Ask a novice bodybuilder or fitness enthusiast what they want – this almost exclusively applies to the men among us, sorry ladies – and big biceps will quickly come up. In gyms and fitness centers, you often see many people regularly training their arms, often at the expense of the less popular muscle groups.
Big arms, especially the biceps, capture the imagination more than muscular legs or a broad back. They radiate strength and are usually the first muscles other people see and admire. So, it’s no wonder that larger, rounder biceps are high on many people’s wish lists.
These days, you have access to all kinds of equipment in every gym, ready to train any muscle group. For biceps, there are various machines that can train your biceps from various angles. But did you know that there are also many bicep exercises you can do with just a barbell?
I’ve done some research and compiled the eight (yes, you read it right… EIGHT!) best barbell exercises for the biceps for you, and for almost all exercises, I’ve also found a video (some with explanations) showing you the movement.
Barbell Curls
The most well-known and commonly performed bicep exercise is the barbell curl. This is the standard exercise for the biceps, and every bodybuilder with big arms has performed this movement thousands of times. The barbell curl is to the biceps what the squat is to the leg muscles, or the bench press is to the chest.
The execution is very simple:
- stand upright and hold the barbell with an underhand grip (palms facing forward) at shoulder-width apart
- let your arms hang completely straight
- now, raise the barbell upward while keeping your upper arms stationary
- when your hands can’t move upward anymore, hold the barbell for a moment while squeezing your biceps hard
- then slowly lower the barbell back to the starting position, with your arms fully extended
At the top, you can optionally move your upper arms slightly forward and bring the barbell to shoulder height to get a better contraction. Don’t overdo it!
Be careful not to swing too much with the barbell; the goal is to move the weight with the strength of your biceps, not to swing the barbell upward, thereby not optimally engaging your biceps.
Wide Grip Barbell Curls
The standard barbell curl targets your entire biceps, both muscle heads simultaneously. It is also – almost – impossible to isolate one of the heads with an exercise, but it is possible to make one muscle head work harder than the other; thus, emphasizing that one head during the movement. This is a technique you might use, for example, to emphasize the inside or outside of your calves during calf raises.
You can also do this emphasis on one side of your muscle with barbell curls. By changing the distance between your hands, you can target the inner head or outer head of your biceps more intensely.
It seems quite counterintuitive, but by placing your hands further apart than shoulder-width, you emphasize the inside of your biceps. This variation of the normal barbell curls is called wide grip barbell curls.
A word of caution: don’t go too wide with this exercise. Your wrists end up in an unnatural position and endure a lot of pressure during the movement, which can lead to tendonitis (mouse arm), which is an inflammation in your tendons. I’ve experienced this same issue and have been very cautious about how I place my hands since then.
Close Grip Barbell Curls
If you have wide grip barbell curls, then there must also be close grip barbell curls, and indeed, there are.
Close grip barbell curls are the same as the normal barbell curl, but with your hands closer together than shoulder-width. You can go very narrow here, but be careful with your wrists and make sure the barbell remains balanced. If not, the consequences can be severe.
The narrower grip puts emphasis on the outside of your biceps during the movement. A well-developed outside of your biceps is particularly noticeable in a pose like the back double biceps.
Cheat Curls
I always emphasize good execution, and now I’m introducing a barbell curl variation that requires the opposite!
The cheat curl is actually the way most people do barbell curls: with too much weight and using their entire body to get that cursed bar up. Arnold Schwarzenegger attributes much of his biceps development to doing cheat curls, and he cheated quite extremely, with a lot of help from his lower back and shoulders.
The whole idea behind the cheat curl is that you can use more weight than you could normally curl, causing the biceps to handle more weight than they normally could. However, it’s not intended for you to use so much weight that you really have to use your entire body to get the weight up. The trick is to choose a weight that you can move with a small movement of your body and that you can get the weight past the ‘sticking point’ with a little help from your shoulders and back.
The power of the cheat curl mainly lies in the downward movement. Your muscles are stronger in the negative movement than in the positive movement, so it’s important to control the barbell back to the starting point before doing the next repetition.
Be careful with cheat curls! The movement is so intense that you risk injuring your muscles when the movement is performed too loosely. Perform the movement in a controlled manner, and you’ll get the most out of cheat curls.
Drag Curls
This is my favorite variation of the regular barbell curl. Drag curls were popularized by Iron Guru Vince Gironda, who always prescribed drag curls to bodybuilders in his gym when they needed more mass in their biceps.
