Even the genetically gifted athletes have lagging body-parts. In order to create a more pleasing appearance and flow between muscle groups, it is important to take the extra time to bring those lagging parts into balance. From a bio-mechanics and functionality point of view it also makes sense to insure that left to right and front to back, you have body parts that are equally as strong as each other. Otherwise you may be asking for reduced strength, performance or injury.
There are several great techniques we can use to target lagging muscle groups -ranging from prioritising, pre-exhaustion, reduced rep speed, exaggerated hold on contraction and just plain extra training. We have covered a few of these in past articles, today we are going to keep it simple. For me, my biceps don’t seem to grow as regularly as the rest of my body, so I’ll show you how I throw an extra session in each week to give my arms better balance.
First Sesson: the first session for biceps is performed straight after back and consists of mostly multiple sets of reverse grip lat pull downs. By purposely focusing on the bicep contraction and keeping the hands away from the torso (when focusing on back I bring my palms close to the chest) I can get the biceps to do more work than the lats.
Usually 6-8 sets of this is enough to work the biceps , occasionally I may need to throw in 3-4 sets of rope hammer cable curls to really finish the job. While reverse grip lat pull downs are not a common exercise for improving bicep size, they never fail to give me sore arms the following day. Whether you have to hold the contraction longer or really focus on keeping your palms out front, just make sure the biceps are doing most of the work.
Second Session: The second bicep routine is performed 2-3 days later, biceps and forearms. Usually the routine will change quite regularly, however here is an example of a bicep routine I performed last week
Biceps and Forearms:
| Body Part | Exercise | Sets and Reps |
| Biceps | Dumbbell Hammer curls | 3 x 6 reps |
| Cable Barbell Curls | 3 x 10 reps | |
| Preacher Curls | 3 x 15 reps | |
| Forearms | Dumbbell wrist curls | 4 x 10 reps |
Recovery is the key to growth and some people may find that training a body-part twice a week is too much. Some people may benefit more with a format of twice every second week, with single sessions on the alternate weeks. Play around with it and find what works best for you.
I’ll see you and your bigger biceps next week!
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