Concentration curls...
Discussion
If it was just for the last couple of reps I'd assist with the other hand but if struggling near the start of the set I'd drop to a lighter dumbbell. Nothing wrong with dropping to a 12Kg or 10Kg by the time you've finished.
Is there a reason you 'have to' do the sets with 15Kg?
Is there a reason you 'have to' do the sets with 15Kg?
Edited by Xerstead on Sunday 12th January 13:43
^ Agreed.
Your PT should be doing something a bit more interesting than basic sets a you could do this yourself, and I certainly hope there is progression in this routine (realistically you should only be aiming to do 3 sets x 12 reps of 15kg once before moving on). And if they are giving you basic sets of 3, you should only be reaching failure toward the end of the last set, not the 2nd. So yeah, the weight for the rep range is too heavy. Lower the weight or lower the reps... (or get a better PT).
Your PT should be doing something a bit more interesting than basic sets a you could do this yourself, and I certainly hope there is progression in this routine (realistically you should only be aiming to do 3 sets x 12 reps of 15kg once before moving on). And if they are giving you basic sets of 3, you should only be reaching failure toward the end of the last set, not the 2nd. So yeah, the weight for the rep range is too heavy. Lower the weight or lower the reps... (or get a better PT).
TheBALDpuma said:
If gettin big in a short space of time is your goal, I'd say you're wasting your time entirely with bicept curls.
Buuttt getting big does involve some good volume, so I'd agree with the above - 15kg is probably too heavy for 3 sets worth.
What he said!Buuttt getting big does involve some good volume, so I'd agree with the above - 15kg is probably too heavy for 3 sets worth.
Put your full programme and diet up here and you'll get some great advice from some experts.
You'll also get me saying squat loads but you can ignore that bit.........
Digger said:
As an aside could peeps give their opinions on the three hardest hitting bicep exercises? If the OP doesn't mind? 
There is no such thing. All bicep isolated exercises are variations of a curl. They're all pretty much the same and very rarerly worth doing.I haven't done biecp specific work for years and have not lost any size/strength. There is nothing wrong with specific arm work, expect for the fact that it really is a waste of time. People will dedicate whole workouts to arms, or half a workout (back and bis) when in comparison to the rest of you are such a small body muscle which gets worked very hard when doing decent back work (rows, chins etc).
If your goal is to get bigger biceps, then you need more "Time under tension" to increase hypertrophy. Drop the weight to something you can manege to do a high volume with. If you are starting to really stuggle in the second set I'd suggest the weigh is too much.
To be honest i don't see the point in doing isolated bicep work, I'll do Barbell curls as a bit of fun at the end of the last workout of the week on a saturday but that's with Fat grips for forearm/grip work.
To be honest i don't see the point in doing isolated bicep work, I'll do Barbell curls as a bit of fun at the end of the last workout of the week on a saturday but that's with Fat grips for forearm/grip work.
Tiggsy said:
Never understood bicep work.....given its two 5ths of the upper arm - do you spend the relevant extra on tricep work? And given the arm is so little of the upper body - what the hell do you do for back????
What's not to understand? For almost all people (whether they're willing to admit to it or not), improving how they look is an enormous part of the reason for their training. Having bigger arms is part of that and bicep curls are a pretty good way of getting bigger arms.I'm not sure why working your biceps would preclude someone from working on their triceps or doing back work.
bonkbonk said:
What's not to understand? For almost all people (whether they're willing to admit to it or not), improving how they look is an enormous part of the reason for their training. Having bigger arms is part of that and bicep curls are a pretty good way of getting bigger arms.
I'm not sure why working your biceps would preclude someone from working on their triceps or doing back work.
I think his point is if you do say 10 sets of biceps then multiplying by how much more mass you have in your back you should be doing 100s of sets to make it fair. I'm not sure why working your biceps would preclude someone from working on their triceps or doing back work.
The thing is you don't need to bicep curl to get big biceps.
TheBALDpuma said:
I think his point is if you do say 10 sets of biceps then multiplying by how much more mass you have in your back you should be doing 100s of sets to make it fair.
The thing is you don't need to bicep curl to get big biceps.
But no one said anything about 10 sets, I think the OP mentions 3 sets of curls, I don't really see why that can't be part of a sensible program! The thing is you don't need to bicep curl to get big biceps.
You don't need bicep curls to get big biceps but if you can perform them safely they can certainly help and will have a nice carryover to your rows and pullups.
bonkbonk said:
But no one said anything about 10 sets, I think the OP mentions 3 sets of curls, I don't really see why that can't be part of a sensible program!
You don't need bicep curls to get big biceps but if you can perform them safely they can certainly help and will have a nice carryover to your rows and pullups.
10 sets was just an example. But you also don't need any bigger biceps than you need to do a good row/chin, as in you will get much better proportion if your biceps are trained in a compound lift, rather than isolating them and getting biceps bigger in relative terms than your torso. Big arms but 6 inches front to back in the chest isn't a good look.You don't need bicep curls to get big biceps but if you can perform them safely they can certainly help and will have a nice carryover to your rows and pullups.
I'm not saying people should never do bicep curls, but people put way too much emphasis on them. As I said in my first post, I did give advice to the OPs specific question. A large % of the guys in my gyms do an arms day, or spend 50% of a chest/tris, back/bis on the small muscle group.
From my perspective bicep curls are useful for elbow injuries or in sport where flexion/stability at the elbow is very important.
DD - Just because big boys do bicep curls, it isn't neccessarily why they have big biceps - but I'm sure you know what anyway. That being said, it could also be why. I'm also of the mindset (unlike a lot of guys it seems) that big arms is the least important part of being big. I'd actually be interested to see if in a controlled environment bicep curling boys got bigger biceps than boys not doing bicep curls but with the same volume of overall work. Would be an extremely difficult study to do as there are so many variables and it would be very difficult to control.
TheBALDpuma said:
10 sets was just an example. But you also don't need any bigger biceps than you need to do a good row/chin, as in you will get much better proportion if your biceps are trained in a compound lift, rather than isolating them and getting biceps bigger in relative terms than your torso. Big arms but 6 inches front to back in the chest isn't a good look.
I'm not saying people should never do bicep curls, but people put way too much emphasis on them. As I said in my first post, I did give advice to the OPs specific question. A large % of the guys in my gyms do an arms day, or spend 50% of a chest/tris, back/bis on the small muscle group.
From my perspective bicep curls are useful for elbow injuries or in sport where flexion/stability at the elbow is very important.
Well that's by no means guaranteed, different people have different levers and movement patterns and will respond in different ways. You might find one guy who gets more than enough arm work from just doing pullups but someone else who doesn't recruit their arms as much might find their arms lag without a bit of direct work. Personally I found adding a few sets of curls here and there got me through a plateau in the row and had the added benefit of adding some arm mass.I'm not saying people should never do bicep curls, but people put way too much emphasis on them. As I said in my first post, I did give advice to the OPs specific question. A large % of the guys in my gyms do an arms day, or spend 50% of a chest/tris, back/bis on the small muscle group.
From my perspective bicep curls are useful for elbow injuries or in sport where flexion/stability at the elbow is very important.
You're right, plenty of people do get it wrong, but just because some people are training biceps 5 times a week does not mean direct arm work can't be a sensible addition for those of us who put a bit more thought into the gym.
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