Muscle Tips

By Joe DeAngelis | Mr. America | Mr. USA | Mr. Universe

My Two-Headed Monsters!

I’ve been in the bodybuilding fame for a long time. I’ve competed in more
than one federation, and I’ve stood next to some of the best athletes in the
game. You might imagine that, having said that, I’ve tried just about everything
there is to try in terms of training my body.

Occasionally I see someone doing an exercise that appears to be new, but when
I take a closer look, it’s just a variation on one of the old-guard exercises
that have served my own routines so well. Not that practice stale training
methods, but I just believe you can’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to
effective weight training. However, there are definite right and wrong ways to
execute those movements.

When I started training, most guys had heard the story that Arnold
Schwarzenegger used to do standing barbell curls with 275 pounds. I was one of
those guys who were completely impressed upon hearing this, and believed that if
I couldn’t lift that amount of weight, I wasn’t going to amount to anything. So,
when I began to train hard - around 17 years old - I’d load the bar with about
225 pounds and do everything possible to curl that amount of weight up. What I
was really doing was reverse-grip power cleans, but I thought I was building
huge biceps. Getting the weight up was all that mattered, and using any means
necessary was okay. The fact that it was cheating wasn’t even a consideration.

When I was introduced to Bob Gruskin, the man responsible for my learning how
to train and compete successfully, he immediately sent me to work out with Mr.
America, Richie Barretta. He taught me how to re-adjust my thinking about
lifting weights, and how to maximize the poundage I was using so that I would
finally be able to grown. Ironically, the heavier I used to lift, the less
progress I made. Even though my muscles were fertile for gains, because I was
using horrible form and hoisting the weight up with my back, traps and
shoulders, I never really grew at all!

I’ll give you an example. When I used 225 to 245 pounds, I was putting only
about 30 pounds of actual stress on the biceps muscle. I wasted the other 200
pounds each time I loaded the bar. When I began training with Richie, and I
started using between 60 and 100 pounds instead, I gradually began to get the
gains I had been seeking when I previously loaded the bar with an extra hundred
pounds. In lifting 60 pounds, I was actually utilizing all 60 of those pounds. I
thing that’s a connection many people forget to consider when choosing weight
alone.

The way I train today is much different from the way I trained 12 or so years
ago. Of course, much of changing the way you train has to do with having to
adapt to the changes you’ve made along the way. When you start out, just about
anything you do - short of throwing up a bar with 240 pounds on it - will
produce results. Your physique makes changes beyond just growing bigger.

In the beginning you can afford to train your biceps often because they will
respond to frequency much more at the initial stages of development than at any
other time. The way biceps respond to workload and frequency changes, as you
become more seasoned and experienced. I found that my biceps began to rebel
against frequent training. They refused to grow any more because I was over
training them. Even though I continued doing exactly what I had always done, my
biceps were staging a mutiny against my training practices.

When my biceps finally did begin to respond, they grew because I was actually
feeling the weight. As I became more advanced in my training and had logged some
real time in the gym, they stopped growing at the same rate - almost as if I was
over training them again. My emphasis on heavy back movements was straining my
biceps and causing them to be pre-exhausted. I cut back on my arm workouts, and
they started growing again.

In my opinion, over training the biceps is more damaging than almost any
other physique indiscretion. Biceps are easy to over train because they are
among the smallest body parts to begin with. Moreover, they participate in the
movement of various other body parts. As they are a necessary part of back
exercises, they tend to become exhausted easily. A second workout for arms alone
is often too much for such a small bundle of muscle. Over training the biceps
can slow down progress in the entire upper body. When the biceps are tired, they
can’t be fully available for heavy back movements. This fatigue can create
weaknesses and cause the back to lag in overall development. I came to the
conclusion that the bigger and stronger I got from training, the more rest I
required for my biceps and back to continue growing.

Today, if someone tells me he is having trouble building his upper body, and
he’s an advanced bodybuilder, I recommend that he cut back on arm training, and
he’ll grow again. Make no mistake. Recovery is the key to growth in any body
part, particularly as a person progresses. That may mean skipping arm workouts
every other time you train, or even more often than that. Back off the 9 to 12
sets total and do fewer days of biceps training over the long haul.

At the beginning of my bodybuilding career I used to hear guys say that if
you do heavy rows and a lot of bench, your arms will grow. I never believed it
then, but I can see now it makes a lot of sense. It also explains why people
tend to over train their arms, as they become larger.

