bar….pull straight up till chin is over the bar….slowly lower to start position….do sets of 5 for training….this is an advanced exercise…do not confuse with Pull Ups…hand grip is different
As an arm wrestler, I suggest static isometric holds on the top position of the chin up for long periods (at least 30 seconds) . Sick pumps. You guys hit a lot of that topic when mentioning the importance of isometrics. Also, as a bodybuilder hitting and holding bodybuilding poses is also another way to train isometrically and actually has hypertrophy effects as well. But like you guys said isos are one of the lost forms of effective training when it comes it accessories
It’s true my biceps were biggest and strongest when I started to use the assisted to pull up machine. Could adjust the weight perfectly so that you only used the biceps and not much forearm activation. Then This led to me being able do huge numbers when it came the seated decline curls and normal standing curls
Made my biceps incredibly strong the heaviest dumbbell seated curls I ever did was 32.5kg or just over 70 pounds each arm. The stretch and contraction on the assisted pull up machine is like no other bicep exercise
I love this episode because of the "isometric" discussion. I would like to offer a bit of perspective of "why" the "iso" is so beneficial. The isometric contraction is generally performed at the most biomechanically challenging angle- *bottom of the squat. The execution is such that the athlete "strains" against prescribed resistance for "X" amount of time, *we use a range up to 60 seconds. This is up to 60 seconds spent in the hardest part of the lift, opposed to 2-3 seconds that would be witnessed "down there" in a set of 5. The results from integrating this into the beginning stages of a strength program is incredible for a few reasons. The first being the strength built "in the hole." Think about how much weight you can unrack, vs. the amount you can actually SQUAT. The moment the hips, knees and ankles break, the truth comes out. It doesn't matter how much you can un-rack. That doesn't dictate how strong you are "in the squat." The real truth is what you can turn around at the bottom and return "home." With that understanding, isometric training builds a foundational strength that allows the cycles that follow to be built on incredibly solid ground. Getting strong "at the bottom" makes the athlete stronger with every inch they push through the concentric phase. The inverse is not true. That's why watching dudes do 1/8 squats with knee wraps, belt and 6 spotters is hilarious! As long as there is no break in form, an athlete can make tremendous gains in any lift if/when they begin each block with this progression. The Russians perfected this when they were kicking our a$$es in the Games back in the day. I have built some incredible athletes by using this approach to building strength, power and athleticism, with ZERO injuries on/off the field of play. In fact, I believe isometrics have helped bullet proof my guys.
I love this comment unfortunately I could not fully understand it, So with Isometrics I assume holding a posture helps build the foundation of the movement ? Id appreciate if you could illiterate to this noob
@@erickstotle4285 Yes isometrics helps build the foundation for a postural position like back row or something, however it strengthens more so the exact position you may be holding. What he was saying was holding a squat at the bottom isometrically will increase the strength needed in the bottom position to go back up. In that case it’s helping your muscles with the basic movement at the hip hinge.
Another amazing compound exercise that grows your biceps are seated rows. When I first started working out, I never focused much on bicep curls and focused a lot of my time on seated rows and a lot of my friends would ask me how I got my arms so big. When I told them about the seated rows, none of them believed me and thought that I was lying to them so they wouldn’t grow their arms. There’s no other exercise I would recommend to grow bigger filler biceps than seated rows.
And that's how beginners should first start working out, doing heavy compounds. Beginners can only recover from so much training so the best use of time is to do compounds. However intermediate/advanced folks won't see much bicep growth from compounds and therefore they have to do curls. Some advanced trainees have to do x number of set of curls a week on top of compounds to even maintain bicep size. And I'll also add that almost everything works for novice lifters. And that's fucking great
To anyone considering bicep chin-ups for the first time or for the first time in a long time, be very careful as to not put too much strain on your biceps. I never had any injuries to my biceps, but injured my distal bicep doing chin-ups.
Running engages pretty much all leg muscles and it’s the most natural form of movement we have , our ancestors used to run loads we are lazy compared to them .
Sprinters have very well developed legs , but you are correct about the marathon runners , to be able to run 40 miles you are better of being as lean as possible and of course fit 😉
Chin Ups are the elite lift for Biceps, then you burn out with some curls. That said, you have to overload Biceps. Working Barbell Curls with my fractional plates over time is elite
My workout is this. Friday is pullups and pushups x3. Sunday is chinups and bench dips x3. Tuesday is pullups and pushups x3. No lower body because my job is labor intensive and I'm on my feet all day. I chose those days because I dont work those days and I have time to recover. I'm 53 and this works for me. Have a good lift!!
@Mongoose 1980 no abs or cardio. I fight to gain weight so I'm lucky there. A Lot of lifting on my job so my core is pretty solid. I got the six pack rockin!
@@abdenourslimani4817 my knees are shot. I would love to do body weight squats or goblet squats but it kills the knees and makes my workday pretty painful.
@@pastorofmuppets1968 maybe try some variation of the squat that doesnt put too much stress on the knees or try some of the kneesovertoes guy, nonetheless i wish u the best.
13:30 A small, but important correction, traditional yoga postures and movements are always active and include isometric contraction in one way or another. Passive stretching is not a technique of traditional yoga but rather an addition from modern "yoga styles" notably yin yoga and it's derived practices.
My friends dad was a world champion arm wrestler. I worked for him framing houses as a young man. His only training was weighted chin ups. He would do them on door headers at work with his tool belt stuffed with nail gun clips
The best exercise for your biceps is any movement that flexes the elbow from an extended position to a flexed position while stimulating the greatest number of action potentials and therefore sarcomeres. It does not matter if this motion is accomplished by dumbell curls or reverse grip pullups. The acting muscle has no idea of the difference, all the muscle does is shorten and lengthen. Progressing in your performance over time coupled with a standard of effort necessary for adaptation. Recovery is essential for these elements, (nutrition and rest). If you are not improving in your ability to do more work/time the application of effort is either not sufficient or recovery principles are not understood and followed. Genetic predisposition is likely the most important aspect of developing big biceps.
I do partly agree to this. From a muscle function standpoint you are right, but I can imagine that there is a big difference in muscle activation between a curl motion with dumbbells and a chin-up (with focus on pulling with the arms). Doing leg-curls with dorsiflexion (toes up) or plantarflexion (toes down) has a big impact on hamstring activation. So the kind of exercise might make a difference for some people, just by how good they can perform the movement.I think choosing the chip-up as compound exercise for the back and biceps followed up with a few curls at the end of the workout would be ideal.
@@DaKosi Muscle activation is primarily reliant on the level of effort an individual is able and willing to perform, not a small thing. Not sure, what you "partly agree" with means in this context. What I have described is exactly what the science promotes. Why would you imagine a greater degree of activation is occurring in the biceps when performing a complex joint action movement, reverse grip pullups, where the prime mover is the latissimus dorsi? This is a sincere question. You have noted doing reverse grip pulldown or pullup prior to biceps curl as an ideal method of approach to further bicep stimulation. Maybe, however, Arthur Jones, Dr. Ellington Darden, Dr. Vert Mooney, Mike Mentzer, Casey Viator, Boyer Coe, Dr. Ken Leistner have suggested the opposite of your theory, this being specific controlled isolated bicep curls immediately followed by reverse grip pullups or pulldowns as an approach to increase threshold activation of the biceps. These authors are world renowned pioneers, inventors, writers, lecturers, competitors, physicians and scholars in exercise and rehabilitation. Arthur Jones invented Nautilus and MedX equipment and systems. The science-based approach to his system revolutionized strength and rehabilitation exercise. Mike Mentzer wrote a lot about this very issue, he coined it "Pre-Exhaust". Plantar flexion vs dorsi flexion of the ankle during hamstring curls has likely very little difference into the level of activation of the hamstrings when compared to a work/time evaluation. EMG results in a research project could easily change my mind. The limiting element to the test would likely fall on gastrocnemius spasm with high effort curls and a plantar flexed ankle.
Absolute facts - I rarely ever do curls (2-3x/month for a few sets) and have seen substantial bicep growth over time. I get enough direct impact via reverse grip bent-over rows and chin-ups.
Sal looking yoked! Been gone for a while, glad to be back. As always, you guys are breaking things down nice and simple and delivering quality information. Thank you fellas.
I agree I think Chin Ups and also Isometric Holds in the Chin Up Position and other Calisthenics Workouts 💰 Also.. Anybody that does Calisthenics, Big Respect to you ⚔️
Regarding Bruce Lee, I recall reading an article in Ironman, or some other bodybuilding magazine, which stated that Bruce worked up to holding an 80lb barbell straight out in front of himself at shoulder height. It was an isometric lift, and Lee managed to hold it for 2-3 minutes. Incredible! ….definitely not a 200lb dumbell
@@adam-lt8iy yes, but people Unironically believe to this day he was some unbeatable hotshot despite the fact he never fought professionally. His fanbase is toxic as fuck. I feel stupid when I was a teenager & legitimately used to believe all that phony exaggerated martial arts feats.
Absolutely on isometrics, and absolutely on varying pullup/chinup grips and styles, not least of which is the way you position your legs while pulling. Pushing against a wall (hopefully brick lol) at various arm-bend positions and angles is amazing, especially to augment typical training.
@@pastorofmuppets1968 and come on man. There are questions from other people under your comment where you stated your workout. Don't leave them hanging like the guitar guy did.
Its hard to isolate and squeeze when your doing compound movement in comparison to slow and controlled singular muscle focus so it makes sense. Lot of good info here guys. Thanks! Oh and for the "best" biceps exercise you could also approach with an Omni Grip 3x10 (Wide grip/Close grip/Supinated Grip x2 on the Lat pulldown on the cable machine. This would help with the build up for those who really want to tackle these but not yet ready for the bar.
I think the angle of the arm during pullups has a lot to do with it. If you flex your bicep with your elbow at your waist than raise you elbow (while still flexed) to shoulder level you get a much greater contraction. This is due to where the the attachment of the bicep is on the shoulder. I designed a curl bar around this concept called a Rhino Lever Curl. It has the added benefit of matching the load curve with the strength curve of your biceps.