In regular barbell curls, the biceps are assisted by your shoulders. The major advantage of drag curls over barbell curls is that the shoulders are taken out of the movement, putting all the pressure on the biceps. This is because the barbell is not moved in an arc upwards but pulled upward along your body. In a regular curl, your elbows always move slightly forward, involving the front of your shoulders in the exercise. The motion of the drag curl isolates your biceps better than regular curls do.
The execution of the drag curl is simple:
- the starting position is the same as that of regular barbell curls, so standing upright holding the barbell at shoulder-width apart with an underhand grip and arms fully extended
- now, move the barbell up along your body until your forearms are straight ahead and your elbows are pointing backward
- squeeze your biceps hard and reverse the movement
- make sure the barbell always touches your body
Since the movement is shorter than regular barbell curls, it’s important to contract your biceps hard to get the optimal contraction.
Gironda’s way was slightly different: at the ‘forearms-straight’ point, he brought the elbows forward to bring the barbell all the way to the throat. The method as I described it earlier is the way most bodybuilders perform drag curls nowadays. The choice is yours.
You can also do the drag curl with palms facing you, making it more of a reverse curl. However, always pay attention to the correct execution of the drag curl and make sure it doesn’t turn into a disguised upright row. Don’t let your ego take over, but use a weight that you can handle.
Barbell Preacher Curls
Barbell preacher curls were popularized in the 1960s by the first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott. Larry was known for his long and large biceps, which filled his entire upper arm from shoulders to forearms. Although that’s more of a genetic advantage, he attributed his development to using the preacher bench.
Due to the position of the arms on that preacher bench (also known as the Scott Bench), the bottom of the biceps is extra targeted, and the biceps are stretched far. According to Scott, this was the secret to his full biceps development.
Anyway, the preacher bench is now an essential part of a good gym, and it’s a very good addition to training with just barbells and dumbbells. Unfortunately, not all preacher benches are equally good; many of these benches are too hard, poorly or not adjustable, or the angle of the plank is not optimal. If you have access to a good preacher bench, I recommend using it for your bicep training.
The execution of the barbell preacher curl is as follows:
- position the bench so that the arm pad fits into your armpits
- grab the barbell at shoulder-width apart with an underhand grip and place your upper arms on the arm pad
- lower the barbell slowly until your arms are almost fully extended
- bring the barbell back up slowly and squeeze your biceps
Make sure not to overextend when your arms are fully extended, as this can cause a tear. Always perform the movement slowly and controlled.
Of course, you can also experiment with wide grip or small grip curls with the barbell preacher curl. I even recommend it!
Spider Curls
Spider curls offer the same benefits as preacher curls, only spider curls allow for a greater range of motion, giving your muscles extra work.
If you have a preacher bench you can stand at, that’s the best bench to use. If not, it depends on the space you have and the length of your arms whether the bench is usable. Instead of the normal side of the arm pad, you use the other side. A suitable preacher bench has a piece running straight down with padding (that soft stuff where your arms rest), which is very suitable for spider curls.
You do spider curls with a suitable preacher bench as follows:
- hang over the preacher bench and let your arms – holding the barbell with an underhand grip at shoulder-width apart – hang straight down on the ‘wrong’ side
- move the barbell upward while keeping your upper arms pressed against the pad
- squeeze your biceps well and slowly lower the barbell until your arms are fully extended
If you don’t have such a preacher bench at your gym, use an incline bench instead. Lie on it with your stomach and chest against the inclined part (head over it) and let your arms with the barbell hang under the bench, then perform the movement while keeping your upper arms pointing downwards as still as possible.
Barbell Concentration Curls
Concentration curls are almost always done with dumbbells, or at a stretch, with a cable, but with a barbell? Yet, the barbell concentration curl is a perfect way to isolate your biceps and train with heavier weight than with a dumbbell.
You can perform the barbell concentration curl standing, but then you are very doubled over, which doesn’t train so well. The best version uses a bench, just like most concentration curls.
You do the barbell concentration curl as follows:
- sit on the end of a bench and grab the barbell with an underhand grip at slightly less than shoulder-width apart
- lean forward so that the barbell doesn’t quite touch the ground when your arms are fully extended
- bring the barbell up until it reaches your chin. Make sure your upper arms stay pointing downwards
- squeeze your biceps well and slowly lower the barbell back to the starting point
As you can see, the barbell concentration curl is very similar to spider curls, but the concentration curl targets more the belly of the biceps.
Those are all eight! And to make the possibilities even greater, you can do all these exercises for your biceps with an EZ Curl bar or with a cable and a straight bar.
If you really want to seriously increase the size, thickness, and mass of your arms, then leave those bicep machines for what they are and focus on training your biceps with free weights. Your arms will grow faster than you thought possible!
