Stop Doing These Biceps Exercises. Do These Moves Instead. | The Don't List | Men’s Health Muscle
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00:00The quest for big arms and the quest for the perfect physique often starts for most of
00:04us with some version of growing our biceps and building big biceps.
00:07And when you look across Instagram, TikTok, and all the social medias out there, including
00:11the ones that we don't even know about, there are 8 million biceps exercises out there.
00:16The thing with those 8 million biceps exercises is most of them are completely dumb and a
00:20waste of your time.
00:21And if we stick with the basics, if we stick with the most effective exercises, that's
00:25how we're going to grow our biceps.
00:26So let's go over 5 biceps exercises that you're better off skipping if you really want to
00:30build strong, big biceps, and let's figure out what moves we should do instead.
00:34One biceps exercise that you may not think is a waste of time, but it really kind of
00:38is, is something called the concentration curl.
00:40Now the concentration curl is a classic exercise that bros have been doing since the beginning
00:45of bodybuilding and training.
00:47But here's the thing with it.
00:48It is way too easy to cheat and leverage.
00:50A lot of people wind up digging their elbow into their thigh and just kind of balancing
00:55and not really getting the most out of the biceps contraction.
00:58We're also just not going to get a really great squeeze on our biceps unless we're super
01:02focused and let's face it, not enough people are focused on doing it the right way.
01:06Instead of doing concentration curls, your better option is something called the spider
01:10curl.
01:11Now you will need an incline bench for this, but because of the position that we're in,
01:14we're still going to get a little bit of shoulder flexion within our curl, just like we do on
01:19a good concentration curl.
01:20And we're also going to be in a position to isolate, but there's much less ability to
01:24leverage and cheat with this.
01:25So you're going to get that really good squeeze that you want on your biceps curls.
01:29Second up is the wide grip barbell curl.
01:31Now this is another bodybuilding school exercise that has been done since the beginning of
01:35time and you think you have to do it if you want to get the most out of a barbell curl.
01:39Except here's the thing, when you're doing wide grip barbell curls, you're kind of working
01:43against yourself.
01:44Yes, in theory, it's giving you a really good chance to supinate, but you're so wide that
01:48you're just not going to be able to generate full force and true force with your biceps
01:52and you're not going to be able to get that really, really good contraction.
01:54You're not going to be able to move as much weight.
01:56Instead of going wide grip with your biceps curls, let's just go to a standard shoulder
02:00width grip on our biceps curls.
02:02You're going to get a lot more out of this and yes, you can still supinate, you can still
02:05focus on that squeeze.
02:06You're going to get a lot more out of that move.
02:08Third up is the cross body hammer curl.
02:11Again, another bro exercise.
02:13I know it seems like we're just attacking bro exercises right now, but hey, they can
02:16use a little bit of work.
02:17When we're doing the cross body hammer curl, the issue here, yes, it's a really good contraction
02:21for your brachialis, but coming across our body, we wind up with a lot of internal rotation
02:26at the shoulder joint and we're also potentially loosening up our scapula.
02:30It's just not something we need to do to get the most out of the curl.
02:33Instead of doing that, just stick to a classic hammer curl.
02:36We're going to keep our shoulders straight at our sides.
02:38We're going to tighten up and all you're going to do is hammer curl out in front of you.
02:41You're still going to hit your brachialis and you're also going to be positioned for
02:44a much better eccentric contraction on every single rep.
02:47A biceps exercise you want to avoid in addition is something called the seated easy bar curl.
02:52This has always seemed like a cheat and a waste of time to me.
02:55Just a lazy way to biceps curl.
02:57It also has us working in the least useful biceps rock.
03:00Remember, we always want to try to get a full stretch on our biceps on every muscle because
03:05so much good stuff happens at that point of the motion and you're not getting that when
03:09you're doing a seated easy bar curl.
03:11We're wasting that part of the motion.
03:13If you really want to get something a little bit more effective, let's go to a standing
03:17easy bar half full curl.
03:19Now you're going to spend extra time in the top range, but we're still going to work a
03:22full range of motion.
03:23That's going to be a lot better for your biceps in the long run.
03:26The biceps pushup.
03:27What the heck is the biceps pushup?
03:29Here's the fact.
03:30No matter what these bodyweight people tell you that you can get something out of a pushup
03:34just by changing the position of your hands for your biceps, you're not actually training
03:38your biceps at all.
03:39This is a complete waste of time.
03:41If you want a better bodyweight biceps exercise, if you need a bodyweight biceps exercise,
03:47then instead of doing some pushup, because with all these pushups, you're still going
03:50to hit your chest, shoulders, and tris on some level.
03:53Instead of doing that, we're just going to go to the chin up.
03:55That is how you attack your biceps with bodyweight.
03:58And that is the best move for your biceps with bodyweight.
04:01So that's five moves that you can take off of your list.
04:03If you're really chasing big, strong biceps, stick to the moves we gave you instead, and
04:07you're going to see a lot better results and waste a lot less time in the gym.