Theres the stutter bench that Tim Bresnan uses (pro arm wrestler). Where you stop at 4 or 5 different points in the movement and hold for 1second, which is more time under tension. So a regular set that would take 10 seconds might take a whole minute or more. Like a "mini" Isometric for your triceps, chest, and shoulders.
The reason being....you get progressive overload, and the long head of the bicept isnt fully contracted unless your arms are up. Chin ups are the perfect thing for this. Variations include spider curls(chest on incline bench, arms over and curl).
As a grappler, I’ve rolled with guys of all shapes and sizes, and it has been my consistent experience that the dude with the biggest strongest looking biceps do not always have the best pulling and squeezing power. The strongest people that I have encountered are rock climbers and wrestlers. Judo players too. Aside from that, people who do jobs that involves heavy physical labor also have incredibly strong hands and pulling power. Farmers and such. Surprisingly, the guys that seem to spend the most time in the gym curling weights to get that nice looking peak on their bicep generally don’t have much strength in that area.
I believe you bring up 2 important side points: 1. Looks/health vs work muscle and 2. Why?. I believe your story explains both. Work especially for farmers, rock climbers, and grapplers is an entire body workout that doesn't measure strength or build it in a gym with reps and weight resistance and repetition with the exercise being balanced and symmetrical in and out of motion. The wrestler, gymnast, judo, farmer, construction worker, gardener, rock climber, etc. work in all sorts of different positions and have more resistance by a certain amount of force instead of weight, the gains are then 360 around muscle instead of 180 in direction. To mimic real work in a gym you would look like a fool.
@@chrisorobello8559 There's a very narrow range of non-recreational tasks that require strength beyond what's necessary to be healthy in general, but not so much strength that you're better off just using a tool.
Real world use of muscles will always outperform gym movements . When you get good at exercises, that’s mostly all your doing. You get a nice look and strength increase but the strength is mostly for that movement , at those angles . You gotta work out in a way that encourages the exact notion you want to strengthen. It’s like dudes who never learn to throw a punch but think getting jacked will have them covered . Nope. Many jacked guys have weak punches ,they never build strength for real world needs
When I was a kid around 12 years old I started doing chin ups because I had no equipment. By the time I was 16 I had massive arms and the rest of me was scrawny as hell lol. They definitely work
Gymnastics rings work great for this movement. I use both hands on one ring with the ring low enough that legs can be straight with heels on the floor.
Gymnastic rings are very hard bro, I am very strong with fixed bar and the first time I work with rings the number of reps pull up and dips I can do on them get reduced by more than half
I'm so satisfied that I knew this!! I always thought that but everyone insisted curls are where it's at. Cause if you really think about it, you can do chin ups in a way where they're basically curls with your body weight. When do you ever curl your body weight with a bar? I know I sure don't! Happy new years!!
This is not true because chin ups are predominantly a back exercise so it incorporates more back muscles compared to the biceps. I can do chin ups all day, it’s not going to stress the biceps as much as the barbell curl. Gymnasts train everyday. If the exercises they do work the biceps well then of course all that volume will lead to growth. But then again, no need to limit yourself, do both chin ups and traditional bicep exercises!
"One of the best pair of arms that I ever saw on a man belonged to a guy that I knew about fifty years ago in New York, and he never performed any sort of exercise apart from chins and dips, and damned few of them." - Arthur Jones, founder of Nautilus
I’ve always used chin ups but for my back I will do wide grip pull ups and full range rows. I love reverse grip curls to hit that peak and your forearms!
This is a great video I love Isometrix and I try to incorporate them into every workout. In terms of the bicep pull up, for anyone who struggles with the movement a great regression is TRX bicep curls, lean back, keep your arms straight out in front of you at 90 degrees with your torso, lock your shoulders in place, and use your bicep to bend the elbow and bring your fists to your ears.
@@Delrondae you do 7 bicep curls from the top to halfway down, switch to 7 from down to halfway up, to 7 full range of motion. Use your belly button as a midway guide if any of this makes sense
@@hamlet1516 Try choosing a weight that gets to close tl failure or failure at 7 full reps. Then do seven from bottom to halfway and then from halfway to up. This allows for multiple failure approaches and more reps close to failure
I would approach the advice with caution because: -compound moves don't allow you to isolate muscles -that in turn makes programming splits more difficult -tall and heavy people have a very hard time doing even one chin-up -the strongest muscles take over or alternatively the weaker ones prevent you from completing the movement; not effective -depending on your genetics and injury history you may not be able to do chin-ups or pull-ups without pain, which means you should not do them at all if the pain occurs in every position A more convenient alternative would be to do pulldowns (with a machine obviously) but it's still impossible to isolate the biceps. I also recommend Doug Brignole a lot. He addresses other points raised in this video and provides a fresh counter-argument.
Yep. And people forget that a lot of these succesful athleted that we take advice from are genetically gifted. Not that necessarily makes their advice obsolete, but it's often not accounted for unless it's to discount someone else's advice. These folks are of course going to have big biceps mostly from pullup variations and gymnastics movements since they're essentially selected for their sport
The other thing to remember is gymnasts are training hours and hours every single day. Thats why their physiques are so incredible. Doing a few sets of bicep chinups a week is NOT going to have your arms as developed as theirs. Not even close
@@jlogan2228 Yep, agreed. They also don't train their legs the same way other athletes do so there isn't the need to take that into account in their programming like, say, powerlifters do. Even the example used in the video about using the squats to grow legs instead of extensions is weird because powerlifters and bodybuilders use less fatiguing movements for hypertrophy due to programming considerations.
I guessed it right! I think because pull ups are my thing. I've been using the bands and I'm working towards an unbanded pull up. Even pull up grip. I was at someone's house and saw 15 pound dumbbells. This was this fall. At the beginning of Covid, I was lifting and could only do 8 pounds for bicep curls and struggled even with that. Anyhow, I picked up the 15 pounders and did hammer curls with each arm. I hadn't really been doing bicep curls in that year and a half between.
@Ballinonabudget Yup that's why I didn't bother to preface it by pointing out that I'm a female. I just looked. Google says women curl 25 pounds average or something? Maybe women personal trainers, but most women I think curl like 5 pounds or even 3.
I was super into ice climbing a number of years back . Trained pull up type of movements for years . Archived peak bicep size so far in my life while never doing a curl so you are not wrong !!!
Based on anatomy, the bicep’s are a biarticular muscle. This muscle crosses the shoulder and elbow joints, which means it acts upon both of them. Biarticular muscles work like zig zags. If you flex the elbow joint but extend the shoulder joint simultaneously, your biceps muscle length won’t change as much during compound exercises. The Biceps brachii doesn’t play any major role during elbow flexion on compound exercises. However, and this is a big however, the brachialis and brachioradialis, which are the elbow flexors that don’t cross the shoulder joint, play a necessity role in elbow flexion during compound exercises. Just like how it’s important to leg curl in order to build your hamstrings: If you want big biceps, you should be curling.
@@AlanCarson726 yeah, you can get big biceps from training your arms hard via gymnastics from a young age and you’re a genetic elite. But that doesn’t mean his arms wouldn’t have been even BIGGER if just focussed on bicep curls. Check out my response to this video in the comments. This guy here has given the best response i’ve seen and he just gets a silly reply from you.
@@AlanCarson726 what most people fail to observe is that straight arm training trains the biceps through shoulder flexion. Planches, Malteses and inverted crosses heavily rely on the biceps to contribute along with your deltoids and pecs. These are exercises that still ring gymnasts most excel at. As a consequence, they have impressive bicep development. To add, gymnasts who specialise in the still rings perform a lot of direct bicep and shoulder work, in order to fully strength the tendons and ligaments that connect the biceps to the humerus itself. There are many things to consider what have contributed to gymnasts impressive biceps size. As I have listed here, you can see for yourself. Hope I made myself clear🙏🏻
@@Lion-O-Richie2040 Exactly. Training with a very minimalistic approach and minimal exercise selection isn’t the best way to reach your highest capabilities and prevent injuries. Your training needs to be specific but have a varied exercise selection while having both multi joint and single joint movements included to the program.
It is for this reason Mike Mentzer said the close-grip palms-up lat pulldown is the best bicep exercise. It works the bicep more uniformly over two joints, the elbow AND the shoulder joint. Regular curls just work over the elbow joint, so all the tension stacked upon the lower end of the bicep.
Great video straight forward too !! A while back I had more calisthenics in my routine n I noticed after the pull ups I would feel the insane pump I clicked on this video and while the ad played I thought has to be pull ups it's a sign I gotta do more and go back to the basics 🙏
Well of course, activation increases are you approach full contraction. It always beneficial to "squeeze at the top" of any movement. The biceps are no exception.
I used to do those type of pull ups.. I would jump up.. and slowly drop myself, several times. Then when I noticed I could hold myself up, I would eventually try to pull myself up. At one point back in 2012 I was doing one handed pull ups. Then I went on a cruise in 2012 and totally lost interest in working out… I just recently started working out again.. starting all over again
I always liked neutral gripped, upside down pull-ups. But you have to use the right bar and positioning to avoid interior rotation. Best to make sure you have strong rotator cuffs first.
