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A top complaint among men and women is flabby and weak arms.
Strong arms are healthy arms. Weight training has countless benefits, like keeping your bones strong and boosting your metabolism. Incorporating healthy arm workouts into your routine leads to better posture, sleep, and endurance.
When it comes to working out your forearms, your biceps are a great place to begin. Your biceps play an essential role in movement and upper body strength. Building bigger biceps leads to more lean and toned arms.
Let’s explore what this muscle group does for your body and how to build bigger biceps
Bicep Basics
Your biceps are a large muscle group situated in the front area of your upper arms. They are located between your shoulder and elbow. Biceps flex your elbow and rotate your forearm.
Your biceps consist of two heads.
The long head reaches from your scapular through a cavity called the glenoid. It extends through your shoulder joint into your upper arm. The short head extends through a projection along your scapula called the coracoid. The short head extends alongside the long head in the inside of your arm.
Your biceps are designed to allow flexions (lifting) and supination (rotating) in the forearm. The biceps also aid in opening your arms from side to side (abduction) and folding your arms across your body (adduction).
How To Build Bigger Biceps
Building muscular arms requires three important steps:
- Performing exercises that target your bicep muscles
- Maintaining a wholesome diet
- Giving your body plenty of rest
Let’s explore how each of these steps.
Bicep-Building Exercises
Growing thicker arms starts with bicep exercises. Standing dumbbell curls, Zottman curls, and decline dumbbell curls are excellent bicep-building exercises. When designing your routine, try completing three sets of 12 reps. You can use the same weight for each set or gradually increase your weight.
When performing bicep curls, your upper body and elbows must remain in place. If you can’t perform the exercise without swinging your arms, lower your weight. High repetition workouts are ideal for toning your arms.
1. Standing Dumbbell Curl
Dumbbell curls are a classic bicep exercise. The movement targets your inner arm muscles to tone and shape them. While performing dumbbell curls, keep movements slow and controlled. Squeeze your bicep as you lift.
To perform a bicep curl, stand with a dumbbell in each hand. Hang your arms by your side. Keep your elbows close to your torso and face your palms up.
Keeping your arms stationary, curl the weights to shoulder-height. You will feel your biceps contract. Slowly lower your arms and repeat. Exhale as you curl for more power and balance.
2. Zottman Curl
The Zottman curl targets your biceps brachii, brachialis, and brachioradialis muscles. They are tough, so you might need to go lower on your weight than when you perform traditional bicep curls.
Stand with your dumbbells at your side and palms facing forward. Curl your dumbbells towards your shoulder without moving your upper arms. Pause, and rotate the dumbbells, so your palms are facing forwards. Slowing return back to your starting position.
3. Decline Dumbbell Curl
Changing your position targets different areas of your bicep. Decline dumbbell curls are done lying down.
This move isolates your biceps and eliminates power from your legs, which makes the move more difficult. You may need to reduce your normal weight when performing decline bicep curls.
Set your workout bench to a 45° incline. Lie on your stomach with your arms hanging off the bench.
Bend your elbows and curl your dumbbells to your shoulders. Don’t move your upper arms. Pause and return your dumbbells to your starting position.
Enhance Your Eating Plan
Building bigger biceps isn’t all about your gym routine. Maintain a diet that balances high-protein foods, carbohydrates, and fats.
Eggs are excellent sources of protein and natural fats. They have a lot of vitamin B, which helps produce energy. The amino acids in eggs play a key role in muscle development.
Chicken breasts are packed with protein. A three-ounce chicken breast holds 26 grams of protein along with vitamins B and B6. All of these elements improve your ability to function and aid in fat loss.
If you’re yearning for dairy, go with Greek yogurt. It contains twice as much protein as regular yogurt and has a lower fat content. Greek yogurt is recommended after a workout because it has fast digesting proteins.
To build your arm muscles, add seafood to your diet. Salmon is packed with protein, vitamin B, and omega-3 fatty acids that increase muscle gain. Tuna contains vitamins A, B, B12, B6, and plenty of protein. Shrimp are nearly pure protein and are low-calorie.
Other foods to enhance your bicep-building efforts include:
- Soybeans
- Cottage cheese
- Turkey breast
- Edamame
- Quinoa
- Chickpeas
- Peanuts and almonds
- Tofu
Eating the right foods and the appropriate amounts play a key role in helping your body gain muscle and create thicker arms.
Don’t Forget to Rest Up
Rest days are just as important as gym sessions. Overworking your muscles is a common bicep-building mistake. Your biceps are relatively small and need rest in order to grow. Overworking your muscles leads to stress fractures and muscle strains.
Overtraining syndrome, or muscle burnout, occurs when a person experiences fatigue and declines in their training despite a consistent workout regiment. Burnout is the result of physical and emotional stress on the body due to not receiving enough rest in between training sessions.
Don’t overwork your biceps. You shouldn’t be doing bicep exercises every day. You should only work out each area of your body one to two times per week. Getting enough sleep and resting your muscles between workouts is just as imperative as maintaining a healthy diet.
Build a Better You
Building your muscles does more than help you look better. Stronger muscles create a more powerful body structure. Working out your muscles in a healthy way reduces your risk of injuries and improves your cardiovascular health.
Looking for more ways to build a better you? From how to build bigger biceps to other health hacks, check out our blog.
