Best Bicep Exercises

The best bicep exercises are the weight lifting exercises that allow you to use the heaviest weight.

If you've had the opportunity to read through the muscle building section of the WLC System manual, you'll find out why heavier weights lead to building muscle at a much faster weight.

When you choose the bicep exercises that allow you to lift HEAVY weight, your biceps will grow faster and become stronger much faster.

You must find weight lifting exercises that also work the biceps muscle through its full range of motion.

You'll see that I highly recommend dumbbell exercises over many barbell exercises.

This is because you can work the biceps through a much greater range of motion with dumbbells.

If you pay attention to each of the exercise videos below…

You'll see the range of motion of each exercise and the stretch in the biceps during each rep. Getting a really good stretch at the bottom of each rep is another one of the keys to building muscle. This works exceptionally well with the biceps.

Stretching ANY muscle under a heavy load will really trigger that muscle building stimulus that you need to build muscle from each and every workout.

One of the best exercises for getting a good stretch in the biceps is incline dumbbell curls. This is one of my favorites and all you need is an adjustable weight bench and a pair of heavy dumbbells. Heavy is ALWAYS relative to your strength levels.

You'll see incline dumbbell curls mentioned below, and you'll be able to watch a great exercise video showing you how to do this great exercise.

Here Are The Best Bicep Exercises:

I think many of these exercises are going to shock you. Most people ONLY think of preacher curls, machine curls, barbell curls, and other types of curls as the BEST bicep exercises. You'll find my opinion to be much different. Remember, overloading the muscle by lifting heavy weights is the MOST important factor in building muscle.

#1 Close Grip Chin Ups and Pull Ups

Close grip chin ups and close grip pull ups are THE BEST bicep exercises in existence. Overloading the biceps is the BEST WAY to build the bicep muscles.

Which exercise do you think will overload the biceps more? (1) Close grip pull ups with body weight plus 45 extra pounds around your waist OR (2) 45 pound alternate dumbbell curls?

Both the close grip chin ups and the alternate dumbbell curls are great exercises BUT the close grip pull up will overload the biceps so much more. This means they are THE better option. You also get a great stretch in the biceps if you do a full range of motion with the pull ups and NOT cut the rep short in the full stretch position.

Here's a good video of close grip chin ups that will really hit the biceps hard:

Here's a good video of parallel grip close grip chin ups. I like this one because the guy uses resistance bands to add even more resistance to the chin up. Watch the biceps working hard.

Now let's move on to the next set of best bicep exercises…

#2 Barbell Rows and Dumbbell Rows

Rows of all types are another one of the best exercises for the biceps. Rows allow you (like chin ups) to lift very heavy weight. The weight you use on barbell rows should be very close or more than the weight you are bench pressing.

My favorite rowing exercise is 1-arm dumbbell rows because you can really overload the biceps when using this exercise. I like to use my entire body to help me complete the lift which increases the amount of weight I am using. This really overloads the biceps and provide a great stretch in the arm too.

Notice the HUGE amount of weight he is using. This is one of the strongest guys in the world so please don't try to start out lifting this amount of weight. Start out light and slowly increase as you become stronger over the workouts and weeks.

Rows are the second best bicep exercise. Let's move onto the more popular curls as they are a great exercise for the biceps.

#3 Curls

Curls are the probably the most popular bicep exercises. The chin ups may have been a surprise to you as well as the rows BUT I'm sure curls are not.

BUT, I have some tips for you on choosing the best curling exercises for your biceps. Keep in mind… there are tons and tons of variations of curls. Any curling movement is going to build the biceps.

Again, one key to building the biceps is overloading the muscle. The same is true with all muscles. Overloading the biceps can be done by using really heavy weights on back exercises like rows and pull ups.

My absolute favorite curling exercise is the alternate dumbbell curl. I love this exercise because you are able to really shift your body weight to give you a mechanical advantage. This allows you to lift heavier weight overall and get the extra benefits.

Notice the extra little curl inwards at the top of the movement. This is very important when using alternate dumbbell curls so make sure you're doing that at the top of every rep.

Incline dumbbell curls are another favorite of mine and REALLY allows you to get an extra stretch in the biceps. I like to alternate these as well so one arm gets an extra long stretch while the other is performing the rep. This stretch does amazing things for your arms.

I like to also use my body weight some with the incline curls so I do shift my weight to the side much more than the woman shown in the exercise video above. I like to focus in on the negative with these and make sure I am always lowering the weight under control with this exercise.

Since we're talking about exercises that give a great stretch, I don't want to leave out preacher curls. You'll be trading heavy weight for a great stretch here so these aren't the best bicep exercises since overloading the muscle is #1 BUT preacher curls are one of the better exercises.

I didn't want to leave out preacher curls as they have worked very well for me in the past with some of the weight lifting programs I have designed.

If you haven't yet built a great strength base, I do not recommend preacher curls at this time. If you have spent some time with the big compound weight lifting exercises and still need to work on building the biceps, you'll want to try preacher curls.

First, stick with the best exercises #1 and #2 given above (close grip chin ups and rows) and then you can move to curls when needed.