I always stayed away from supinated pull ups b/c of my limited wrist flexibility. Since I started doing anabolic and trusting the program, I forced myself to do supinated pull ups. I've been working on priming for my wrist as well. I will say my biceps have seen tremendous results. And I used to do split routines and exhausting my biceps on pull days. Since doing anabolic along with pull ups, I have seen better results overall! And for the record. I do not like them (pull ups). Lol.
if you have one available, just do the semi neutral/supinated (angled) grip chin ups. they are easy on the wrists and still perfekt for bicep activation
Yeah, here's the problem with that philosophy. Take walking for example: you don't walk because of limited mobility. And the limited mobility keeps you from walking. So the less you walk, the less mobility you have. And the less mobility you have, the less you walk. A vicious cycle. I have extreme knee problems so I too stopped doing any type of training that aggravated my knees. Do you know what happened? They got worse, a lot worse. Then something occurred to me, maybe my knees are in such bad shape because I never train them. So I started doing just what the doctor told me not to do. Leg extensions. I started with the pin in the first plate just going through the motions. After a year of this and gradually increasing the weight, guess what happened? You guessed it, my knee go much better and stronger and more flexible and without pain. They don't throb every day like they used to. Only you can decide it that's the solution for your ailment, but at least now you have something to think about. One things for sure, the body is made up of tendons and bone and muscles and ligaments and the only way to keep them functioning and healthy is through exercise. There is no way around that. Be well.
Most people just don’t go heavy enough on bicep curls, need to do range of reps like you do on anything. 6-15 reps Pull ups Lats are used This is no surprise, most back exercises work biceps, particularly reverse/close grip So just do pull ups in your back session and continue to isolate biceps with curls
I remember hearing this from you guys last year. I stopped doing curls very often and moved to close grips pull up holds. Now that I'm listening to this again I need to make this more of a compound lift and no just a back
I am addicted to doing pull-ups and chin-ups, haven’t worked out in a conventional gym doing weight training (standing in mirror doing curls, cable stuff etc) in YEARS, plus I run a lot and have two big dogs that I’m constantly pulling. I am in the best shape I’ve ever been, don’t ever see myself going back to workout in a gym anytime soon.
Haven't done curls in years. Weighted chinups reign supreme. Throw in some alternate grips too. One thing I will say is I don't focus on the bicep, I try to move heavy weight efficiently like any other compound lift.
If you are genetically blessed in the arms department maybe you can get away with just chin ups for your biceps. However there are many who need isolation exercises for biceps to achieve respectable arms. Christian Thibaudeau talks about this in detail.
@@varnadorel i'm torso dominant with big shoulder and back, my arms and chest grew (weak point) when i started do ring pull-up and dips, just become very strong get you jacked
Grips are definitely very important to experiment with because close gripped ones don't blow my biceps up anywhere near as much as wide gripped ones do. I never thought I'd be liking wide grip chin ups for my biceps but I do.
For the sickest arm pump do cable hammer curls with the tricep rope at the end of your arm workout. 2 sets of 20 medium weight and last set burnout. Pump will be insane I promise.
I have been doing these sort of biceps focused pull ups for a few months now. After you get comfortable with doing them concentrate on the eccentric part(lowering yourself down Slowly). Your bicep will have a bicep.
Chin ups have always given me a bigger pump than curls. I added a few effective variations to my chin up work out: Pausing every 2nd rep for 5 second with your elbow at 90 degrees absolutely smashes your biceps. You can change angles slightly either side of the 90 degrees on different days to target different parts of the biceps. Try it, you will cry and you WILL get big.
I like to sub chin-ups for bicep curls in my full-body routine at least 1x/wk. Great bicep exercise. Also enjoyed the discussion about isometrics. Happy New Year!
Very interesting but I found something wrong at 4:40 when you show the different contraction of biceps in curls and chin up. You obviously simplified, and that's ok. But I wanna clarify that muscle contraction doesn't work like you showed, with a head that pulls and the other that holds. It's a whole movement and all the heads work together. Said that, the point is another. What we call "bicep" consist in two muscles: bicep brachi (2 heads) and brachialis. The first has origin in scapula and insertion in radius. This means that bicep brachi provides to elbow flexion but also shoulder flexion (here is predominant anterior deltoid so it's not an isolated work). Instead, brachialis is monoarticular muscle, and has origin in omerus and insertion on ulna. This means that brachialis is just an elbow flexor. So, and this is the point, when we do curls with shoulder in flex position (like spider curl) we have bicep brachi in a shortened position and this will emphasize brachialis work. In chin up we start with shoulder in flexed position and we end in neutral position. So there isn't that kind of contraction on bicep. Instead, is the opposite, the proximal heads get lengthened. If we wanna have total contraction for bicep we must do curls with movement of some degree of shoulder flexion. So we'll work on bicep on it's full function.
I can't recall who it was, but a famous gymnastics coach said that bicep development in gymnasts comes from two things. Firstly the all of the pulling, and secondly all of the straight arm work. He also said rope climbs add more bicep size than curls do. In my training I've just started trying to incorporate these things, and I have to say I think heavy vertical pulls, straight arm work like pelican curls (technically not straight arm but close enough), and rope climbs is plenty for developing the elbow flexors. There's a clear difference between the arm development of gymnasts from calisthenics athletes too, and I don't think drugs are the culprit.
@@HAYAOLEONE a lot of top athletes are because of all they have to put their bodies through to be the best. Doesn't negate his point that those exercises he listed are beneficial for bicep size.
2:49 facts !! as an armwrestler myself who trains for it daily, i was hoping he was gonna say armwrestler and he didnt disappoint! its true!! i do supinated grip pull ups everyday, as well as 3 other pull up grips daily. and ive been trying to tell people this secret for building arms/strength as well. another lift i do for armwrestling is with a 45lb bar, seated curls up to 135 lbs right now(70kg bw), and also a seated lift what i call "raises" i adopted from Georgian armwrestlers. is a hammer curl neutral grip under bar, thumbs on top, and lifting the bar up to your nose(not above head). so its a shoulder/arm workout but instead of pressing for shoulders like everyone does, we are pushing up with the arms in a bent elbow (curl) position with the help of the shoulders to make it another compound movement. i do not post this lift on my channel because it is secret knowledge lol great interview !!
I'm 56 years old and still do weighted Chin-ups. In my opinion people are afraid to do Pull-ups and Chin-ups because they are hard. Maybe it's because they think they can only do 1 or 2. Maybe it's because they don't want to be embarrassed with how few they can do. But if the people did them more often like 3 times a week. Their pull-up and chin-up reps go up quickly. I have worked out for over 30 years. And in that time I still find it rare to see someone doing them on a bar. Meanwhile the lat pulldown machine will have a line of people waiting to use them.
You’re absolutely right. People tend to shy away from weighted pull-up/chinups in general. I really think its an integral movement to build overall upper body strength. The chain belt at my gym where you load the plates for a pull up is always collecting dust. People are just not patient with pull-ups. Like you mentioned, it takes practice.
@@HISHAM931 Man, I was at the gym today for 2 hours. Nobody used the pull-up bars besides me. But of course the lat pulldown machines were all being used. Lol I understand the ladies not using the bars. It is harder for women to do. Even though I have met a few ladies at gyms who will do pull-ups. Or who want someone to do them with them. I had a younger lady ask me if I would do pull-ups with her, since her boyfriend wouldn't. I said sure. I do them 3 times a week. She said I'll be here at 5pm every day ready to go. She was there so we did them all the time. She could do sets 4 at first. Got her up to sets of 10. 💪🏾
I was SHOCKED how much mind muscle connection/burn I got from bicep curl oriented lat pull downs with a straight bar… 3 sets 12x my biceps were TORCHED
On the chinups and pull-ups I can feel the biceps contract through the full motion.I like curls too, but I don't get the contraction through the full motion like the pulls.
I'm glad one of you mentioned the lat pull-down bar for biceps. When you get really good with your form you can superset that shit with chin-ups! Arms....DESTROYED!
I really love how straightforward this video is, no waiting 13 minutes for the actual solution, just straight to the point. Good job.
💯
I agree
Thats why i watched 1 minute and am now moving on. It answered my question and now I’m done. Lol
Alright damn it. They drew me in and I finished it!
Wıi
Not too long ago, I gave my son a pull-up bar. He can now do so many pull-ups and in different positions. I wrestle him every now and then, and I'll tell ya, his upper body strength is coming in well.
I told him to make use of his strength. He is now in Brazilian Jiu jitsu with Diego Ferreira. I'm proud of him and I say it to him.
Keep encouraging him, cause this world sure won't
Tell him congrats From a complete stranger! 1% better everyday!
Carlos Diego! You're from the valley! Great coach and how funny for me to know who that is on this random video.
@@jordanmoffitt102 Yes, sir!
@@RichPrick even mike bisping mentioned that bjj is hardly useful in a street fight. Muay thai and wrestling would be great however
Biggest guy in my gym back in the 90’s was a young guy we called Tyson. He said”don’t sleep on body weight workouts”. He did lots of pull ups n chin ups etc. was very naturally big. Not steroid big. Looked like a gymnast but heavier. I always incorporate body weight stuff when I work out. I found after 30 yrs working out is that it gives u a natural look. Not to mention longevity. Warm up. Lift light, high reps. Hold peak contraction. Keep your body guessing. I’m 44 and have the same body I did when I was in my twenties. I’m also consistent in my diet too. However, genetics is #1. Diet #2. Not a crazy diet at all. Just eating clean let than the next guy. Lots of fiber in my daily shake. Intermittent fasting as well. Working out #3. Accept your body style and do what u can. Have realistic results. We all will look different. I’m 5’10 170 lbs for all of my adult life. I just wanna maintain. Not trying to get big. When the shirt comes off at the pool party the hard work pays off. Eat the same year round and stay consistent. Never need to go on a diet. Stay motivated. Adapt to survive is my fav saying post COVID
Lifting light isn't universally good advice. Depending on your goals lifting light can have detrimental effects on strength. If a person is all about aesthetics and nothing else then it's fine. Hypertrophy training at 70-85% RPM I've found gives the best of both worlds in terms of strength and hypertrophy. Plus different peole have different morphologies. Some might benefit more with light some more with heavy it's no one-size fits all solution.
