How to pump up biceps at home without dumbbells quickly?

In truth, the biceps or biceps brachii muscle is one of the most useless muscles in sports (with the possible exception of arm wrestling). While not very large or extremely strong, the shoulder flexors are only indirectly involved in most strength movements, but they are, without a doubt, the most popular muscle that people think of first when it comes to bodybuilding.



In our opinion, these muscles owe their popularity to their location: after all, in order for others to see, say, the abdominal muscles, you need to expose your torso, while large “cans” cannot be hidden, even if you are wearing a long-sleeved sweater, which is extremely important for our cold weather ...

The biceps muscle also has another significant advantage: due to the small size of this muscle group, its training will not require you to have prohibitive intensity, large weights and a variety of equipment. You can quickly pump up your biceps at home, even without dumbbells, weights and barbells - it will be enough to hang a horizontal bar or find a crossbar on a nearby playground, school stadium or sports campus...

An excursion into anatomy.

To answer the question: How to pump up biceps at home without dumbbells quickly, let’s first turn to anatomy, because it will shed light on some important points for us...

So, in order to make quick progress in training, let's study the structure of the biceps. The biceps brachii muscle consists of a long and a short head, the key function of which is to flex the arm directly at the elbow joint, as well as externally rotate the forearm (movement: supination). It is important to mention another deep muscle called the brachialis, which is located under the biceps, helping it flex the arm. The brachialis itself is not visible, but if you swing it, it will significantly increase the volume of the arm, as if “pushing” the superficial biceps outward.

Pull-ups to the chest.

Having dealt with the anatomy, let's move on to the training program. The main exercise aimed at both developing biceps strength and mass will be pull-ups. There are many variations of this exercise, but we are interested in reverse grip pull-ups and pull-ups along the bar.

Reverse grip pull-ups are the hardest, and then done first while you still have enough strength.

Execution: grab the bar with a reverse grip (palms facing you); depending on the width of the grip, the emphasis will shift from the long head of the biceps to the short one - the wider the grip, the more the short head works and vice versa. We try to perform 12 repetitions in 5 approaches. If you can do more, you should do pull-ups with additional weight, for example, wearing a backpack.

Pull-ups along the bar.

The second exercise will be pull-ups along the bar.

Execution: place one fist after the other, as if holding a telescope before your eye. This grip shifts the emphasis to the brachialis. To effectively pump it up, perform pull-ups, trying to touch the bar with your chest. With each repetition, move your head away from the bar. The number of repetitions should be increased to 15-20 because The brachialis is a very resilient muscle.

Dumbbell biceps curls.

Well, we finish off the target group with the third exercise: biceps curls from a standing or sitting position.

Stop! We initially agreed that we work without dumbbells or barbells, so to speak, at home with an absolute minimum of sports equipment... And no one talks about dumbbells or barbells! If you don’t have these sports equipment, use improvised ones. For example, a couple of bricks, suitcases or bags stuffed with something heavy, or plastic bottles filled with water. Even with such improvised rubbish, you can do double-headed climbs.

It’s absolutely ideal if you also periodically do reverse biceps exercises - the same shoulder flexor lifts, but with simultaneous external rotation of the wrist and forearm: at the lower point of the amplitude - a grab, at the top point - a grab. Also good is periodic work with a “hammer grip” - the so-called Zotman curls.

All this will allow you to extremely quickly pump up your shoulder flexor at home without dumbbells and barbells, with almost a complete minimum of sports equipment...

Intensity and volume of load.

It is also important to remember: biceps are very easy to overtrain, so we do not recommend training them more than twice a week. Eat right and devote enough time to your recovery, and then success in bodybuilding will be guaranteed to you...