My biceps-training nowadays is pretty simple. I take into consideration how
heavy and intense my back workouts have been during any given week, and I adjust
my training accordingly. Normally I do arms every two or three workouts,
alternating four exercises. Like a side-out in volleyball, I rotate one exercise
in and out of my routine as I see fit - usually either alternate dumbbell curls
or preacher curls.

Since my arms already get a lot of strain from my heavy back workouts, the
point of arm training for me is to go for the pump. It’s almost a case of
“been there/done that” as far as heavy biceps training is concerned,
so I concentrate on form and on flexing throughout the entire movement. The more
blood I can pump into my biceps, the better. Unlike other guys, I rarely turn my
wrist when I do biceps. I feel that straining the wrists with heavy weight is
unnecessary. I concentrate on precision and on feeling the muscle work at all
times.

Alternate Dumbbell Curls - I usually do this exercise at the beginning of my
workout so that I can warm up properly. I wasn’t to stabilize the shoulder joint
to ensure all the action comes form the elbow. I usually work the biceps in a
two-up/four-down count, but concentrate more on fluidity than anything else. I
avoid choppy movements. B not turning my wrists out, I feel I get a better
isolation and a better contraction. Contraction is everything, so I want to make
sure I squeeze at the top as hard as I can. I do 1 or 2 warm-up sets before
getting into the actual workout. 1or 2 warm-up sets, plus 3 x 8

Preacher Curls - When I am not starting with alternate dumbbell curls, I do
preacher curls. Depending upon the day and how I feel, I do either one-arm
preachers with a barbell. I try to push my armpit into the bench to keep my
upper arm stationary. In this exercise I again want to keep my wrist flat, so I
tend not to use an EZ-curl bar. As a precaution against tearing a biceps I keep
the movement very slow and controlled at the bottom. Injury can easily result
from sloppy or explosive motion in this exercise. 3 x 8

Concentration Curls - There isn’t much to say about concentration curls other
than to emphasize the importance of doing them with the upper arm completely
isolated. I generally brace my triceps on my inner thigh, as opposed to resting
my elbow there. The deeper I drop my arm, the more contraction I get during the
movement. 3 x 8 very slow and strict.

Barbell Curls - I always save these for last. Since I’m pretty exhausted when
I get to this exercise, I use only 80 to 90 pounds total. As usual I keep my
shoulders stabilized and my elbows slightly ahead of the centerline on the sides
of the body. Because it’s my last exercise, I really go for the pump. With my
knees bent, the action comes strictly from my elbows. I usually go for broke on
barbell curls, training to failure. 3 x 8 - 10 (or to failure during the last
couple of sets)

Two years ago I went snowboarding for the first time. I wiped out badly and
tore my rotator cuff as well as damaging the radial ulna nerve in my biceps. At
the time I was training for the NABBA Pro Universe, and still ended up doing it.
During workouts, however, the pain got so bad that I could only lift a ten-pound
dumbbell for ten repetitions! I remember going into the gym late at night and
hiding in a corner so that no one would see me working with such a puny weight.
Luckily it was enough to get me through the competition and looking fairly
decent.

When I was just starting out, I discovered I had one biceps smaller than the
other by about a quarter to half an inch. Not realizing that most people have
one arm smaller than the other. I went into frenzy trying to get that biceps
larger. I was so obsessed with it that I remember one time sitting in a theatre
watching the movie Rocky 3, flexing and flexing and flexing and thinking, ‘I
have to get this biceps up to speed.’ I used to do that all the time - flex and
flex my arm until it was ready to fall off. The funny thing is, today that
biceps has a wicked peak on it. I don’t know whether squeezing had anything to
do with developing the peak, but it sure seems that way. Contracting the muscle
is probably the single best way to make it grow.

At a seminar someone asked Tom Platz, “What do you do for calves?”
He replied, ” I do calf raises.” Similarly, although I get a lot of
arm size from working my back through heavy rowing, my biceps have shape and
size because I do curls. Plain and simple. There’s a lot of wisdom in that
statement that I try to live by in the gym. Nothing new fangled or fancy is any
better than the basics. I adhere to the same strict principles that the
old-timers used to use to get big. They haven’t failed me yet, so I’m going to
keep on using them.
Originally featured in:
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