I'm 43 and we are very very similar,,,,, I'm at 175lbs lean as fuck at 5 foot 10,,,, no fast food for me maybe one soda other than that it's juice or water amd I work out daily,sometimes heavy sometimes light sometimes high reps sometimes low reps and I train in boxing. I feel like I'm 20,look 30 and there's no slowing down in sight. Oh one more thing,,,, I keep the drama out of my life stress is a killer
@@stoiccrane4259 I don't think thays what he meant my guy I mean he did write accept your body style and work with that so having said that that would tell you he's not assuming light weight is the answer for everyone.ylure right too though,,,,, the best universal advice is to just stay healthy by doing what works for each amd every Individual and staying consistent
@@marc2638 I hear ya. The stress will kill us. Most ppl aren’t consistent with their whole life and wonder why they get no results. Anyway keep going my friend and stay safe
@@marc2638 What I was trying to say is that there's a science behind lifting. A person's training style should be determined by what goals they seek to achieve. If someone wants to be toned year round light weights are fine but they're not going to develop muscle strength or size with it.
If someone wants to look aesthetic hitting heavy 2 rep sessions will make them beefy but it won't make them visually appealing. That's the point I'm trying to get across. Weightlifting is much more nuanced that picking up weights and slinging them.
Adding pull ups, chin ups, and dips was one of the best things I added to my workouts
Now do them weighted 😊
I use gym rings so I do the ring version of pull ups,chin ups and dips it’s pretty tough 😅
I’m not a fan of writing comments on videos but I have to say this is one of the most informative pieces I’ve ever watched. As an avid body builder, I’m always looking to enhance my knowledge base in order to get better at improving my strength and condition. This video did just that and I am grateful for the no nonsense, on point information. Please keep sharing your wisdom.
Did you see results when you tried this pull up method for biceps?
I got to disagree with them at least for me. During covid when the gym s were closed ,there was a pull up bar near my house and every second day I'd go to the pull up bar and do 4 sets of pull ups and 4 sets of under hand pull ups . when the gyms reopened my back strength was the same but my bicep strength , measured by how much I could curl was considerably weaker
@@exploreece945why are you asking???? İts impossible not to see results this is seriously one of the best exercises for bicep growth, forearm and grip strength. With good sleep and diet of course. Does somebody have to see results while doing this to make you do them ?
I wanna add that gymnasts do lots of straight arm strength stuff. Planche, Maltese, iron cross and inverted cross. These exercises put your biceps in a massively disadvantaged position which means biceps need to be so much stronger, which will greatly contribute to bicep growth if you were to progressively overload with it
The real answer is steroids. Those guys aren't natty. Their bicep development isn't gonna be either. It's that simple
@@PermanentHigh Steroids won't give you such targeted growth. From my personal experience where I do a lot of straight arm stuff my biceps became one of my better bodyparts despite not doing much curling or trying very hard to grow them. I'm also not genetically gifted, I'm very light and not a easy gainer either. Of course steroids help but the answer isn't always steroids, steroids won't give you muscle if you don't do any activity.
Calfs are the new triceps 😁
@@PermanentHigh yea steroids this and steroids that. bro those guys who take steroids work twice as hard as you just to maintain it and workout twice as hard as you.. lol
@@koshie6844 Which steroids allow you to do. Natural athletes actually can't work the same way that juiced athletes do. But the combination of nearly always active protein synthesis, hormone elevation, and cortisol suppression gives juiced athletes more of an advantage than most people realize.
I like to alternate variations, I switch b) and c) every other session:
a) First 2-3 sets are wide regular pronated grip pullups always because they are the most difficult and hit the back the hardest
b) Then its 2-3 sets of close grip supinated chinups
c) Then its 2-3 sets of neutral grip chinups
Finish off with dumbbell hammer curls if you did c) last OR regular bicep curls if you did b) last -- since the last variation of pullup suffered the most in terms of form/amount of reps.
Nice, interesting
Mike Mentzer used to tell us this back in the ‘70’s. He was right. He said he would only do curls for the magazines. We watched him and his brother get massive pumps from their back workouts using crazy weights. It was a golden age and I got to be a part of it. Good times. Gyms now are a joke
What a time
I'm a truck driver and these pull ups are great to do in the truck without being able to have weights in my cab. I also do push ups. I'm 51 and these two exercises keep my arms, chest, triceps and back looking pretty good.
...for legs I lift my 120lbs black lab in and out of my truck ten times a day..lol
your not driving are ya ?
@@briantranter4317 🤣
When you really think about how life robbing and health robbing that job is, it’s not worth it.
Squat with him on your back
@@amazinggrace313and there's ppl that don't work out at all and don't drive a truck, gotta pay the bills guy
The late Mike Mentzer did a variation of this with a lat pull down machine: he would grip the bar, kneel upright, and pull the bar down to his chest, then slow negative until his arms were fully stretched. I’ve done this exercise and it really does hit the biceps.
2
This comment's old but the slow negative is key! It's the biceps that keep you or the bar (at a lat pull station) from free falling!
I was 220 lbs 5'-9" 16 inch arm. Hammercurls and dumbbell curls was my weakness for years. I was strong at everything except arms. Was stucked for 8 years with the same weight. No matter how heavy I would go on curls. Was also my lagging muscle.
Then I went down to 188 lbs and now I have 17 inch arm. My forearm looks way more vascular, veins, solid and 2 inch bigger on my forearms in 1 year.
I started to do armwrestling workouts in the gym for the past year.
Finally I broked that plateau. My problem was my wrist and forearm.
Working those small muscles helps u for the big lifts. Now I can hammercurl 60 lbs dumbbells at 188 lbs. My next goal is 65 lbs and then 70.
By strengthening my forearms and wrist now my elbow pain of years went away and bicep injuries went away for once and all and now I get stronger and stronger. I wish I knew this before
DON'T NEGLECT FOREARMS, WRISTS IN ALL ANGLES...AND ALSO GRIP.
I'LL SAVE U YEARS OF PLATEAU.
I am so weak in bicep curls. I can feel my bicep when curling, but my forearm look big and veiny but my arms suck. Whay specific workout you did ? I have watch some arm wreslting excercise but whats is the best. I guess my mind muscle connection is bad to
how do you train wrists
Damn I never thought about this. Thankful I did so much forearm work then. I was ripping up to 90s when I was 19 & 220lbs on the hammer curls (worked my way up from the 40s) But I made it to 19” & 5/8 at only 5’8” I lost a lot of gains from almost dying from overtraining with little sleep and lean bulked back to 185 with 17s too
@@Milk-y wrist curls at different angles. Use a pulley and curl in the handle. There’s tons of ways
Strengthening your forearms will give you better gains in anything upper body related . It is your foundation , your first block of your foundation because it’s where your body connects to the weight. If you strengthen your forearms you have greater leverage and can do more weights .
I've been telling clients about this for some time now. I wanna say since about 2014. Every one has always given me the side eye response until I explain it. Much like you did haha. I like that the tension origin changes! You almost never lose tension if you curl with the lat pull down and chin up positions unlike when you reach the bottom position of a dumbell or barbell curl. Don't even have to think about it. I like to use the phrase "like an inverted spider curl".. keeping that tension throughout and curling to the forehead.. it helps tremendously I think.. cheers all!
A pull up or chinup has always been the compound exercise for biceps and back depending on your genetics and how the workout is performed
What i love about this channel is that they do not try to project the image that "gymming" is THE way to build muscle or losing weight... They compliment the positives in other areas such as gymnastics or even doing construction work that could build muscle or gain strength... such diverse presentation of knowledge...
I am 36 years old. Been lifting and working out since I was 20. Just started CrossFit 3 months ago my arms have never looked better. Compound exercises for unlocking your full potential.
When you do a bicep curl and you fully contract, you have to squeeze the biceps to get the full benefit, the weight itself doesn't strain the biceps unless you're in a spider curl position. Then you lose range of motion at the bottom of the lift. When you fully contract on a chin up and hold it, you don't need to squeeze the biceps to feel it. Assuming you don't lock out at the bottom of the movement, the time under tension on a chin up is constant. Makes sense.
Cables
@@michaelmayers3622 true. Cables are easier to progressively overload too. A pull up bar and some bands are a lot easier to get access to though.
Arm wrestlers are face palming. Full.rom is.benifical bc its safer and u get more bang for ur buck but it doesnt build more muscle as u load the muscle less. U just recover better and will gain more over a longer period of time.
No, it does not.
Lol this makes no sense
I did curls for 10 years. Built up all the way to 45lb db and the occasional 50lb db.
Then I switched to chin-ups and torn my my left bicep tendon within 8 months.
No warning that it was being worn down whatsoever. No leading pain at all.
I always did double overgrip deadlifts, so that was not it either.
I was never able to fix it due to financial reasons. I regret every day ever switching. Now I'm disabled on my left arm.
The weight of Curls is managable. But Chin-ups has no warning, because the muscle gets stronger faster than the tendon. Its an instead load overwhelms the tendor instantly.
If somebody reads this. Please don't make my mistake. Occasional sure.
But you have to give it a while to rest.
Much more than Curls. And build up the reps over years, not months.
Were you doing a crazy amount of reps and sets or something? How much do you weigh also?
Jc
Shouldn’t your tends already be built from 10 years of curls?? Doesn’t seem too make since more of an unlucky thug and bad timing. There’s calisthenics athletes that only do chin up for their main bicep work
That’s funny only 45s with a decade of training😂… you didn’t implement progressive overload
I have really bad genetics. It takes me forever to grow muscle. However I have decent endurance. I used to run a full marathon once a week for a solid 2 years.
I was only getting stronger, slowly, but no bigger. So I had to quit running completely to start making progress.
And even then it took a while for the body to adapt.
I've been training now for 12 years as on this month. 7 days a week. I'm 5'8" and my average/sustainable weight is 165lb.
Curls is managable because once can lower the weight, and have a feel before comitting. Chi-ups is much more sudden. Once something goes wrong, it's already too late.
When it happened I was doing Chip-Ups daily, 7 Days a week.
So that's why I'm not saying is bad, just give rest, because you can't deload like you can with Curls.
