How to Build Dangerous Biceps

The shoulders often get too involved during regular curls, but when your elbows are up against a wall, the biceps have to do all the work. This exercise simply targets the biceps in a more focused way (less "cheating" potential), than regular curls. You also teach yourself to stay in an upright posture.

• Stand with your back against a wall and a pair of dumbbells in your hands.
• Curl the dumbbells while your elbows are stabilized against the wall.
• Some movement is fine, but limit forward elbow movement as much as possible.

When you curl with your hands in a neutral position (hammer grip), you target the brachialis muscle to a higher degree. This muscle lies deeper below the biceps and is a prime mover of elbow flexion. It actually generates more power than the biceps. If you haven't been training this muscle directly, you'll likely give your biceps a nice boost with some hammer time.

• Start seated on a bench with a pair of dumbbells in your hands.
• Curl the weight up and lower back with control with a neutral (hammer) grip.
• Make sure to keep an upright posture during the set.

Regular barbell curls are great, but adding a band makes it even better. When you curl against a band, the tension obviously increases the higher you go. This means the biceps have to produce more tension to finish the curl. Expect a great pump and more arm gains.

• Stand upright with a barbell in front of you and place one end of a band beneath your feet and the other end in your hands.
• After you've made sure the band tension is evenly distributed in your hands, bend over and take a firm grip on the barbell before you start the curls.
• Limit the momentum, especially on the last reps when your biceps start to fatigue.

Build your grip while you build your biceps. Having a strong grip is good for being strong overall, but it's also related to shoulder health. Grip strength is important for both health and performance.

• Wrap a towel around the handle of a kettlebell.
• Take a solid grip on the towel before you stand upright, then curl that kettlebell until your grip or biceps fatigue.

If you need a true isolation exercise, the concentration curl is the way to go. It literally let's you concentrate on your biceps. Being a unilateral exercise, it's also a great option for balancing potential left-to-right imbalances, or for post-injury work on the affected arm.

• Sit on a bench with a dumbbell in your left hand. Place your elbow or lower part of the upper arm toward your left thigh.
• From a fully extended elbow position, curl the dumbbell up and lower back with control to start position.

1. Do 1-2 exercises after your main upper-body workouts.

Add direct biceps (or general arm training) to your current program. Do one or two arm exercises for 2-4 sets of 8-15 reps after you've done your main upper-body strength exercises. I recommend a superset with biceps and triceps.

2. Add a standalone arm-training workout to your current program.

Choose three exercises: one for biceps, one for triceps, and one for shoulders. Do them as a tri-set (basically a superset with three exercises) with 8-15 reps per exercise. Perform 3-4 rounds, either added to a regular workout, or as a standalone mini-workout.