Build Big Biceps with Bands (NO WEIGHTS!)

If you want to build big biceps with bands and did not think it was possible, then this is the video for you. Here, I’m going to show you the best ways to build bigger biceps using just resistance bands and no weights. In times of gym closures and an increase in the number of people doing home bicep

What’s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx. com. Today we continue our popular training with Band Series, this time how to build bigger biceps when  all you’ve got is bands. Guys that actually don’t have to compromise the results of your training if  you know how to do it. When it comes to any type of bicep training, yeah, you’re going be doing a  lot of curls, but when you trained, particularly with bands and you’re doing a lot of curls,  you need to know how to utilize those bands and specific ways to get the most of the exercises.

I’m going to show you how to do exactly that, guys. Ten exercises to get you on the right track  to building bigger biceps with just bands. So, I mentioned a whole bunch of curl variations,  but I actually don’t want to start there. I actually want to start right here up to the chin  up bar. Because for me, one of the foundational exercises for building bigger biceps is going to  be utilizing chin ups in some way, shape or form.

And the band comes in to actually make that job  of yours even easier or harder, depending upon the level that you’re at right now. So, if you look at  the movement here, you can obviously see that the supination of the form, the flexion of the elbow  and the flexion of the shoulder puts the bicep in a fully contracted position as a body weight  exercise. Now, for some, body weight might be a lot. So, the band could be stepped into and used  as an assistance tool to make it easier as you build up your strength and movement. Of course,  I can make it more difficult, too, because I can anchor the band to something sturdy and heavy on  the ground, put it around the back of my head, and then jump up to that bar and bang out some  chips and a much heavier, more overloaded fashion.

Either way, guys, you can’t get around the fact  that the chin up is one of the basic foundational moves for building bigger biceps and the  bands make your job that much easier. And that brings us now to the curling portion of  our video. I told you, there’s a lot of curls, but remember, I also told you how you do the  curls matters. Because we know anatomically the biceps have two heads. We have the inside  short head that you see when I do this.

And we have the outside long head that you see from  the side, more of the peak. And depending upon the exercises that you choose, you can influence  more activity in the short or long head. We start here with the No Money Curl. This is a short head  exercise. Reason being, if you can view the inside portion of my bicep when I do it, then that is  the portion of the biceps that you’re actually going to be working more and with No Money Curl  I’m not just getting the resisted flexion and supination that I get on a typical curl, but I  also have resisted external rotation that gives you that little extra additional benefit to your  rotator cuff, which is never a bad thing.

So now that being said, how do we target  exercises that get the outer head or the long head of the biceps? Well, we need to be able  to see them when we perform the exercise and one of the best ways to do that is with a more narrow  grip, pulling the band up a little bit tighter. And this is where this exercise falls and hits the  Close Grip Supination Curl. Now, remember I told you that how you anchor the band matters? Well,  this is a particular instance where it actually matters very much, because what I want to do is  make sure that I’m resisting supination and not just flexion of the elbow.

So, as I wrap the  band, the way I’m showing you here, you’ll see the final wrap goes around that middle knuckle of  the finger. And that actually matters because as I pull the band up and turn my wrist, I’m actually  resisting supination with every single centimeter that I move into supination. That means a better  contraction on the biceps, more work being done. Now, the narrow position of the hands being  done really close together is going to reveal that outer portion of the biceps more to the  person watching this, which in this case is you, and that means the long head is preferentially  going to get more of the activity. Let’s stick with that long head now for a second,  because there’s another way we can actually influence the activation of that head of the  biceps.

And that is by placing a stretch on it before every single repetition. She might  be asking yourself, well, how do I do that? Well, anatomically, with the tendon of the  long head attaching higher up on the shoulder and it crossing the shoulder joint, we can place  it preferentially into a stretched position by getting our arm back behind our body into  shoulder extension. So, if we set ourselves up for something like this, a bicep stretch curl, we  are getting a better stretch on the long head here and by contracting I have a pre-stretched  position, we can get better activation. Again, another option that’s easy to set up just  by simply anchoring it to something behind you, but showcasing once again how you do the  curls you do in the ones that you select will play a big part and the results that  you ultimately see from the exercises.

Because, of course, you just can’t get enough  of the long head—wait—And because long head exercises are that beneficial, we need to make  sure we have another option. And this is one of my favorites. It’s actually the Drag Curl, a  favorite of Vince Gironda. What you’re doing is, again, trying to reinforce the fact that you can  get that arm back into extension behind your body, you’re going to get a different recruitment of  the biceps more favorably, hitting the fibers of the long head. We do this by anchoring the bend  under our heels behind our body and then wrapping it around our low back to stabilize it and keep it  in place.

At this point, all we’re going to do is lift our hands straight up to the ceiling, making  sure to keep the elbows as far back as possible. Look, there’s a reason why this has become a  legendary exercise and why it’s stuck around for as long as it has, because it can produce  legendary games, if you remember to include it. So, one of the nice advantages that comes from  training with bands is that they offer up a different strength curve that you would normally  see on a traditional curl. As you continue, stretch this band out further and further and  further, the resistance level goes up. So, if we could find a way to match up that peak  tension with the peak contraction of the biceps, then we really have an exercise to hold onto  and that’s what we get here at the Lip Buster.

And by getting in this position, you can see that  I have flexion of the elbow supination here of the forearm, and I’ve got that elevated shoulder  into flexion that really creates that peak bicep contraction. And of course, if I want to make  it even more difficult and add an eccentric component to this for more overload, all I have  to do is perform a curl, take a giant step back that will increase that tension even more and try  to pull me back towards the bar. This is a must have exercise when it comes to rounding out these  ten great choices for banded bicep exercises. Speaking of feeling a strong biceps contraction,  there’s no way I’m getting around a variation of some sort of the Bicep Weighted Curl. Because  with the dumbbell, this is one of my favorite ways to get that contraction in the biceps.

But  we can still do the same thing with bands as long as we are a little bit creative and we know once  again how to wrap the bands in the first place to create a line of resistance we’re looking for. So, you can see I step into the band this way and by positi