Patriot Health Digest
One underestimated key to training your biceps is this: You wish for your biceps to get a solid “pump”. This feeling, of blood rushing through your biceps, is sometimes not there when you train with very heavy weights, but if you go fast through your reps with light weights, you will not always get it neither. But this kind of pump also helps create a strong mind-muscle connection.
To get this pump, it can be good to put away the huge weights and work on gaining control. Then work better precision, and focus on increasing your quality time-under-tension.
That is exactly what you are doing when you try the Perfect Curl Biceps Dropset, which is a devastating biceps finisher. Essentially, you are working through a unique exercise, the moves getting somewhat easier as you keep going. You start by doing bicep curls, rotating your palms up to the ceiling with every rep. Then you go into a hammer curl, a slightly simpler curl variation since you don’t have to turn your wrists anymore. You follow this by removing curls entirely when you are most fatigued and then only twisting your wrists. You get your biceps worked on each phase of this.
This does two great things. First off, it gives you plenty of time-under-tension for the biceps you are trying to create. Second, it lets you hit other parts of your arm muscle. Your brachialis, for example, a muscle that gives your arms most of their size, dominates the movement of the hammer curl.
Meanwhile, your smaller muscles take the lead on the last twisting phase of the set, but your biceps are also involved. Your biceps are responsible for twisting your wrists up to the ceiling, so they are getting work in the final phase and they must keep your isometric hold during the parallel pause.
You only need some light dumbbells to do this. Here it is:
- Start with two dumbbells at your sides. Tighten your glutes and core.
- Without moving your torso, do 8-10 curls, rotating your palms toward your body with every rep. Pause at the end of ever rep.
- Immediately move into doing hammer curls. Do as many as you can with good form.
- Take a good sized breath, then curl up until your forearms are parallel to the floor. Do as many twists as possible, turning your palms up to the ceiling then going back to neutral.
- Do 3 sets.
Author: Scott Dowdy
