Heavy Weights VS. Light Weights for Big Biceps (WHICH IS BEST?)

If you are trying to build big biceps, you need to figure out what role lifting heavy weights and light weights plays in your growth. I will tell you right now, you need to find a way to lift both heavy and light if you want to build your biggest biceps possible. Here’s why.

What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. Today we want to talk about growing your biceps and whether or not there’s an advantage to lifting heavier weights, in trying to do so, or lifting lighter weights. Guys, I’m going to spoil something for you here.

But don’t go anywhere, because it’s going to matter. You have to do both. You should be lifting heavy. You should be lifting light. However, what you should be lifting right now is something that can vary from person to person.

Something is different for you, versus somebody else, depending upon the situation you find yourself in right now. That’s what I want to address in this video. So, what are we talking about? When we talk about lifting heavier or lighter weights it really comes down to something more about the contribution of muscles in a more heavy, compound lift. Or the need to find more of a mind-muscle control over a muscle in an individual, smaller, isolated, lighter lift.

To start that and dig into that we need to hold up three fingers. In this we have representation of three muscles contributing in a bigger, compound lift. We know if I try to contract this muscle alone and bring my finger down here to my palm I can – do this along with me – you’ll feel there’s a certain level of power you can do that with. When I take the middle finger and do that, there’s a certain level of power I can do that with in strength. Then the last finger, when I bring it down, there’s a certain level of strength I can do that with.

But we know when I try to move the three together, I can do it with much more force. It’s a lot easier to bring these three together. Obviously, there’s some connectivity of the tendon here, in this particular example, but it illustrates what happens in the compound lift. The contributing parts have the ability to contribute in different ways to the overall impact of that lift. Think about, in the case of biceps, the weighted chin.

I’ve gone on record saying that a weighted chin-up is one of my favorite ways to use a compound lift, heavy overload to provide a greater stimulus for growth in my biceps. However, we do know from research that you can actively contribute more or less to a lift from a certain muscle group based on focusing heavily on the muscle that’s contributing. So, if I’m up on that bar – I have an exercise I call the ‘chin curl’ – I can bring myself up more with my biceps than with my lats, just by focusing more on changing the alignment of my body and space on the bar. By actively trying to contract more in the biceps, keeping more of a 90-degree angle, instead of folding them down. I can do that and shift the focus of that lift.

So, if that’s possible we need to know that mind-muscle control over a muscle is going to heavily influence our performance on those bigger lifts, leading to bigger and better size gains down the road. If we maximize and optimize our ability to recruit that muscle. At that point, the ability to have mind-muscle control becomes imperative. Even as a starting point before you start to pile on in these more compound lifts. We did some tests before.

I said “What is your mind-muscle control? Do you know how much control you have over your biceps? ” A) When you do your bicep workouts do you ever feel it in your biceps? Or are you just feeling it in your forearms or shoulders, maybe even your low back? That’s a sign one that it’s not working for you.

Sign number two would be, if we could take that bicep into its most shortened position can you feel it? Is it uncomfortable to contract in that position? To reiterate something I’ve covered in a video before, we know that the biceps are contracted when we flex the elbow, when we supinate here like this, of part one. Part two. Then we flex the shoulder and bring it up.

So, if I get in this position here and I squeeze as hard as I possibly can I can feel it very, very uncomfortable right here. I can’t hold this very long without cramping up. I want you to be able to feel the same thing. If you don’t, you don’t have a good mind-muscle control. So, when you go to your compound lifts, if you go to the weighted chin, you’re not really using your biceps as much as you might think you are.

Remember, this is hiding the weaknesses and imbalances. If I can’t do this with much strength, or this with much strength, or this with much strength, but I do this, and it feels strong; I’m not aware of the fact that the imbalances and weaknesses are there. So, we want to make sure we reveal those. If you’re someone that I just described who can’t do that and feel that, becoming really uncomfortable, or you don’t feel your biceps in your training what do you do? Your specific prescription is to do this: maybe forego the heavy barbell cheat curls like you see me doing here.

Guys, I’ve covered this exercise. I love this one, too. But if I’m not feeling it in my biceps, why continue to do it? Just because I said it’s a good exercise? No.

You need to do what’s good for you. So, what you need to do is start mixing in more of these exercises like this. This is lighter weights. This is a spider curl. The benefit of the spider curl is that it puts me in that position where the biceps are in the position of being able to be fully contracted.

We have supination, we have elbow flexion, and we have that shoulder flexion with our arm up here, out in front of our body. Work on progressively building up the ability to contract that with good force. Which means I might have to dial back the weights considerably to do that. But that’s okay because in the long term it’s going to be better in the overall pursuit of bigger biceps. Or I could do a standing dumbbell curl this way, here.

Again, the focus is not to lift like a cheat curl. It’s to lift with lighter weights, but to get all three components. Getting that shoulder flexion in, even at the every, very end. Not too early because we don’t want to activate the delts and make them take over the movement. That would be reinforcing something that’s already wrong.

We want to get them at the end. So, first flex, at the same time you’ve got the supination going. Then we have the shoulder flexion at the end. But I would work on these with priority. But don’t abandon the other, bigger lifts.

Don’t abandon the weighted chin. You could still do the weighted chin because we know what the benefits are of that exercise. Far beyond building bigger biceps. It’s a great pulling exercise. But don’t think that’s going to be your primary bicep builder if you can’t feel your biceps at all when you do it.

So, continue to do it for your back and as a pulling exercise, but shift the focus of your bicep training to this. Now let’s say you’re already in a position where you feel your biceps. You can do this and feel it. You could do your bigger lifts and you feel it. How much reliance do you need to do these things?

Not very much. But don’t abandon them entirely. Here’s why: if I have the ability to feel these moves, like I do – I have the ability to really do what I said those studies tell us we can do. That is to focus more on my biceps and recruit more biceps to a particular compound lift. If I have that ability, then focus more of your time on those bigger ‘bang-for-your-buck’ exercises.

Do an underhand barbell row and really squeeze your biceps to get more recruitment there. Do a weighted chin and really squeeze your biceps. If that’s what you’re trying to do. The focus of this video is building bigger biceps. Do those.

Do your barbell cheat curls. But don’t forget these because you never want to forget the fact that this is the basis of al