Strenght gains ... grrrr

Gaz

Been working out hard for the last 6 months or so now, i train hard and ive got a pretty clean diet ... making some great gains in size and strenght.

Except in my biceps ...

For example my one arm bent-over row has gone from 15kg to 32.5Kg, my bench has gone from 40Kg to 70kg and my deadlifts have gone from 60kg to 120kg, im really happy with all this but my bicep curls have been stuck at 10kg, ive tried all the different variations to keep them guessing but today i couldnt manage a second set at 12.5kg.

Only thing i can think of is im doing them last after some hard and heavy compound work (only once a week though) , am i just tired ? Should i train them first ?

Thanks guys

mack1

Thats some good work right there dude!

I'm not far behind you - I started at pretty much the same level and am getting close to your numbers now. I posted a similar question here a while ago and the advice I got was along the lines of:
"Bear in mind that your bis will be getting hit during some of your other exercises such as rows so they will be pretty fatigued by the end of a session. If they are now a priority for you I would say try hitting them first when you're fresh."

I have actually found that as my compound lifts have progressed so have my biceps so I have not really had to concentrate on them thus far, but it's good advice if you want to priorotise them!

Gaz

Thanks man, i hear what your saying but im also afraid of the opposite. I dont want to be fatigued after working my biceps first and then have a poor session at the compound stuff.

Will give it a shot for awhile though.

TerrorFirmer

I'm the very same. Moved to 80kg bench but still stuck on about 15kg dumbell. Is this the same generally for most people? The people I know who go to the gym as well would mostly be around the same - so maybe it's not wholly unusual.

edit: Also, just out of curiosity, what would people think in general about 70-90kg as a weight? Because I'm so conditioned to reading this forum that I feel embarrassed, like it's almost....pathetic? If you get what I mean. Whereas six or seven months ago I remember thinking that 50kg was tough.

Gaz

What im finding a little odd is that my barbell curls have increased , doing sets at 30kg now ... so thats 15kg per arm , right ? Cant do a 15kg dumbell curl though WTF !!

Hanley

HavoK wrote: »

I'm the very same. Moved to 80kg bench but still stuck on about 15kg dumbell. Is this the same generally for most people? The people I know who go to the gym as well would mostly be around the same - so maybe it's not wholly unusual.

edit: Also, just out of curiosity, what would people think in general about 70-90kg as a weight? Because I'm so conditioned to reading this forum that I feel embarrassed, like it's almost....pathetic? If you get what I mean. Whereas six or seven months ago I remember thinking that 50kg was tough.

Trust me, the majority of people here don't bench 90kg. I'd consider it better than about 80% of the normal gym commercial gym populus (based on personal exp).

justsomebloke

OP just as a matter of interest weight wise have you gotten any bigger in the last 6 months and has your arm size come on in that time too. Just remember you are going to be hitting your b arms doing other work so I wouldn't be to worried about bicaep curls to be honest

Gaz

Yeah ive gone from 12 inch biceps to 13.75 and my weight has gone from 76kg to 83kg ... im fairly happy with my progress, just a little frustrating that i dont appear to be making any strenght gains on my arms.

pwd

Maybe you see a lot of guys who focus intently on their biceps so you're used to seeing them a bit bigger than they should be in comparison to the rest of the body?
I would guess the reason the weight you can curl hasn't gone up is because your arms are tired when you do it, as mentioned above.

GerryRyan

OP, find yourself a pull-up bar and knock out some close grip chins for variety.

Some light reading for ya:

http://www.exrx.net/Muscles/BicepsBrachii.html
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/ArmWt.html#anchor1910082

Jumpy

Darth Homer wrote: »

Been working out hard for the last 6 months or so now, i train hard and ive got a pretty clean diet ... making some great gains in size and strenght.

Except in my biceps ...

For example my one arm bent-over row has gone from 15kg to 32.5Kg, my bench has gone from 40Kg to 70kg and my deadlifts have gone from 60kg to 120kg, im really happy with all this but my bicep curls have been stuck at 10kg, ive tried all the different variations to keep them guessing but today i couldnt manage a second set at 12.5kg.

Only thing i can think of is im doing them last after some hard and heavy compound work (only once a week though) , am i just tired ? Should i train them first ?

Thanks guys

How many is in a set for you?

Tazdedub

Hey Darth, I use to have the same problem as yourself with my arms. What I found worked for me was doing my chest and triceps one day and my back and biceps another day, then on the other days I would do a set of curls or triceps extensions at the end of the workout. I found by following that I was able to do more weight on my arms because I wasn't burning them out during the workouts and as a consquence my arms got bigger.

Now I have changed things around and I do my arm workouts when I do my shoulders as I find they get a workout anyway when doing my chest and back. Another thing I found when I wanted to use heavier weights was to try a heavier weight during my arm workout. So say you do two sets are your normal weight but in the third set you go for a heavier weight and just do the exercise until failure, you will find that over a few weeks the reps you do will start increasing then once you can get in a set of 10 - 12 reps on the heavier weight then repeat the process again pretty soon you will find that you will go up the weight very fast.

hope this helps and always remember to keep good form when doing your arms. The amount of guys I see in the gym doing bicep curls with bad form is unreal.

rubadub

I improved by doing 1 arm negatives. I would do them on one arm, do 8 reps, then use my other arm to help lift it again, and slowly drop down again for 4 more reps. Other days I would use a heavy wieght from the start, do 4 reps, then 4 assisted again.

These days I just dont bother with bicep curls, time is better spent doing other movements which all work the biceps adequately anyways.