@@Venezuela305 ok first off thanks for sharing in so much detail. Second I think your proclivity for endurance training (marathon a week) is what led you down the wrong path with strength training. More is not better when it comes to strength. Classic case of overtraining hence you not getting the results you were hoping for and your tendon tearing from overuse.
You do more harm then good by training a single muscle group more then 2 to 3 times a week.
You can use gymnastics rings to do chin up which will help people with their supination limitations. Also it will allow a bicep contraction through active supination instead of passively on a bar
The things that gymnasts do to get big biceps is high volume rope climbs and back lever pull outs
Thank you for those exercises sir
Also rings are much easier on the elbows as they can be prone to tendonitis on a straight bar.
Rope climbing cannot be underestimated because just a few reps on a standard rope will make you feel like you have the hands of The Incredible Hulk I’m not even kidding. Climbing rope rocks. Do it whenever you have a chance!
@@calidag What is a rope rock?
They also do a hell of a lot of straight arm exercises so the amount of tension in the muscle contractions is insane and it really builds that muscle.
I'm loving this. Learning lots. In the Army I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer but it was caught early. Surgery and Radiation Therapy and back at it in a few months. Had an accident and tore a bicep tendon, torn rotator cuff and fx scapula all at once. Put on Temporary Disability to rehab. Trying to avoid a joint replacement (2002) that would end my Army career. While rehabilitating at home I found out I had stage 3 Brain Cancer and was retired anyway. Had so much Radiation Therapy it caused Avascular Necrosis and had to have my Right hip replaced, in my mid 30's. It's slowly effecting my Left hip and both knees. Minor relapse with the Brain Cancer but I beat it, obviously. Trained in martial arts since 12 and was always active. Push ups my favorite exercise. If I were not in great physical condition there's no way I would have survived everything I had been through. I know there's many people who make me seem like I had scraped knees, just wanted to share a part of my story and how Fitness literally saved my life. You need a fit body and mind and NOTHING can stop you! I've survived Cancer, bullet to the head and knife wounds. I know soldiers who have see survived hand grenades! The body is amazing.
@H Rel I can't remember.
@@leesmith6792 Is that because of brain cancer?
@@urosmarjanovic663 the unnecessary rambling...yes
Thank you for sharing your story stay strong and fit so you are ready for what hits you I guess. Thanks again
@@sonnyecho9195 Thank you for saying that. I hope you are well and happy. GOD Bless you and yours.
Yup!!... The key is doing them slowly and getting a hold at the top, even better!! I swear by chin ups for the bicep part of my arm and has been one of my staples for years. They're, by no means easy at first, but as you continue to build enough strength to pull your body up w/ control, you'll be far ahead of the herd!! What makes them so difficult is the fact there is no adjustment to the weight - You either curl your bodyweight or simply turn to dumbbells!! These guys are right, it's not talked about much due to the fact they're quite challenging. For those of you who've never tried it, it's never too late!!!
Mike Mentzer said the best biceps exercise was the reverse grip pulldown or chin up. Curls work the bicep from one axis at the elbow. Chins work the bicep from two axis points, the elbow and the other end of the bi where it ties into the shoulder.
Absolutely! Thank God for this comment. You are the only one I've seen in this section who isn't an idiot.
Before i even watched the video, i already searched in comments to see any one would mention mike mentzer! Now i have the biggest biceps in the gym as a natural athlete 😆💪
Explained well!
The problem with chin ups is if you only do them you will have very flat biceps. The strong peaks come from heavy cheat curls one of Arnold favourite exercises also still some of the best biceps of all time.
@@bloodscent5687 i agree, he had the best biceps in the game, but that has way more to do with genetics than which exercises you choose. Proof: millions of people have bought his Encyclopedia to Bodybuilding and followed his exact routine for years, even decades. Do they have arms like Arnold... no.
as an armwrestler, don't underestimate this sport, it takes lots of dedication and hard work and lots of technique and strategy... RUclips is filled with videos of tiny guys beating huge giants just because they have better technique, and if you know what is happening and where to look it's also a great and very entertaining experience for the viewer too. (plus makes you look really cool at parties)
John brzenk the giant slayer
Wow looking cool at parties
any profession of sports that gets paid is an athlete. kudos to arm wrestlers
I always knew chin ups were very good for the biceps, I just didn't know they were the best for it. Thanks for the pointer!
I'm a small guy and after doing chin ups religiously during my work outs after a while I added a weight to my waste and my arms exploded. I couldn't agree more. This works great!
To work on biceps, can I do just this workout or should I add a combination of moves for biceps for the workout? What I currently do is multiple different bicep moves when I do arms.
This is favorite fitness channel simply for the humility and depth of discussion.
110% facts. The credibility of these guys is top notch. Curls are extremely overrated vs chin ups or neutral grip chin ups. Beautiful video.
Curls are far superior when in a stretched position as compared to pullups or chins.
Chin ups and pull ups WILL NOT give more gains than curls. Using gymnasts as examples is ridiculous.
It is when you do them for an extended period of time when you can add weight with belt
Bullshit
If you got short arms do curls. If you got long arms they may be a better option. They work for me
I was 10yrs old when i started doing calisthenics, i did a lot of pullups and felt a massive bicep pump and growth from that. Thanks to pullups i always had big biceps from a very young age
You mean chin-ups?
@@ryankane4984 Same shit different name 😄
Good for forearms as well
They're not the same. Different grip means you're hitting muscles differently
Shouldn't be lifting that young it stunts growth
I can confirm this, I have been lifting for a decade but my biceps really grew exponentially and became a lot stronger once I started incorporating calisthenics and thus a lot of chin ups. I definitely recommend chin ups and if it's possible combining lifting and calisthenics.
I think Calisthenics should be the foundation for any athlete. Weights should be complimentary. Calisthenics demands self control, which you must have before you can master the external (weights). This principle applies in all areas of life, so I always do Calisthenics first.
@@reginaldsmith6949, calisthenics can can be tough for absolute beginners, so it is okay to combine the 2 right from the beginning.
@Doomguy's ancestor
I incorporate both during my workout sessions. I just get the Calisthenics out of the way first, because they take up the most energy. I then compliment with weights for more reps and a deeper burn.
Why You think the Miltary is mostlt Strictly Calithectics.
@@CeluiEtSeul, they mostly choose candidates who are strong enough from before, the military tries to build endurance and mental toughness of soldiers, so there's mostly super high rep joint breaking bodyweight exercises in their routine.
9 years as a paratrooper…we do tons of chin ups daily….yes your arms get big….tough exercise…let body hang from bar….pull straight up till chin is over the bar….slowly lower to start position….do sets of 5 for training….this is an advanced exercise…do not confuse with Pull Ups…hand grip is different
As an arm wrestler, I suggest static isometric holds on the top position of the chin up for long periods (at least 30 seconds) . Sick pumps. You guys hit a lot of that topic when mentioning the importance of isometrics. Also, as a bodybuilder hitting and holding bodybuilding poses is also another way to train isometrically and actually has hypertrophy effects as well. But like you guys said isos are one of the lost forms of effective training when it comes it accessories
I tried this last time i trained arms gotta say it burns like hell
@@Ragnar850 They are definitely a killer bro. Glad you tried it man.
Omfg it literally feels like your biceps are going to explode. I miss chin ups lol
Cool..
Arm wrestler are awesome 🤔 I find it better than basketball 🏀
It’s true my biceps were biggest and strongest when I started to use the assisted to pull up machine. Could adjust the weight perfectly so that you only used the biceps and not much forearm activation. Then This led to me being able do huge numbers when it came the seated decline curls and normal standing curls
OMGOSH THIS IS SO TRUE i feel my biceps like crazy when i focus on the bicep stretching on the way down
Made my biceps incredibly strong the heaviest dumbbell seated curls I ever did was 32.5kg or just over 70 pounds each arm. The stretch and contraction on the assisted pull up machine is like no other bicep exercise
I love this episode because of the "isometric" discussion. I would like to offer a bit of perspective of "why" the "iso" is so beneficial.
The isometric contraction is generally performed at the most biomechanically challenging angle- *bottom of the squat. The execution is such that the athlete "strains" against prescribed resistance for "X" amount of time, *we use a range up to 60 seconds. This is up to 60 seconds spent in the hardest part of the lift, opposed to 2-3 seconds that would be witnessed "down there" in a set of 5.
The results from integrating this into the beginning stages of a strength program is incredible for a few reasons. The first being the strength built "in the hole." Think about how much weight you can unrack, vs. the amount you can actually SQUAT. The moment the hips, knees and ankles break, the truth comes out. It doesn't matter how much you can un-rack. That doesn't dictate how strong you are "in the squat." The real truth is what you can turn around at the bottom and return "home."
With that understanding, isometric training builds a foundational strength that allows the cycles that follow to be built on incredibly solid ground. Getting strong "at the bottom" makes the athlete stronger with every inch they push through the concentric phase. The inverse is not true. That's why watching dudes do 1/8 squats with knee wraps, belt and 6 spotters is hilarious!
As long as there is no break in form, an athlete can make tremendous gains in any lift if/when they begin each block with this progression. The Russians perfected this when they were kicking our a$$es in the Games back in the day. I have built some incredible athletes by using this approach to building strength, power and athleticism, with ZERO injuries on/off the field of play. In fact, I believe isometrics have helped bullet proof my guys.
🙏🙌🙌🙌🙌
Well said mate respect YNWA
I love this comment unfortunately I could not fully understand it,
So with Isometrics I assume holding a posture helps build the foundation of the movement ?
Id appreciate if you could illiterate to this noob
“Whoa, we didn’t ask you that.”
@@erickstotle4285 Yes isometrics helps build the foundation for a postural position like back row or something, however it strengthens more so the exact position you may be holding. What he was saying was holding a squat at the bottom isometrically will increase the strength needed in the bottom position to go back up. In that case it’s helping your muscles with the basic movement at the hip hinge.
