Anderledes bicepstræning

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Her er en bicepsøvelse jer aldrig har tænkt over før

Curls Are For Mamas' Boys

Q: What’s the best routine to get me a pair of chick attracting, head turning biceps?

A: Back when I was a 6’3", 165-pound basketball player and had just gotten into weight-training, my upper arm girth measured a whopping 14 inches. No, that's not a typing error; you read it right! At peak development they now measure close to 20 inches, so listen up!

Time for some real groundbreaking biceps training advice. Now, I normally don't recommend much in the way of direct arm training. As I've written before here at T-mag, the best increases in upper arm hypertrophy are achieved through compound exercises such as dips, chin-ups, bench presses, and rows. But I'm going to tell you about one exercise I feel stands head and shoulders above all else for biceps development.

"Biceps curls!" you may be saying, because they allow for the largest load, right? Nope, try again. "Zottman Curls!" you may be thinking. No way. In fact, if you spend any substantial amount of time on that exercise, you'll never see the day when the vixens are asking if they can puh-leez feel your sexy guns. That exercise ranks at the bottom of my list.

So what in the hell is it? What's the best exercise for biceps development? The answer is rope pulls! Anyone who's watched a World’s Strongest Man competition on ESPN will remember the event where those 350-pound gorillas are required to pull a half-dozen Greyhound buses using a rope.

For those of you unfamiliar with this exercise, imagine that a boatload of lovely lassies are getting ready to dock on the California shores. They throw you a rope and shout out, "Pull us in, big daddy!" You plop yourself down on the deck with your feet secured and facing the boat; then you grab the rope with your right hand and begin alternating the row movement with each arm. It’s that simple.

In this photo, T-vixen Patricia shows the sissy boys how to build big biceps.

There are two reasons why this exercise is superior to all other biceps movements:

1) Load: This exercise will allow for the greatest load (i.e. stress) on the forearms, biceps, and upper back musculature. The standing barbell curl is a great exercise for the biceps since it allows for a large load, but it's a single-joint movement. Remember, multi-joint movements are always superior for hypertrophy increases.

A trainee with a 135-pound barbell curl (1RM) can easily perform this exercise using twice as much weight. Voila, you've just introduced the biceps to a much greater load than they're used to! Okay, maybe you think that's a stupid argument because obviously the strong upper back muscles are helping to pull the load. True, but what’s your point? The forearm muscles are also getting the workout of their life—that’s part of why this exercise is so effective. I’ve found the best way to increase biceps girth is to utilize exercises that challenge the forearms, biceps, and upper back simultaneously.

That’s why an experienced or intelligent trainee will quickly recognize the awesome hypertrophy-inducing benefits of chin-ups and semi-supinated pull-ups. Merely isolating the biceps (even with a heavy load) will be inadequate since the body would rather increase the size and strength of the entire chain to avoid strength and size imbalances.

2) Range of motion: If performed correctly, the rope pull will force the biceps through a maximal range of motion under great stress. You should stretch your arm out at far as possible before grabbing the rope. Once you have a good grip, you must flex your elbow joint until your hand ends up touching the upper abdominal region. Now, that’s a huge range of motion! For hypertrophy purposes, the greater the range of motion, the better.

This exercise is also outstanding for oblique development.

Now for the bad news. This ain’t an exercise everyone has access to. Your plush, commercial gym doesn’t have one and neither do 99% of the gyms in the country. What you need is, well, a rope for starters. The fatter the rope, the better. Find a rope with a diameter of at least 2.5 inches. Remember, this is the minimum.

So you have a few choices. Your first option is to hang one from the rafter of your barn and climb up and down that sumbitch. Okay, so maybe you don’t own a barn, but any secure structure that's at least ten feet higher than the tip of your maximum reach will work. This method is excellent for advanced trainees since you can also climb down the rope.

Your other option is to find a nice, flat, fifty-foot long area. You'll need to attach the rope to any object that's heavy enough to allow you to approach failure.

For resistance, you can use a sled with plates, an old tire filled with bricks, a dead personal trainer, or anything else you can possibly dream up. Chris Shugart stole his little daughter’s favorite Radio Flyer wagon and put a 350 Chevy small-block in it to perform this exercise.

Here’s the program that should be performed twice each week at the beginning of your upper body workouts (I generally prefer that all upper body work be performed on one day):

Rope Pull

Sets: 3

Length of Pull: 10 feet up and down for a hanging rope or 50 feet for a flat ground pull

Rest: 2-3 minutes between sets

Frequency: Twice each week with no added isolation biceps exercises

If this sounds different, it is! Give it a try, though, before you jump to any conclusions.

So much for that Waterbury fella not giving out arm training advice!