Friday, December 5, 2008

Train Your Biceps For Optimum Growth

By Jennifer King

Almost all weight trainers that start a body building plan are after bigger biceps. Biceps are the main part of the body that shows strength, and body builders like their shirts fitting tightly at the top of their arms. Because the biceps get so much attention they become the most over trained muscle which means for a lot of body builders their muscle growth actually goes backwards.

The most common reason why most weight trainers train their biceps too much is because they pay too much attention to body building magazines. Most magazines possess an article that will try and tell you how to get bigger arms within 6 weeks. When you read the article you'll discover a huge body builder, and he'll give you his workout routine for his arms.

A regular arm routine in a magazine will normally be a routine of around 20 sets of exercises. This is way too many sets to encourage growth in your biceps. You can give your back, cheat and shoulders a good workout with 20 sets, and your biceps don't require no where near this amount of training. After reading the article you'll usually see a photo of the weight lifter sitting their with his favorite supplement in his hand. The whole article is an ad for the supplement he's holding, and is in no way suppose to help you get bigger arms. They want you to buy the supplement.

When you exercise your shoulder and back muscles, all the pulling exercises that you do will have already given your biceps a decent workout so giving them another 20 sets will definitely train them too much. Body builders in magazines can give their arms 20 sets because they're usually on steroids and growth hormones. This kind of routine is impossible if you're a natural body builder.

After all of the back and shoulder exercises you do all you need to do to get your biceps to grow is around 4 sets of exercises a week. You don't need to punish your arms to make them bigger, your main requirement is to make sure you get stronger.

If you can add extra weight to the bar every time you train, and as you gain more strength then your arms will grow. Growth isn't achieved with adding more sets to your workout. If you don't add extra weight or extra reps to your routine then your biceps won't grow.

If you don't gain the strength to add more weight or more reps every week then you need to look at your diet. To get growth you need to consume enough protein, carbs and healthy fats to aid the repair of your muscles. Without the right balance of macro nutrients, and an adequate amount of them you won't get bigger. Consuming enough small meals spread out through the day will cause a natural anabolic effect in your body that will encourage extra growth.

Keeping a diary of hop your getting on will help you discover what is working best for you. Once you get all of the little things right you'll begin getting the gains you're after. - 15485

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