Another amazing compound exercise that grows your biceps are seated rows. When I first started working out, I never focused much on bicep curls and focused a lot of my time on seated rows and a lot of my friends would ask me how I got my arms so big. When I told them about the seated rows, none of them believed me and thought that I was lying to them so they wouldn’t grow their arms. There’s no other exercise I would recommend to grow bigger filler biceps than seated rows.
🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
And that's how beginners should first start working out, doing heavy compounds. Beginners can only recover from so much training so the best use of time is to do compounds. However intermediate/advanced folks won't see much bicep growth from compounds and therefore they have to do curls. Some advanced trainees have to do x number of set of curls a week on top of compounds to even maintain bicep size.
And I'll also add that almost everything works for novice lifters. And that's fucking great
I assume it’s a supinated grip right?
the only seated row are done on cable, unless im missing something, and with that cant imagine myself hitting the biceps hard enough
read my comment, i’m late to the party but i could not disagree with this video more. Pure bro science and lack of logical thought.
To anyone considering bicep chin-ups for the first time or for the first time in a long time, be very careful as to not put too much strain on your biceps. I never had any injuries to my biceps, but injured my distal bicep doing chin-ups.
All pull-ups type exercises are overlooked but they are like running for your legs , natural and very effective .
why is running important?
@@0ijm3409fiwrekj endurance and aerobic fitness.
Running engages pretty much all leg muscles and it’s the most natural form of movement we have , our ancestors used to run loads we are lazy compared to them .
@@madfrosty5228 it's a terrible exercise for muscle building though which is point of this podcast. You see any jacked marathon runners?
Sprinters have very well developed legs , but you are correct about the marathon runners , to be able to run 40 miles you are better of being as lean as possible and of course fit 😉
Chin Ups are the elite lift for Biceps, then you burn out with some curls. That said, you have to overload Biceps. Working Barbell Curls with my fractional plates over time is elite
My workout is this. Friday is pullups and pushups x3. Sunday is chinups and bench dips x3. Tuesday is pullups and pushups x3. No lower body because my job is labor intensive and I'm on my feet all day. I chose those days because I dont work those days and I have time to recover. I'm 53 and this works for me. Have a good lift!!
i think you should still work legs, would be shit in the short term, but long term itll make your job much easier
@Mongoose 1980 no abs or cardio. I fight to gain weight so I'm lucky there. A Lot of lifting on my job so my core is pretty solid. I got the six pack rockin!
@@abdenourslimani4817 my knees are shot. I would love to do body weight squats or goblet squats but it kills the knees and makes my workday pretty painful.
@@pastorofmuppets1968 maybe try some variation of the squat that doesnt put too much stress on the knees or try some of the kneesovertoes guy, nonetheless i wish u the best.
13:30 A small, but important correction, traditional yoga postures and movements are always active and include isometric contraction in one way or another.
Passive stretching is not a technique of traditional yoga but rather an addition from modern "yoga styles" notably yin yoga and it's derived practices.
My friends dad was a world champion arm wrestler. I worked for him framing houses as a young man. His only training was weighted chin ups. He would do them on door headers at work with his tool belt stuffed with nail gun clips
shheeesh
The best exercise for your biceps is any movement that flexes the elbow from an extended position to a flexed position while stimulating the greatest number of action potentials and therefore sarcomeres. It does not matter if this motion is accomplished by dumbell curls or reverse grip pullups. The acting muscle has no idea of the difference, all the muscle does is shorten and lengthen. Progressing in your performance over time coupled with a standard of effort necessary for adaptation. Recovery is essential for these elements, (nutrition and rest). If you are not improving in your ability to do more work/time the application of effort is either not sufficient or recovery principles are not understood and followed. Genetic predisposition is likely the most important aspect of developing big biceps.
I do partly agree to this. From a muscle function standpoint you are right, but I can imagine that there is a big difference in muscle activation between a curl motion with dumbbells and a chin-up (with focus on pulling with the arms). Doing leg-curls with dorsiflexion (toes up) or plantarflexion (toes down) has a big impact on hamstring activation. So the kind of exercise might make a difference for some people, just by how good they can perform the movement.I think choosing the chip-up as compound exercise for the back and biceps followed up with a few curls at the end of the workout would be ideal.
@@DaKosi Muscle activation is primarily reliant on the level of effort an individual is able and willing to perform, not a small thing. Not sure, what you "partly agree" with means in this context. What I have described is exactly what the science promotes. Why would you imagine a greater degree of activation is occurring in the biceps when performing a complex joint action movement, reverse grip pullups, where the prime mover is the latissimus dorsi? This is a sincere question.
You have noted doing reverse grip pulldown or pullup prior to biceps curl as an ideal method of approach to further bicep stimulation. Maybe, however, Arthur Jones, Dr. Ellington Darden, Dr. Vert Mooney, Mike Mentzer, Casey Viator, Boyer Coe, Dr. Ken Leistner have suggested the opposite of your theory, this being specific controlled isolated bicep curls immediately followed by reverse grip pullups or pulldowns as an approach to increase threshold activation of the biceps. These authors are world renowned pioneers, inventors, writers, lecturers, competitors, physicians and scholars in exercise and rehabilitation. Arthur Jones invented Nautilus and MedX equipment and systems. The science-based approach to his system revolutionized strength and rehabilitation exercise. Mike Mentzer wrote a lot about this very issue, he coined it "Pre-Exhaust".
Plantar flexion vs dorsi flexion of the ankle during hamstring curls has likely very little difference into the level of activation of the hamstrings when compared to a work/time evaluation. EMG results in a research project could easily change my mind. The limiting element to the test would likely fall on gastrocnemius spasm with high effort curls and a plantar flexed ankle.
Absolute facts - I rarely ever do curls (2-3x/month for a few sets) and have seen substantial bicep growth over time. I get enough direct impact via reverse grip bent-over rows and chin-ups.
You guys have got to look up devon larratt he is a great armwrestling athlete that i think can demonstrate how complex and advanced that sport can be.
Absolutely!
Watch school boy beat every bodybuilder in the gym
Bullshit on the 200lbs
Yes.He showed how much technique can com into play.Devon is the best ever.
@Official Stoney Tark Levan easy
@@geraldfriend256 he's one of the best ever, but I think even Devon would give the GOAT to John Brzenk
Great insights here. Isolating these muscles and fatiguing the bicep in this fashion (with compound lifts) is a GREAT strength & pump producer! 💪
Sal looking yoked! Been gone for a while, glad to be back. As always, you guys are breaking things down nice and simple and delivering quality information. Thank you fellas.
This is common sense to anyone who has ever done pullups/ chinups. This is what I've always done for biceps.
I agree I think Chin Ups and also Isometric Holds in the Chin Up Position and other Calisthenics Workouts 💰
Also.. Anybody that does Calisthenics, Big Respect to you ⚔️
Regarding Bruce Lee, I recall reading an article in Ironman, or some other bodybuilding magazine, which stated that Bruce worked up to holding an 80lb barbell straight out in front of himself at shoulder height. It was an isometric lift, and Lee managed to hold it for 2-3 minutes. Incredible!
….definitely not a 200lb dumbell
Yup,this is correct. Isometrics were a big part of his training.
Lot of his feats were bit exaggerated. Whenever it comes to Bruce Lee take it with grain of salt.
@@gabbar51ngh that goes for anything that comes from an oldschool magazine actually lol they lied so much about what they did
@@adam-lt8iy yes, but people Unironically believe to this day he was some unbeatable hotshot despite the fact he never fought professionally.
His fanbase is toxic as fuck. I feel stupid when I was a teenager & legitimately used to believe all that phony exaggerated martial arts feats.
@@gabbar51ngh relax buddy even Chuck Norris said he was the truth. Need I say more.
Absolutely on isometrics, and absolutely on varying pullup/chinup grips and styles, not least of which is the way you position your legs while pulling. Pushing against a wall (hopefully brick lol) at various arm-bend positions and angles is amazing, especially to augment typical training.
Beautiful guitar in the thumbnail. What brand is it?
@@pastorofmuppets1968 He won't answer. They never do.
@@johnmorrow6082 Awe man.
@@pastorofmuppets1968 hi, I did a reverse image search and found a close match.
Ibanez Nita Strauss Jiva10-dsb deep space blonde
@@pastorofmuppets1968 and come on man. There are questions from other people under your comment where you stated your workout. Don't leave them hanging like the guitar guy did.
I've always had thin arms but I saw huge bicep gains by doing close-grip chins. I'm now working on progressions toward the one-arm chinup.
Its hard to isolate and squeeze when your doing compound movement in comparison to slow and controlled singular muscle focus so it makes sense. Lot of good info here guys. Thanks! Oh and for the "best" biceps exercise you could also approach with an Omni Grip 3x10 (Wide grip/Close grip/Supinated Grip x2 on the Lat pulldown on the cable machine. This would help with the build up for those who really want to tackle these but not yet ready for the bar.
I think the angle of the arm during pullups has a lot to do with it. If you flex your bicep with your elbow at your waist than raise you elbow (while still flexed) to shoulder level you get a much greater contraction. This is due to where the the attachment of the bicep is on the shoulder. I designed a curl bar around this concept called a Rhino Lever Curl. It has the added benefit of matching the load curve with the strength curve of your biceps.
Where can I buy it?
Theres the stutter bench that Tim Bresnan uses (pro arm wrestler). Where you stop at 4 or 5 different points in the movement and hold for 1second, which is more time under tension. So a regular set that would take 10 seconds might take a whole minute or more. Like a "mini" Isometric for your triceps, chest, and shoulders.
The reason being....you get progressive overload, and the long head of the bicept isnt fully contracted unless your arms are up.
Chin ups are the perfect thing for this.
Variations include spider curls(chest on incline bench, arms over and curl).
look into straight arm movements for gymnasts, and how they make their biceps huge without even contracting the bicep.
As a grappler, I’ve rolled with guys of all shapes and sizes, and it has been my consistent experience that the dude with the biggest strongest looking biceps do not always have the best pulling and squeezing power.
