# Biceps not growing!



## kev987 (Mar 9, 2008)

Hi all, I have been in the gym now for three months and liking the results i am getting. The only problem is my biceps dont seem to be growing. I train them on a friday along with tri's and shoulders which both have noticable gains. I usually do 5 sets of 21's with the barbell. (About 25kg) then i do 30 incline dumbell curls (15kg each). by the end of this i couldnt lift anymore but my arm dosent feel tender or sore the next morning and they just dont look like they are growing!

Any advise, tips ect...?

cheers kev


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## Team1 (Apr 3, 2008)

kev987 said:


> Hi all, I have been in the gym now for three months and liking the results i am getting. The only problem is my biceps dont seem to be growing. I train them on a friday along with tri's and shoulders which both have noticable gains. I usually do 5 sets of 21's with the barbell. (About 25kg) then i do 30 incline dumbell curls (15kg each). by the end of this i couldnt lift anymore but my arm dosent feel tender or sore the next morning and they just dont look like they are growing!
> 
> Any advise, tips ect...?
> 
> cheers kev


good advice would be to do the complete opposite to what your current bicep routine is currently 

3 sets of 8-12 barbell or ez bar curls

2 sets of 8-12 db hammer curls

use a weight you find heavy & use half decent form

nothing fancy

:lift:


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## thugz (Aug 18, 2007)

heavy, hard and not too many sets. make the sets you do count.

21's are what all beginners are told or think are some magic wand on biceps. there intense but too overated.

stick to team1's idea.

warm up 1st and then his advised routine


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## nathanlowe (Jan 8, 2008)

Ez bar curls and deadlifts on back day will be enough.


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## dru0111 (Aug 28, 2007)

5 sets of 21's + 30 curls = 135 reps, Serious lactic acid pain and nothing else.

Pull ups, Deadlifts and Heavy rowing (3 x 6/8 each) will do the job. You will still be in the honeymoon period if your three months into training assuming you have switched your routine up at least once. Enjoy.


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## JawD (Sep 15, 2004)

As above, I know for a fact that my bi's are hit massively on a back day. Various rowing and pull ups that I do. I usually end the back day with two sets of isolation bicep (usually simple DB curls) but thats it and Ive noticed decent gains.


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## wogihao (Jun 15, 2007)

Dont expect growth so quickly it will take years.

But yes, heavy barbell/dumbbell movements, compound movments where you use the arms like overhead pressing ect will build them also.


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## warren (Jun 16, 2008)

i have been training about 3 months now or close to and my bis have grew 1/2 and inch, all i do is the compound routine and ad 3 sets of 8-12 with curls. but even then i only do them every other time.


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## irwit (Mar 29, 2007)

Rows and pullups, especially rows should be battering your bi's.


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## Magic Torch (May 30, 2005)

Team1 said:


> good advice would be to do the complete opposite to what your current bicep routine is currently
> 
> 3 sets of 8-12 barbell or ez bar curls
> 
> ...


Sound advice

As said above they get hit on loads of compounds, so adding the 5 sets in like this will finish them off a treat.


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## chrisj22 (Mar 22, 2006)

I used to train them seperately for ages, but they never seemed to respond until I completely stopped & just focused on deads, barbell rows etc - they've definitely grown in the past 8 months a little bit.

Everyone's different TBH. It won't harm you doing what J has suggested though.

Less is more :biggrin:


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## Jock (Apr 8, 2003)

^^^^^ Agreed, concentrate on heavy pulling exercises for bicep mass rather than isolations.


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## cyberheater (Sep 22, 2007)

Do chins, dips. Both awesome arm exercises. I don't do any direct bicep work at all now and my biceps are growing.


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## tojona (Apr 20, 2008)

cyberheater said:


> Do chins, dips. Both awesome arm exercises. I don't do any direct bicep work at all now and my biceps are growing.


I like what Cyberheater just said! We don't all get the same results from the same bicep curls. It really is odd. I'm a VERY hard gainer in that area, but the dips and the chin-ups have worked for me. In fact, better still, try doing bicep curls on the pull-up bar--lifting your own body weight. It recruits a lot more muscles into the mix. Works every time.

Hope that helps


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## kev987 (Mar 9, 2008)

Cheers for the advise guys. Appriciate it


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## Lost Soul (Apr 5, 2008)

If you want the biggest biceps you can have you have to train them directly, period

The notion of compound only work making them huge is incorrect BUT and this is where the BUT comes in, the initial focus of training should be ideally training your body as a unit and ironing out weaknesses down the line after a real evaluation of training 6 months in, 1 year in and so on

Banging out bicep exercises will give very few people huge arms in a year but when you do have a base a range of direct isolations in the correct rep range will increase the size of your bicep

trainin your ticeps in the same way and your arms get bigger

initial bicep work=

all rowing, pulling

initial tricep = all pressing and dips

advanced bicep isolation =

curls - various with db and BB

advanced tricep work =

push downs/skulls/CGBP/extension etc


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