Jim Gem: A Better Biceps Peak

There's not a guy alive who isn't interested in a more impressive biceps peak. And while the amount of peak you have on your biceps is genetically predetermined to an extent, that doesn't mean you can't drastically improve what you've got. The key is proper exercise selection. The majority of the peak that pops up when you flex your biceps is made up of the biceps' long (outer) head. And although both the long head and short (inner) head work together to flex the arm, you can place better emphasis on the long head with the right techniques.

I covered three such techniques in a recent Tip of the Day video (I posted the video below in case you missed it):

1. Curl with your upper arms behind your body – ie, behind-the-back cable curls , incline dumbbell curls and Smith machine drag curls
2. Perform curls with the arms turned in toward the body – as in concentration curls and barbell curls with a close grip (hip width or closer)
3. Use a neutral grip – any version of hammer curl (dumbbell hammer curls being the most common, but cable hammer curls using a rope attachment work great too)

Give the following "peak-focused" biceps routine a try to target the long head for a more impressive pair of pipes. I broke it up into two separate weekly workouts to accomodate the various exercises that target the long head. Give your biceps at least two full days of rest between workouts. And feel free to do these workouts whenever you normally train biceps in your split – with back, triceps, chest, etc.

Workout 1

*Do the first two sets with a narrow grip (inside shoulder-width) to emphasize the biceps' long head.

**Don't take an official rest – go back and forth from arm to arm until three sets per arm are completed.

Workout 2

*Make sure your hands are inside shoulder-width to emphasize the long head.

**On your last set of cable curls, do 1-2 drop sets after reaching failure with the initial weight; because it's a cable exercise , lightening the load is a simple matter of moving the pin up the stack.

Download This Routine

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