Biceps...need help please

How many sets and reps for those excercises? What else do you train that day if anything? How many times per week to you train biceps? Do you go to failure? with each set? last set? etc.

You may be limited by genetics. You could be overtraining, or it could be something else. I know a guy who only trains legs every other week or so, cuz his legs grow faster than his upper body.

Titaniumspine
I appreciate your reply. Sorry...I should have included more details for ya. I work out my chest, back, arms, shoulders twice a week. Legs once a week. My routine is chest-tris, back-bis. When I work my bis I always do 6 sets/exercise. 12,10,8,6,12 reps. Increasing weight for each set. I start with a weight that will allow me to reach failure by rep twelve, so every set I always go to failure. I kinds of exercises I use to follow that setup is starting with standing barbell curls to really preexhaust the muscle. Than I move to preacher curls, on to incline dumbbell curls, finishing up with standing hammer curls. I move my rountine around so my muscles don't develop too much of a memory to a given routine. I think perhaps I should try forced reps, more negatives, and harder contractions. What do you think bro? When I lift at the gym I don't bull shit...I go there to pound weights. I don't usually spend more than 11/2 hrs or so at one time. One of my good friends who used to compete told me that its mental. He said I phsyc myself out before I curl the heavy weights. Mind over matter perhaps. Well...let me know any new ideas. Hell...anything can be better than nothing. Thanks again

I follow many of the training philosophies of Dorian Yates... From what you just told me, I think you are overtraining your biceps. I would recommend you change up your whole routine. Dorian believed in Doing one main mass builder, then one or two other excercises to finish off the muscle. 6 sets for all those excercises is too much. your biceps are little muscles and you are killing them. Granted everyone is different, but I was training like that, but only ONCE a week and wasn't growing. You are doing it twice a week. I changed to the way Dorian believed in training and started to grow again.

Pick one main mass builder, IE, standing barbell curl. Warm up, then do 4 sets of 10 reps. Only rest 30 to 60 seconds between sets. Each set till failure. You should not be able to get 10 reps on the last set. If you can, you are not using enough weight.

Then pick two finishing excercises. I prefer Hamer curls and preachers lately. Do the same scheme with these, as indicated above, and then you are done w/ biceps. Try this ONCE a week for a month or two and see what you think. I got great progress out of it.

Yes, you could be psyching youself out, but I don't think that is your main problem, I think overtraining is. Before you do a set, focus, and picture yourself doing the set. Run through the entire set in your head, even more reps than you think you can... then DO IT!

Titaniumspine

I really thank you for taking the time to respond once again. Ever since I reached 16.5"biceps...I've reached a plateau. Anyways, I have read a lot about Dorian Yates but never followed his ideas. I just picked up Arnolds Encyclopedia which has about everything from A to Z in it. I like your advice. The reason I worked each muscle twice was because I feel like I recover real fast. Granted, roids definitely help the recovery time. But perhaps I will try what you mentioned cause I wanna get out of this rut. Also, if I come across any real good ideas from the book...I'll drop you a quick email. Thanks again

New Ideas are always good.... Feel free to send any along.

As for the workout I suggested, it may be just what the doctor ordered... I do think you are overtraining your bi's right now... Maybe you've reached that platuea where you just can't recover that fast anymore... I used to be able to bench hard twice a week and grow fast... Then all of a sudden it didn't work....

If you work out how I suggested and use heavy enough weight, short enough rest, and high intensity, you will sufficiently tear down the muscle quickly, which is the overall goal.

Here is a suggestion for db curls. Do no pronate at the bottom. Form and squeezing the contraction is everything. Instead of allowing your palms to face your thigh at the bottom, keep your palm up. This will keep constant tension on the muslce, allowing for a harder workout and more growth....

Good Luck.

i like your idea of heavy barbell curls,those pump my arms more than anything.also when i get bored with those,i start with heavy d/b's..just for a change.....good advice.

im not flaming anyone just passing on info bro(science)

one thing is for sure genetics do slow us down, you cant to target fat loss neither can you do target muscle gain! first of all if your going for hypertrophy(build muscle) then you need to train so
first is your weight and reps of importance, someones goals who are focused on power lifting he would work out with 85-95% of his one rep max at 2-4 reps, with three to five min. rest between sets. if your lifting for indurance or tone then you are lifting 55-70% of your one rep max 12- 20 reps with a rest of 45sec to 1.5 min , but you as a body builder need to lift 70-85% of one rep max at 6-8 reps resting 1.5-2 min between sets throu this workout you will be hitting short twich fibres you can change routine and poundage when you platue or do suppersets or circut training and dont work out your bies too long 45 min max
and 72 hours recoverey time bro, and yes your growing but genetics suck too i have the same problem bro! even with the A.s.

