The bicep muscles are those that run from the front of your shoulders to your elbow. It is essential to perform bicep workouts as they are crucial to lifting, pushing, and pulling. If ignored, it will be difficult to perform basic routine tasks as one age.
One must know that arms are directly exposed to all the hard work that you do in the gym. They respond quickly to the training and show quicker results. However, the primary concern is quite a few people perform the wrong exercises. People fail to realise that bicep workouts require more than just lifting heavy weights.
We bring you a beginner’s guide with simple exercises to help you tone your biceps and triceps:
- Standing Dumbell curl:
A classic rep in the bicep workouts, it is planned to increase the strength around biceps.
Steps: Grab a pair of dumbbells and let them hang at your arm’s length to your sides. Turn your arms, so that the palms face forward. With your elbows positioned at the side of your body, the stress lies most on the bicep. Try to curl the dumbbells as close to your shoulders as you can, pause and return to the starting position.
- Triceps pushdown:
The exercise is designed for tricep workouts and uses cable wires as equipment.
Steps: You need to fix a cable station with a bar attached to its pulley. With the help of an overhand grip, hold the bar. Try to maintain stability by positioning your feet at shoulder’s width apart with knees bent. Pull the bar down with your forearms parallel the floor, elbows close to the body, let the forearms do the exercise. While bringing the bar slowly to the starting point, keep a tab on your breathing.
- Hammer Curl:
The reason why they are called hammer curl is that they require hammer-handle- like grip on the dumbbell you perform. The exercise is prepared to build the arm muscles. Hence it comes under bicep workouts.
Steps: Grab a pair of dumbbells but hold them with a firm grip at arm’s length next to your sides with your palms facing your thighs. Keep your torso stationary, curl the dumbbells as close to your shoulders as you can. Pause for a while and then return to the starting position.
- Barbell curl:
One of the major mistakes that lifters do is, swinging the body back to assist in moving the weight up. It is biceps who need to move the weight solely.
Steps: Stand straight with chest up, core braced and clutch the barbell at a shoulder-width grip. Holding the upper arm stationary, curl the weights forward, continue the movement till the bar is at shoulder level and then squeeze the biceps hard. Start to lower the bar slowly to bring it back to the starting position.
It should be noted that nutrition is as essential as weight training in bicep workouts. Your body will require large amounts of protein to build the strength. Hence, maintain a nutritious diet while bodybuilding and involve professional help, if needed.