huggiebear

I'm a recent newbie to weight training so go easy, Ive tried to work hard on my upperbody but mainly my small biceps. Ive got trouble with my weaker arm developing quicker than stronger one:rage:. The weaker is bigger, more dense and better shaped, any tips?

ChicagoUSA

I wished I had that problem. I can't get my weaker arm to catch up with the other. I can't help you but there are other here who can.

Good Luck.

Chris

SportDr

If your biceps are small then training them specifically with an isolation exercise i.e: Preacher Curl, can overtrain them, preventing growth.

At this early stage, stick to compound exercises such as Chins, Bent over rows, any row really! especially if you take an underhand grip, and in the case of chins a close grip too. Your biceps will get a very good workout and the weak one will catch up.

So to summarise you should not be doing any Isolation work (working one muscle) you should be doing lots of compound exercises (working lots of muscle at once).

Do a search here for compound exercises its been covered a lot.

SD

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Any advice given is for information only, always seek the advice of your medical practitioner.

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Nine Pack

The biggest problem I see with most guys in the gym when it comes to biceps is massive over training. It stems from enthusiasm, which is great, but it needs channeling into something more productive. Biceps are a tiny muscle group compared to others & require only a fraction of the volume to stimulate growth, but also, they are very easy to over stimulate, or annihilate. Less really is more on biceps, provided it is quality work.

There is nearly always a slight differential from one side to the other in strength & size, but if it becomes more noticeable I would advise sticking to exercises that work each arm independently. Avoid barbell exercises altogether on the biceps till the imbalance has been ironed out as the stronger side will 'carry' the weaker side when they are both holding one implement. It may even be adviseable to just train the smaller one till it catches up. Don't panic about the larger one shrinking, it's going to get enough stimulation from rows & pulldowns etc when you train your back.

As regards overtraining, I'll show you a typical bicep workout of mine. This is for real, and i'll put money on 90% of guys doing more than double this volume:

Standing dumb bell curls: 2 sets warmup (very light, then moderate)
1 set to failure + 2 forced reps

Low cable stirrup handle curl: 1 set warmup, 1 set to failure only

Single arm rope hammer curl: 1 set to failure.

Six sets from start to finish, including warm ups, total time about 8 mins. That's it, walk away.

trickymicky69

totally agree with all of the above. i went to the gym today to train arms and my session was as follows

4 sets dumbell curls (biceps)
4 sets close grip bench (triceps)
4 sets barbell curls (biceps)
4 sets dips (triceps)

so all in all, in one week i only do two exercises for bis and the same for tris. i see some guys doing five exercises for each group and thats just silly imo. i was in and out in 40mins which is how i like it

Nine Pack

That's it, short, sweet & painful!
Makes me giggle when I come in to start a workout & see a group of lads doing multiple drop sets of barbell curls for the thick end of an hour, & I'm in & out having done two bodyparts in 40 mins. I will try to advise these guys they're overtraining but it usually falls on deaf ears, especially when there's four or five of them training at once, which is another thing that really p**ses me off, but that's best left for another thread entirely..

That workout you did would be good done as supersets, eg 3 supersets of dumb bell curls & close grip, followed by 3 of barbell curls & dips. Nasty, but effective & very quick. Bet you could rattle that one off in 20 mins flat.

trickymicky69

thats what i did. and by god the pump i got was insane. the forty minutes included ten mins on the bike just to warm my blood as well so i reckon i could get it down to twenty. it just goes to show that there is no such thing as 'not enough time to train'

Bulldozer

I dont train biceps directly at all and they are still growing nicely, i think they get enough work from rows, chins etc.
As said above they are only a small muscle, i believe most people over train then

huggiebear

Thanks for that,its great to receive advice from experienced athletes and so quickly. If I work on the smaller bicep in isolation will I experience any problems when I start work on barbell exercises? In the context of strength differences, as I have a significant difference in strength already.

dannova12

Ive had the same problem, with my weaker arm and shoulder looking bigger and more defined then my stronger arm, ill try to hit them harder and shorter like stated.

Batesy

Very interesting! and I'm amazed at the low volume of Nine's Bi workout.

I've already greatly reduced the isolation work (generally) from my training but from this it appears I still need to do more.

It also causes me to wonder about the Tri's... Do these overtrain as easily?

I know it's a greater proportion of your upper arm, but then there's 3 heads as oppose to 2.

What about the Tri's then?

cheers,

Batesy