You cannot target fat loss. 100% agree. It is a fact, except for possible gh site injections, or beta 2 antagonists, which target sites of storage in your stomache, hips etc. But for the purpose of doing sit ups to burn more stomache fat, Hdude is 100% correct.

As for targeting a muslce group to grow I disagree with your statement that you cannot do this. If you train a muscle and cause micro tears in the fibers, it will repair those tears and grow bigger to compensate for workload. It's part of our body's ability to adapt. If you don't train a muscle group it will not grow. To illustrate my point. Go to your local gym and look around at people. You will see some guys who are very big upper body, but they have CHICKEN LEGS. A few could be genetic, but mostly they are due to lack of training.... Not targeting that muscle group to grow.

Genetics plays a role in this game. The key is to figure your's out and maximize your personal potential.

I do thank you guys for your advice. I would say there is facts in both your replys. I myself, have only about 4 years experience with lifting. Not 2 bad I guess. I just this past year began experimenting with AAS. Put it to this way. When I did my first cycle one year ago I weighted about 165 ish. A year later, only two cycles later, Currently sitting aound a solid 202-205 lbs. respectively. I suffered a few bad muscles/tendon injuries this past summer. I have only been lifting recently and still held the weight. Anyways, genetics plays a role but hard work will never go to waste.
I've decided to go back to basics to help my bi's catch up. Standing barbell curls with heavy weights. Good mass builder. Seated preachers, hammer curls, and db curls. Either way, I will take your advice seriously and keep pushin forward. Balls to the walls ! Alright.....peace out

HEY BRO

WHEN I STARTED LAGGING IN A BODY PART I JUST INJECT THE AS DIRECTLY IN THE MUSCLE THAT WAS LAGGING.......TRY CONSENTRATING MORE ON HOW YOUR LIFTING AND NOT HOW MUCH YOUY ARE LIFTING..........

STAY SWOLLED.........:auto :machine :biggun :rotating :guns

Good advice by swolled up on the concentrating on the lifting not how much...

On the site injections.... Well, that is a topic of numerous other threads.... Whether they work or not is beyond my ability to answer. The only one's that could work in theory are AAS that are not bound to an ester.... ie. Test suspension.... Something like propinate would need to be processed by the body for the propinate ester to be "burnt" off... this doesn't happen in the muscle, therefore, the injection would not be any good to the lagging part... blah, blah, blah.. lots of threads on that.. I'm tired of typing the reasoning.. Run a search if you want more info.....

Your right about site injections. Many think it really helps, others think that it doesn't. Personally I think its mind over matter. Injecting into, lets say biceps, might make the person feel like they can lift more. In reality they probably will because their mind will let them...and the truth is....the AS really didn't make a difference. I used to shoot 1 cc of deca 3 into each bi. Causes very little burn and gives a HELL of pump. I posted something recently on using winstrol for onsight injections...that started an arguement. I just wanted some advice and ended getting all kinds of crazy info. But its all good. I always read your posts bro...you always give solid advice. Just payin' you a compliment. Also, nice work on the clomid post. Peace out`

Every exercise you listed except for barbell curls and incline DB curls are shaping exercies not mass builders. The other thing is DO NOT do both biceps and back on the same training day. If you do you are over-training your biceps from the get-go and it will surely slow the results of you hard training efforts and if not that, it will cease the benefits or reverse them all together.

Stay with basic combination movements to accentuate the stress and overload on the muscles.

It has nothing to do with genetics, it is simply an issue that the exercises you are using are not hitting the muscles the way they need to be to get the growth that you are after.

A example of this is that my partner uses bench presses to build a massive chest; however, that same exercise does shit for me. I use both incline and flat bench flyes and get the same development as he does... I would say I get more but he isn't here to defend his point of veiw on this, so I will say nothing more on the subject.

Now to the biceps issue. One other thing that I have used in the past, only because I have a smiliar issue, is the incorporation of negatives. I use negative chins to really shock those biceps into another stage of growth.

How to do it is, you stack a whoopping load of weight (your body-weight plus half should do it) around a chinning belt, like you getting ready to pound out some dips but then you go the chinning bar. You ask your training partner to stand behind you and to raise your body up to the bar so that you chin is level with it. Then you take approximately 10 seconds to lower yourself. Again, have your partner lifts you up again to the bar and repeat the process until you cannot resist anymore and you almost drop as soon as your partner lets go of you.

NOTE: This is one massively intensive manner and method in which to really blast your biceps. You might want to utilized this technique maybe once every two weeks otherwise you will over-train those biceps and the growth will cease and go the other direction... not something you want. This works, I have tried and learned it from Mike Mentzer.

Maxmuscle66