Got Built?

My formal education is in Statistics – and while there are lies, damned lies and statistics, the fact is that statistics is a game of good guesswork.

Face it – we work in a black box. We gather and analyze data, approximating truth with our models. We never actually know if we’re right (Hell, as Statisticians, if we did, we’d be out of jobs!), but repeated experiments produce converging evidence – and like multiple beams of light, eventually there’s enough brightness that we’re pretty sure of what we’re seeing.

I’ve noticed that many of life’s mysteries follow a similar pattern.

So how about we cast some beams of light on bicep growth?

Steve Holman authored a neat little trick I like to incorporate into some of my workouts. His premise involves hitting the agonist – the primary mover in a given exercise – under three “positions of flexion”: midrange, stretched, and contracted.

Holman’s three-step process is set up like this:

1. Heavy compound – any big mass-mover (what Holman calls a “midrange” movement) to hit the fibres hard.
2. Eccentric contraction – something that works the agonist in the stretch-position to prime the myotatic or stretch reflex, the involuntary contraction experienced by a muscle that is suddenly stretched. You see, a fully stretched muscle is at its weakest. Flexing it from this position triggers an emergency response, and thus more fibres are recruited to get you out of that awkward position before you hurt yourself. Another function of this stretch is ostensibly to open up the fascia – the silvery skin around the “roasts” that are your muscles. Stretch the bag and the muscle has more room to grow. The same principal is behind the loaded passive stretches I’ve mentioned in some of my writing.
3. Contracted position – basically a tension/pumping/concentration type of movement with a light-enough weight to rep out for a pump at the end.

Christian Thibaudeau uses a method that’s exactly the same – only different.

Thibaudeau’s “3 Ways to Get Big!” shows how to combine

1. Low-range, heavy lifting: Compound movements such as squats, deads and barbell bench work well for this – in 5-rep sets or lower. These mass-movers not only induce a great deal of hypertrophy-inducing microtrauma, but also set up your subsequent lifts through neural activation.
2. Mid-range, volume/cumulative-fatigue training: typically 8-12 rep work with short rests, to fatigue the muscle-fibres. Note that this is sometimes called the “hypertrophy” range. Drop-sets and “one and a half” contractions are included in this method.
3. High-range, constant-tension: this is light-ish weights, lifted in long, slow sets where the “pump” actually slows blood-flow while lactate accumulates. The ensuing hypoxia starves the oxidative slow-twitch of needed oxygen, so the fast-twitch get more stimulation – at least in theory. (MariAnne’s note: a weird tempo I’ve found works very well for this is a two-second contraction with a one-second eccentric; yes, you too can feel the joy of a cosmetic pump!)

It’s the method incorporated into Baby Got Back, and it’s a keeper.

Third in my little exercise in pattern-recognition is the work of renowned strength and conditioning coach Charles Poliquin, who popularized the notion of “time under tension” (TUT).

Setting aside arguments-against, the basic premise of Poliquin’s principal is as follows:

1. Strength/power: optimal TUT is given as 4-20 seconds, usually seen in low, 1-6 rep sets.
2. Hypertrophy: Poliquin suggests the optimal TUT for size is 40-60 seconds, usually seen in the so-called “hypertrophy” range: 6-15 rep sets.
3. Muscle endurance: Poliquin’s optimal TUT for endurance is the high-rep 70-100 second-set, were you’re pumping away for 15-30 rep sets.

Beams of light EVERYWHERE! Are you thinking about how they might converge to build you killer pipes?

I’m glad you’re thinking about this… See, a long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was pining for pipes, my friend Glenn Hargrove taught me a sweet little sequence for biceps. Quite honestly, I was amazed. The first time I tried it, I felt the skin on my arms stretch. In retrospect, I think that was the moment the “disease” quickened, but I digress…

I didn’t know enough to place names on any of the reasons WHY this worked so well, but opportunist that I am, it didn’t stop me from USING it!

So here it is – the magical three-step formula you could attribute to Thibaudeau, Holman or Poliquin – or you can just blame Hargrove like I do.

Step 1: Alternating dumbbell curls, 5 sets of 5; tempo: up for one, down for two. Pause for one, curl hard at the top. Go as heavy as you can with good form. At least a minute rest between sets.

Steps 2 and 3 are supersets:
3 supersets of

• 8-rep incline dumbbell curls (eccentric contraction / constant tension – stretches out the muscle and arguably the fascia)
• 8-12 rep close grip pulldowns on lat cable (cumulative fatigue / concentric, pumps the now-stretched out and warm muscle full of blood. Also hits brachialis. You’ll notice a KILLER pump)

When you do the incline curls, go SLOW, and considerably lighter than you would with the heavy alternating dumbbell curls. Kinda “open them up” as you go down – leave your palms up the whole way, unlike with the heavy dumbbell curls, where your palm faces your hip at the bottom of the movement.

This is a STRETCHING exercise more than anything else. You CAN tear a bicep off the bone. Most of us are not strong enough to use weights that are likely to accomplish this, but it IS possible. Scared? Good. Now go slow for these. I’m not kidding.

For the close-grip pulldowns, try this weird tempo: pull down for two-second concentric, and go up for a count of one. Full stretch up, squeeeeze as you curl it slowly down, and pause for a brief moment at full contraction. Unlike a lat-pull-down, you want to sit up ramrod straight

(As an added perk, you’ll feel your abs for DAYS after this one.)

The relative weights for these exercises are roughly as follows:

• If you curl 20 lbs an arm for the heavy dumbbell curls, do the 10s for the inclines, and set the pin at 80 lbs for the close-grip pulldowns.
• I curl 30 lbs an arm, so I use the 15s for the inclines, and set the pin at 120 lbs for the pulldowns.

You will likely deviate from this a bit as you work up the increments, but you’ll probably be fairly close: half as much for the inclines as the upright, and double what both arms curl for the close-grips.

A final word on arm development…
Biceps are “Hollywood” muscles – they’re easy (okay, and fun!) to pump and show, but if you want your arms to look BIG, don’t forget to build your arm’s “silent partners”: triceps. The bicep gives your arm shape, but overall arm size comes mostly from the tri.

That being said, nobody at the beach ever asks you to flex your “horseshoes” – hooray for Hollywood!

Copyright February 2009