The strongest people that I have encountered are rock climbers and wrestlers. Judo players too. Aside from that, people who do jobs that involves heavy physical labor also have incredibly strong hands and pulling power. Farmers and such.
Surprisingly, the guys that seem to spend the most time in the gym curling weights to get that nice looking peak on their bicep generally don’t have much strength in that area.
Wrestlers have insane strength. Friend of mine was our top rank wrestler in the country and he had natjral strength that was just crazy
I believe you bring up 2 important side points: 1. Looks/health vs work muscle and 2. Why?. I believe your story explains both. Work especially for farmers, rock climbers, and grapplers is an entire body workout that doesn't measure strength or build it in a gym with reps and weight resistance and repetition with the exercise being balanced and symmetrical in and out of motion. The wrestler, gymnast, judo, farmer, construction worker, gardener, rock climber, etc. work in all sorts of different positions and have more resistance by a certain amount of force instead of weight, the gains are then 360 around muscle instead of 180 in direction. To mimic real work in a gym you would look like a fool.
Nobody should care about strength anyway, most people just care about how they look
@@chrisorobello8559 There's a very narrow range of non-recreational tasks that require strength beyond what's necessary to be healthy in general, but not so much strength that you're better off just using a tool.
Real world use of muscles will always outperform gym movements .
When you get good at exercises, that’s mostly all your doing. You get a nice look and strength increase but the strength is mostly for that movement , at those angles .
You gotta work out in a way that encourages the exact notion you want to strengthen. It’s like dudes who never learn to throw a punch but think getting jacked will have them covered . Nope. Many jacked guys have weak punches ,they never build strength for real world needs
When I was a kid around 12 years old I started doing chin ups because I had no equipment. By the time I was 16 I had massive arms and the rest of me was scrawny as hell lol. They definitely work
😂😂😂
Only if you would’ve did something for legs and chest at the same time😂😂we all learned though💪🏾😎
You were going thru puberty. You got those biceps from choking the chicken 💪
Didn't you get wide lats?
Your back should be big too. If not, you should check your form
Gymnastics rings work great for this movement. I use both hands on one ring with the ring low enough that legs can be straight with heels on the floor.
Gymnastic rings are very hard bro, I am very strong with fixed bar and the first time I work with rings the number of reps pull up and dips I can do on them get reduced by more than half
I'm so satisfied that I knew this!! I always thought that but everyone insisted curls are where it's at. Cause if you really think about it, you can do chin ups in a way where they're basically curls with your body weight. When do you ever curl your body weight with a bar? I know I sure don't! Happy new years!!
You nailed it, dude. 💯
Some reputable sources list chin-ups as a lat exercise and biceps as being one of many synergists.
This is not true because chin ups are predominantly a back exercise so it incorporates more back muscles compared to the biceps.
I can do chin ups all day, it’s not going to stress the biceps as much as the barbell curl.
Gymnasts train everyday. If the exercises they do work the biceps well then of course all that volume will lead to growth. But then again, no need to limit yourself, do both chin ups and traditional bicep exercises!
@@IWantMyVisionBack i see that you still have to learn a lot buddy.
@@IWantMyVisionBack
You can position your chin ups that isolates the biceps though?
Respect for getting right into the main point immediately in the video.
"One of the best pair of arms that I ever saw on a man belonged to a guy that I knew about fifty years ago in New York, and he never performed any sort of exercise apart from chins and dips, and damned few of them." - Arthur Jones, founder of Nautilus
Pull ups dips and push hos
I love weighted chins. Weighted dips. Hex bar deadlift and front squat. Full program right there
I’ve always used chin ups but for my back I will do wide grip pull ups and full range rows. I love reverse grip curls to hit that peak and your forearms!
This is a great video I love Isometrix and I try to incorporate them into every workout. In terms of the bicep pull up, for anyone who struggles with the movement a great regression is TRX bicep curls, lean back, keep your arms straight out in front of you at 90 degrees with your torso, lock your shoulders in place, and use your bicep to bend the elbow and bring your fists to your ears.
Great f***king video I was already doing this in my bicep and back workout glad to hear this👍🏼
Supinated Pull-Ups for bicep development is best using rings. There will be no issues with the wrists. A much more natural movement.
21s. I've been doing 21s at the start and end of every arm workout for 11 months now. GREAT results
I just started them my last workout and I was insanely sore 😂😂
What’s 21s
@@Delrondae you do 7 bicep curls from the top to halfway down, switch to 7 from down to halfway up, to 7 full range of motion. Use your belly button as a midway guide if any of this makes sense
@@hamlet1516 Try choosing a weight that gets to close tl failure or failure at 7 full reps. Then do seven from bottom to halfway and then from halfway to up. This allows for multiple failure approaches and more reps close to failure
@@hamlet1516 That.....sounds like hell and I'm excited to try it now 😅
I would approach the advice with caution because:
-compound moves don't allow you to isolate muscles
-that in turn makes programming splits more difficult
-tall and heavy people have a very hard time doing even one chin-up
-the strongest muscles take over or alternatively the weaker ones prevent you from completing the movement; not effective
-depending on your genetics and injury history you may not be able to do chin-ups or pull-ups without pain, which means you should not do them at all if the pain occurs in every position
A more convenient alternative would be to do pulldowns (with a machine obviously) but it's still impossible to isolate the biceps.
I also recommend Doug Brignole a lot. He addresses other points raised in this video and provides a fresh counter-argument.
This....100 per cent
Yep. And people forget that a lot of these succesful athleted that we take advice from are genetically gifted. Not that necessarily makes their advice obsolete, but it's often not accounted for unless it's to discount someone else's advice. These folks are of course going to have big biceps mostly from pullup variations and gymnastics movements since they're essentially selected for their sport
The other thing to remember is gymnasts are training hours and hours every single day. Thats why their physiques are so incredible. Doing a few sets of bicep chinups a week is NOT going to have your arms as developed as theirs. Not even close
@@jlogan2228 Yep, agreed. They also don't train their legs the same way other athletes do so there isn't the need to take that into account in their programming like, say, powerlifters do. Even the example used in the video about using the squats to grow legs instead of extensions is weird because powerlifters and bodybuilders use less fatiguing movements for hypertrophy due to programming considerations.
I guessed it right! I think because pull ups are my thing. I've been using the bands and I'm working towards an unbanded pull up. Even pull up grip. I was at someone's house and saw 15 pound dumbbells. This was this fall. At the beginning of Covid, I was lifting and could only do 8 pounds for bicep curls and struggled even with that. Anyhow, I picked up the 15 pounders and did hammer curls with each arm. I hadn't really been doing bicep curls in that year and a half between.
@Ballinonabudget Yup that's why I didn't bother to preface it by pointing out that I'm a female. I just looked. Google says women curl 25 pounds average or something? Maybe women personal trainers, but most women I think curl like 5 pounds or even 3.
I was super into ice climbing a number of years back . Trained pull up type of movements for years . Archived peak bicep size so far in my life while never doing a curl so you are not wrong !!!
I subscribed because there is no bs but rather the explanation is right inside of the first minute or two. Thank you.
I hate to say it man but this whole video is bullshit. They are lying or just wrong, I suspect lying
Definitely something I’m gonna have to try out! Thanks for the info boys.
First time I tried these(a few yrs back) I could only do two. They're no joke!
Based on anatomy, the bicep’s are a biarticular muscle. This muscle crosses the shoulder and elbow joints, which means it acts upon both of them.
Biarticular muscles work like zig zags. If you flex the elbow joint but extend the shoulder joint simultaneously, your biceps muscle length won’t change as much during compound exercises. The Biceps brachii doesn’t play any major role during elbow flexion on compound exercises.
However, and this is a big however, the brachialis and brachioradialis, which are the elbow flexors that don’t cross the shoulder joint, play a necessity role in elbow flexion during compound exercises.
Just like how it’s important to leg curl in order to build your hamstrings:
If you want big biceps, you should be curling.
@@AlanCarson726 yeah, you can get big biceps from training your arms hard via gymnastics from a young age and you’re a genetic elite. But that doesn’t mean his arms wouldn’t have been even BIGGER if just focussed on bicep curls. Check out my response to this video in the comments. This guy here has given the best response i’ve seen and he just gets a silly reply from you.
@@AlanCarson726 what most people fail to observe is that straight arm training trains the biceps through shoulder flexion.
Planches, Malteses and inverted crosses heavily rely on the biceps to contribute along with your deltoids and pecs. These are exercises that still ring gymnasts most excel at. As a consequence, they have impressive bicep development.
To add, gymnasts who specialise in the still rings perform a lot of direct bicep and shoulder work, in order to fully strength the tendons and ligaments that connect the biceps to the humerus itself.
There are many things to consider what have contributed to gymnasts impressive biceps size. As I have listed here, you can see for yourself.
Hope I made myself clear🙏🏻
Great comment. I don’t even believe they NEVER curl.
@@Lion-O-Richie2040
Exactly. Training with a very minimalistic approach and minimal exercise selection isn’t the best way to reach your highest capabilities and prevent injuries.
Your training needs to be specific but have a varied exercise selection while having both multi joint and single joint movements included to the program.
It is for this reason Mike Mentzer said the close-grip palms-up lat pulldown is the best bicep exercise. It works the bicep more uniformly over two joints, the elbow AND the shoulder joint. Regular curls just work over the elbow joint, so all the tension stacked upon the lower end of the bicep.
Great video straight forward too !! A while back I had more calisthenics in my routine n I noticed after the pull ups I would feel the insane pump I clicked on this video and while the ad played I thought has to be pull ups it's a sign I gotta do more and go back to the basics 🙏
straight arm movements like planche, on the pommel and rings also build gymnast's biceps, but not very accessible to regular trainees
I feel more bicep activation as I get closer to the top of a chinup, even when you start the rep with lats.
Facts
Well of course, activation increases are you approach full contraction. It always beneficial to "squeeze at the top" of any movement. The biceps are no exception.
