Thread: ways to up weight?

Squats and deadlifts....Seriously


Around here, a question like that is laughable. Do you want bigger biceps or want to move more weight, or want to gain weight? Eat more and do more compound movements, i.e. Pull ups, Pull downs, Rows, and stop doing a bunch of freakin bicep curls. Read around the forum for a few minutes and you'll realize what I mean. Plus most of the pro's and more experienced folks will respect the fact that you've read some.

Originally Posted by trav

any tips to up bicep weights without a spotter ?

First of all, you would NEVER need a spotter on any isolation movements, especially curls.

Secondly, if you're the kind of person who uses a spotter on curls I don't even have to ask to know the spotter is helping you lift the weight. I don't know what happened but many people seem to think this is what spotters are for. They're not, unless maybe you're training negatives, in which case they can help you on the positive portion so that you can start a new rep. However, most guys think they're so macho if they can cheat curl (i.e. swing) big dumbbells and then have their "spotter" finish the rep for them half way.

Spotters are for safety purposes only. We recently had a debate on this issue:

No spotter help??!

As for the bigger biceps, curls are not the most effective way to build your arms. I know it seems odd, but the biceps are such a small muscle that training them directly elicits so few growth hormones. The biceps are actually designed to assist the much larger lats and other smaller muscles in pulling objects towards the body. Exercises like pullups and rows will hit your biceps very hard, as you're pulling much larger weights through greater ranges of motion -- all while simultaneously stimulating a great deal more of muscle fibres.

Better yet, if you train your legs with other compound movements (compound means you're using more than one joint...arm curls use one, your elbow...pullups use the elbow and shoulder) such as squats and deadlifts -- which are generally viewed as the top exercises in bodybuilding and even powerlifting -- you not only get the benefit of developing a balanced physique (as opposed to the "chicken legs" look that most young guys end up having) but due to the full-body nature of the lifts they produce more growth hormones than just about any other lift. The beauty of it is that growth hormones don't just sit in the area from which they were created.....they actually travel through your whole body. Believe it or not -- squats and deadlifts will make your arms way bigger than any curl or tricep extension could. Besides, with deadlifts and some squat variations your arms have to grip the bar and support major heavy loads! After a few sets of deadlifts my grip is usually torn apart. Imagine how much that must affect my biceps!

If I were you, I'd research push/pull full-body training. Read the stickies in the training section. There are some awesome articles. I gave up isolation last fall and my arms have grown about 3 inches since then. Hard to believe, eh? If you train your body according to its natural design -- that being the muscular system working as a system and not individual parts -- you'll see your physique go a long way. I guarantee it.

Originally Posted by trav

any tips to up bicep weights without a spotter ?

Thy knw wat ther talkin bout dude, dont even wory bout tryin 2 smash bi's on shit like precher benchs n shit tryin to lift more youl just do an injury... like i did tryin to show of for the bitties in the gym.. Start smashin compound movements you can lift heavy weight doin so and the strength progreses through all your other workouts. I startd consitently doing squats, deadlifts and clean n presses and im thicking up heaps and my strength is blowin up everywhere eles

id rather have a wide back n strong legs than big biceps

Deads!!!

You can improve the strength of your arms in general including biceps by not focusing much on bicep/arm isolation exercises but doing heavy rows, pullups, chins and deadlifts. I bet you if you stopped doing isolation for arms for a while and did heavy exercises like the ones I mentioned above for 4-8 weeks and come back to arms, you'd be able to move more weight, easily.

This is what he needs

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

This is what he needs

lol bit fucking gay that lol if that worked we would have mega biceps shaking our shakes lol

Originally Posted by bigdavetom

lol bit fucking gay that lol if that worked we would have mega biceps shaking our shakes lol

Wow.
Yes, the shake weight is extremely gay, just like this troll's posts. It was just a joke.
You know what else is gay? Tut Tut Tut