Reasons Why your Biceps arent Growing

Have you ever felt that no matter how much you trained your biceps you’re left saying… “My Biceps STILL Aren’t Growing?”

biceps muscle anatomy including long head, short head and brachialis

1: OVERTRAINING IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK…

A common mistake with is to think that more is better when it comes to building bigger biceps. However that’s not the case, especially since it is such a small muscle group. 

Many people’s mistake is often to continue to add more and more frequency when you are trying to build bigger arms.  The right thing to do is to first step back, take away some volume and frequency and monitor how your body responds.

It’s not about protein synthesis every 48 hours!

It’s about giving that muscle group a chance to recover so that you can stimulate it again in a meaningful way. You don’t want to just coast through another half-assed workout, but actually hit it in a way that leads to progressive overload.

2. Wrong Form/Posture 

Image result for biceps not growing

First things first, check you posture. You can do mammoth sets with mammoth reps but if your form isn’t right, your guns won’t grow. Biceps are the easiest muscle group to target, and hence, it’s easier to stress.

3. Obey the Speed Limit

One of the keys to growing the biceps (or any muscle for that matter) is progressive overload.

Usually this comes in the form of adding weight to the arm exercises that you are doing, and increasing that weight over time.

Progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon a muscle during training in order to achieve growth.

Some people try to add more and more biceps exercises as a form of stimulus overload to build bigger arms.

But with the biceps this just doesn’t work!

When we’re trying to progressively overload the biceps, it’s important we remember that they are limited in their function.

5. Doing The Same Exercise Over And Over Again

Always remember, your muscles get accustomed to a certain exercise. You don’t have to work the same grips, angles or planes of motion over and over. Divide you bicep workout –  use a close, medium and wide grip bar. Also, pull from lower pulley and also from the upper pulley.

6. Don’t Stop Short

The way to force the most muscle fibers into exhaustion is by moving them through their full range of motion. Start every rep with the biceps fully lengthened to get the most out of every set and to take advantage of the growth-inducing effects directly initiated by stretching a muscle under tension, which include satellite cell activation and local IGF-1 release.

6 .The Main Squeeze

Just like getting a good stretch is vitally important for inducing hypertrophy, so is a strong peak contraction at the top of any kind of curl. If you take a moment to flex and squeeze the biceps hard when at the full contraction point of every rep you will create greater blood flow, fire off more muscle fibers, and increase lactic acid burn – all of which will increase the possibility of adding inches to your arms.

7. Not Letting Them Rest

Image result for biceps not growingAdequate rest is the key to size gain. The muscle essentially breaks when you work it out. It only gains size and strength while repairing when you give it rest. So don’t hammer your biceps every day. Dedicate days to bicep workout.