I think chin ups and preacher curls are the perfect combo for the upper and lower parts
I honestly agree with this, I saw the most growth in my biceps when I started doing chin ups 🔥🔥
Kalau pull up bagaimana?
@@abdulsyahid2826 They are more for back but do them if you can if you cant go for lat machine
@@dusanjovic7268 ok...terima kasih atas penjelasannya
You dont even have big arms 😂
@@stansmith5610 doesnt change fact that people who do that have big biceps
I used to do those type of pull ups.. I would jump up.. and slowly drop myself, several times. Then when I noticed I could hold myself up, I would eventually try to pull myself up. At one point back in 2012 I was doing one handed pull ups. Then I went on a cruise in 2012 and totally lost interest in working out… I just recently started working out again.. starting all over again
I’ve been going to the gym for a year, never trained my arms. Pull ups/chin ups and dips does the trick
I always liked neutral gripped, upside down pull-ups. But you have to use the right bar and positioning to avoid interior rotation.
Best to make sure you have strong rotator cuffs first.
I always stayed away from supinated pull ups b/c of my limited wrist flexibility. Since I started doing anabolic and trusting the program, I forced myself to do supinated pull ups. I've been working on priming for my wrist as well. I will say my biceps have seen tremendous results. And I used to do split routines and exhausting my biceps on pull days. Since doing anabolic along with pull ups, I have seen better results overall! And for the record. I do not like them (pull ups). Lol.
if you have one available, just do the semi neutral/supinated (angled) grip chin ups. they are easy on the wrists and still perfekt for bicep activation
Yeah, here's the problem with that philosophy. Take walking for example: you don't walk because of limited mobility. And the limited mobility keeps you from walking. So the less you walk, the less mobility you have. And the less mobility you have, the less you walk. A vicious cycle.
I have extreme knee problems so I too stopped doing any type of training that aggravated my knees. Do you know what happened? They got worse, a lot worse. Then something occurred to me, maybe my knees are in such bad shape because I never train them.
So I started doing just what the doctor told me not to do. Leg extensions. I started with the pin in the first plate just going through the motions. After a year of this and gradually increasing the weight, guess what happened? You guessed it, my knee go much better and stronger and more flexible and without pain. They don't throb every day like they used to.
Only you can decide it that's the solution for your ailment, but at least now you have something to think about. One things for sure, the body is made up of tendons and bone and muscles and ligaments and the only way to keep them functioning and healthy is through exercise. There is no way around that. Be well.
Most people just don’t go heavy enough on bicep curls, need to do range of reps like you do on anything. 6-15 reps
Pull ups Lats are used
This is no surprise, most back exercises work biceps, particularly reverse/close grip
So just do pull ups in your back session and continue to isolate biceps with curls
Very true- too many people are deceived by this RUclips myth of perfect form.
I remember hearing this from you guys last year. I stopped doing curls very often and moved to close grips pull up holds. Now that I'm listening to this again I need to make this more of a compound lift and no just a back
I am addicted to doing pull-ups and chin-ups, haven’t worked out in a conventional gym doing weight training (standing in mirror doing curls, cable stuff etc) in YEARS, plus I run a lot and have two big dogs that I’m constantly pulling. I am in the best shape I’ve ever been, don’t ever see myself going back to workout in a gym anytime soon.
Gymnasts have biceps and whole arms that are disproportionate to their body and its insanely awesome 🔥 🔥🔥their bodys are good too btw
Haven't done curls in years. Weighted chinups reign supreme. Throw in some alternate grips too. One thing I will say is I don't focus on the bicep, I try to move heavy weight efficiently like any other compound lift.
I’m not
If you are genetically blessed in the arms department maybe you can get away with just chin ups for your biceps. However there are many who need isolation exercises for biceps to achieve respectable arms. Christian Thibaudeau talks about this in detail.
@@varnadorel i'm torso dominant with big shoulder and back, my arms and chest grew (weak point) when i started do ring pull-up and dips, just become very strong get you jacked
Grips are definitely very important to experiment with because close gripped ones don't blow my biceps up anywhere near as much as wide gripped ones do. I never thought I'd be liking wide grip chin ups for my biceps but I do.
@@dave93x Big facts, wide grip is actually a killer bicep movement
For the sickest arm pump do cable hammer curls with the tricep rope at the end of your arm workout. 2 sets of 20 medium weight and last set burnout. Pump will be insane I promise.
I agree even light hammer curls superset rope curl end of workout pump even crazier
I have been doing these sort of biceps focused pull ups for a few months now. After you get comfortable with doing them concentrate on the eccentric part(lowering yourself down Slowly). Your bicep will have a bicep.
Are you able to explain how you do it and how it differs from a regular chin up? Thanks mate 👍🏻
Chin ups have always given me a bigger pump than curls. I added a few effective variations to my chin up work out: Pausing every 2nd rep for 5 second with your elbow at 90 degrees absolutely smashes your biceps. You can change angles slightly either side of the 90 degrees on different days to target different parts of the biceps. Try it, you will cry and you WILL get big.
I like to sub chin-ups for bicep curls in my full-body routine at least 1x/wk. Great bicep exercise. Also enjoyed the discussion about isometrics. Happy New Year!
Very interesting but I found something wrong at 4:40 when you show the different contraction of biceps in curls and chin up.
You obviously simplified, and that's ok. But I wanna clarify that muscle contraction doesn't work like you showed, with a head that pulls and the other that holds. It's a whole movement and all the heads work together.
Said that, the point is another. What we call "bicep" consist in two muscles: bicep brachi (2 heads) and brachialis. The first has origin in scapula and insertion in radius. This means that bicep brachi provides to elbow flexion but also shoulder flexion (here is predominant anterior deltoid so it's not an isolated work). Instead, brachialis is monoarticular muscle, and has origin in omerus and insertion on ulna. This means that brachialis is just an elbow flexor. So, and this is the point, when we do curls with shoulder in flex position (like spider curl) we have bicep brachi in a shortened position and this will emphasize brachialis work. In chin up we start with shoulder in flexed position and we end in neutral position. So there isn't that kind of contraction on bicep. Instead, is the opposite, the proximal heads get lengthened.
If we wanna have total contraction for bicep we must do curls with movement of some degree of shoulder flexion. So we'll work on bicep on it's full function.
I can't recall who it was, but a famous gymnastics coach said that bicep development in gymnasts comes from two things. Firstly the all of the pulling, and secondly all of the straight arm work. He also said rope climbs add more bicep size than curls do.
In my training I've just started trying to incorporate these things, and I have to say I think heavy vertical pulls, straight arm work like pelican curls (technically not straight arm but close enough), and rope climbs is plenty for developing the elbow flexors. There's a clear difference between the arm development of gymnasts from calisthenics athletes too, and I don't think drugs are the culprit.
It was Christopher Sommer
And all honest gymnasts will tell you they are wrecks by 30..
@@HAYAOLEONE a lot of top athletes are because of all they have to put their bodies through to be the best. Doesn't negate his point that those exercises he listed are beneficial for bicep size.
@@rampagesmackssons508 👀
2:49 facts !! as an armwrestler myself who trains for it daily, i was hoping he was gonna say armwrestler and he didnt disappoint! its true!! i do supinated grip pull ups everyday, as well as 3 other pull up grips daily. and ive been trying to tell people this secret for building arms/strength as well. another lift i do for armwrestling is with a 45lb bar, seated curls up to 135 lbs right now(70kg bw), and also a seated lift what i call "raises" i adopted from Georgian armwrestlers. is a hammer curl neutral grip under bar, thumbs on top, and lifting the bar up to your nose(not above head). so its a shoulder/arm workout but instead of pressing for shoulders like everyone does, we are pushing up with the arms in a bent elbow (curl) position with the help of the shoulders to make it another compound movement. i do not post this lift on my channel because it is secret knowledge lol great interview !!
Yes!! Curls almost do nothing for me. I started doing chin ups and suddenly I started getting growth on both muscle heads and the brachialis.
I need to try this
I'm 56 years old and still do weighted Chin-ups. In my opinion people are afraid to do Pull-ups and Chin-ups because they are hard. Maybe it's because they think they can only do 1 or 2. Maybe it's because they don't want to be embarrassed with how few they can do. But if the people did them more often like 3 times a week. Their pull-up and chin-up reps go up quickly.
I have worked out for over 30 years. And in that time I still find it rare to see someone doing them on a bar. Meanwhile the lat pulldown machine will have a line of people waiting to use them.
You’re absolutely right. People tend to shy away from weighted pull-up/chinups in general. I really think its an integral movement to build overall upper body strength. The chain belt at my gym where you load the plates for a pull up is always collecting dust.
People are just not patient with pull-ups. Like you mentioned, it takes practice.
@@HISHAM931 Man, I was at the gym today for 2 hours. Nobody used the pull-up bars besides me. But of course the lat pulldown machines were all being used. Lol
I understand the ladies not using the bars. It is harder for women to do. Even though I have met a few ladies at gyms who will do pull-ups. Or who want someone to do them with them.
I had a younger lady ask me if I would do pull-ups with her, since her boyfriend wouldn't. I said sure. I do them 3 times a week. She said I'll be here at 5pm every day ready to go. She was there so we did them all the time. She could do sets 4 at first. Got her up to sets of 10. 💪🏾
I was SHOCKED how much mind muscle connection/burn I got from bicep curl oriented lat pull downs with a straight bar… 3 sets 12x my biceps were TORCHED
On the chinups and pull-ups I can feel the biceps contract through the full motion.I like curls too, but I don't get the contraction through the full motion like the pulls.
Try cables👍
Thankyou I'll have to try that
Heavy rows too! General heavy pulling movements (vertical or horizontal) will also build the biceps as a consequence.
I'm glad one of you mentioned the lat pull-down bar for biceps. When you get really good with your form you can superset that shit with chin-ups! Arms....DESTROYED!