Things just aren’t what they used to be. Back in the days when the A to Z of bodybuilding was Arnold to Zane, bodybuilding training was simple. The guys weren’t dependent upon 10,000 pieces of equipment with cables and pulley leverage designed to tug at the muscle group from varying angles. Rather, men trained with heavy, solid pieces of welded iron and bench. Instead of opting for today’s wide array of ‘fancy-schmancy’ pumping exercises, why not choose the plain ol classic used by the greats of the past to add their mass? Choose Barbell Curls! Barbell curls can be highly effective, particularly when completed correctly. However, rushing through them, letting them damage your wrist, or using them too much can be counter-productive as well. Let’s examine a few ideas for making the excellent exercise even ...

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Arm day has arrived. You might be nursing some soreness from the chest, back, and shoulder days which preceded it. However, this is no time to go soft and sell yourself short with excuses. The time to take it to the next level is now. Check out this heavy and intense arm workout which combines biceps, triceps, and forearm movements to deliver a complete arm pump that will leave you sore for days. Biceps Begin your arm day with a few relaxed repetitions of chin ups, pushups, and forearm rolls to get the blood moving to the arms. Then, 2 to 3 light sets of dumbbell curls should be adequate for warming up the biceps. Standing barbell curls Keep it simple. Four sets of 6 to 12 repetitions with solid form, and a little bit of cheating at the ...

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Sloppy works, when it comes to many things in life. You don’t care if your protein shake has a few ounces of water extra or lacking. You don’t really notice if your morning omelet contains 12 or 14 egg whites. If you complete 32 minutes instead of 30 on the treadmill, your body fat level isn’t going to notice all that much. These things allow for, and sometimes even embrace a little bit of sloppiness.  There are some things, however, which do not. Biceps training is one of them.   When you train biceps, you have to do so like you are a man on a mission, with a very clear map. Wandering into the dumbbell area and just attempting to bounce around for a pump just isn’t the right way to go about seeing some new ...

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The barbell curl is often the first exercise a bodybuilder will discover in the gym, and one which delivers terrific results in terms of upper arm mass when they are completed correctly. This is the tricky part, however. Many bodybuilders don’t complete the exercise correctly, and there isn’t a great deal of literature out there dedicated to proper completion of slow and effective barbell curls. Here are four tips for making your barbell curls more productive. Back it up! Keep your back straight for the entire duration of this movement. Slouching or bending over not only places your lower back and neck at risk of injury, but also removes the workload from the biceps and draws it to other parts of the body. If you have a tough time keeping your back straight, you may want to consider ...

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We’ve all seen those guys in the gym wearing tight workout gear while dominating the scale at a very brutal 145 pounds. They hop from machine to machine, working their tails off yet never really moving that much weight. And, as the years pass, they never really look much different either. They don’t look worse, per se. But they don’t look better. They use circuit training (lining up multiple movements in a row) to train their full body. Their bodies reach a level of development congruent with the demand of circuit training, and they stop growing. Should we write off circuit training as a result? Not necessarily. We can mock the level of development of these spandex giants, but if we apply our own understanding of hard work and progressive resistance to ...

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The most successful workout routines – those that deliver the best bodybuilding results – are those which we create ourselves. They utilize the movements we like best. They include those machines and lifting options available at the gyms we train in. After all, we all know how hard it can be to use one of those advanced FLEX magazine training routines in out home gym in the garage. Here are five upper-body bodybuilding movements which should be used when creating your own workout routine. Each of them involves the use of free weights, which delivers both strength and size. They are also movements which can be done in any gym, from an advanced commercial facility to an old Weider bench in the basement. Bench Press This movement is the foundation for most bodybuilding routines, and is ...

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In the early days of bodybuilding, trainers entered the gym on Monday morning and they trained for MASS.  Lots of compound sets, lots of heavy weights, and they trained the entire body.  They went to lunch and the gym afterwards, and then they took the next day off.  They returned Wednesday, then Friday, and they did it again!  Very popular in those days were the “Golden Six”, a group of six compound movements which essentially trained the whole body using mostly free weights, and lots of heavy weight.  Here is a sample workout using the Golden Six movements. Bench Press = 4 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions Squat = 4 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions Military Press = 3 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions Deadlift = 3 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions Barbell Curls = 3 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions ...

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Q:  I’ve got a couple of problems with my biceps. Firstly, whenever I do barbell curls I feel more of a burn in my forearms than my biceps. And secondly, I can’t seem to get any peak on my biceps. What’s the key to building an Arnold style bicep peak? A: That’s easy – go back in time to 1947 and get yourself hatched from a sweet little Austrian woman named Auriela. Failing that you could work with your OWN potential. You see, muscle shape is a pre-determined genetic factor in our make-up. And, unfortunately, an Everest type bicep peak doesn’t get dished out that often. Every once in a while you get your Arnolds, your Robby Robinsons and your Boyer Coes. Meanwhile the rest of us have to work with what we’ve got. Which doesn’t mean that you can’t build some damn ...

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