A Workout for your Biceps muscle (without dumbells)

Hello fellow MAist,

I want to ask you guys (especially girls) what type of workout for it. I did think of using dumbells but my Daddy refuses and discouraging to buy me one. Maybe because he's afraid that her young lady would bulked up and looks like Arnold Shwarzenenger(sorry if the spelling is wrong).

Does push ups help? I don't think so because I've been doing it and it's my triceps that's toning up. I want to tone my biceps and strengthen it too, just like my triceps.

So, if you guys has a workout that works, please share it.

Thank You. :love:

Intan :Angel:

 

For the biceps and no dumbells?

Chins - Lots o' 'em, that's about the only one I can think of.....or just pull anything, it works the biceps when you pull.....

|Cain|

 

Are you trying to sound dirty?!

I'm not sure how effective my method is, but I use some breathing forms. After warm up, I do muscle resistance against my own muscle. I breath in, and relax my body. I breath out I tense up all my muscles and I do a motion. It can be pushing against the Air, pretending I'm pulling something up, pretending I'm pushing something down. I'm sure you can think of a 'Pulling' motion you can use instead.

 

I find doing 25lb curls harder than chin ups, for biceps anyway. Maybe the rest of my body is just in a bigger pain, that I don't notice, but I never feel the burn after chin-ups in my biceps.

PL

 

Intan86, you can modify your pushups to work your biceps. You just have to make the negative phase of the workout challenging.

When you go up, you usuually do so in an explosive motion. Whenever you go down however, you should resist the temptation to go down fast. Go down slow, VERY SLOW. You can also modify the positive phase (when going up) for the push ups this way to work your biceps harder.

 

When doing pushups, you can do them with elbows out or with the elbows close to your side. With the elbows close to your side, it works the biceps more than the triceps and with the elbows out, it works more the triceps.

You also might try isometrics. I think someone was mentioning this before. Here is an example of an isometric exercise that works the biceps....

Put your hands in front of you beside your chest with palms out. Now, push forward as if you are trying to push in a brickwall and there is a lot of resistance there. You should be shaking as you do this, it creates dynamic tension.

I recommend either getting a book or looking up on the net for isometric exercises. Also, your dad might be more receptive of you getting a resistance cord. It can give you a pretty good work out without the weights and works a lot like isometrics do.

 

In Scouts and the militree we used to: put our arm at 90, with the forearm straight out and the bicep/tricep part against your side. With the other arm press down on the wrist and pull up with the forearm. Hold for 1 minute.

Another vote for chin ups and push ups.

 

When you're doing this isometric thingy, are you face down on the floor and push or are you standing up and pretend that you're pushing a brick of walls?


Thanks to all of you who have contributed their biceps workout.

 

No, this is done from standing and the "brick wall" that I mentioned is just in your mind. I was making the example that you should have enough tension and be going slow enough that it feels like you are pushing on an immovable object.

 

I have never heard of pushups working your biceps...

PL

 

Consider this, the first time you did pushups, the parts that hurt would probably be where the chest muscles meet your shoulders, where the muscles of your upper arms meet at the elbows (triceps and biceps).

If the negative phase is made slower, the exercise will be more challenging for the biceps.

 

As far as I know you never use your biceps in any sort of pushup...in the descent you are merely applying more resistance with your triceps etc to make it slower, not pulling yourself down.

 

In the negative phase the antagonistic muscles are mostly at work (in this case, the biceps among other muscle groups). You do not pull yourself down with your biceps, you exert force with your biceps to slow the downward motion.

This is the reason why the squat which is believed to work the quadriceps and the buttocks, also develops your back, your hamstrings, and even your calves.

 

You don't use biceps to slow down motion. Biceps are used to bend your elbows, so your forarm and back arm move together. ONLY. Slowing your decent is all triceps.

PL

 

In squats, as far as I know, the hamstrings, calves, and back are worked because they are used as stabilizers to keep the form.

This is not the case with biceps in pushups

 

Biceps are used in that manner but for the purpose of this exercise they are also used to slow down the negatives. Have you ever wondered why we can support more resistance in the negative phase than in the positive phase? This is one of the reasons why. The both triceps and biceps help slow you down!

This is just one of their functions during the exercise. During the negative phase in which you do this part very slowly, they serve not only to stabilize but also to slow down the motion because they are the antagonists of the prime movers.

 

Because it's easier to slow down a fall than to shoot upwards. I suggest you go study the human body. Biceps have nothing to do with pushing up, and the down phase of a push up is still pushing up, just with not enough force to go up.

PL

 

I think you failed to understand the context of my statement. The down phase of the push up is indeed pushing up, but the triceps and the biceps assist each other on the deceleration. This is how antagonistic mscles work.

Remarks like this really get my debating juices flowing. Do courses in biomechanics mean anything to you? Ever study exercise physiology? Maybe it should be you who should do some research.

Has anybody here wondered why it is recommended by sports scientists to slow down on the negatives? Has anybody wondered why when bench pressing for the first time, the muscles that are sore are those of the chest, the triceps and the biceps?

Maybe you should try the pushup modifications I mentioned. Go up fast, but go down very slow (say 20 seconds). Then tell me it's not hard on the biceps.

 

Well said.

It's completely irrelevant that that the biceps are antagonistic muscles to the triceps, as the triceps are not exerting any downward force, gravity is. Thus, you are still pushing against the pull of gravity with your triceps etc, yet simply not enough to go up, only enough to slow your descent. This is why you can go down with more weight than you can push up, because you don't need to exert nearly as much force, not because your biceps help you.

Nope. Mainly because my biceps weren't sore...and I completely understood why my triceps and pecs were . As for the slowing down on the negatives I was under the impression that it targeted the slow twitch muscles fibres more.

 

Why is it then that the muscles of antagonistic muscles activitated when doing such exercises as the squat and the bench press?