To get huge biceps, it’s important to train both hard and smart. Biceps are a relatively small muscle and for some people they can take a long time and a lot of hard work to develop. The longer your arm span, and the shorter your muscle insertions are, the harder it will be to develop bulging full biceps.

Try this test. Flex the bicep of your right arm. Take your left hand and see how many fingers you can fit between your bicep and your elbow. The more fingers you can fit, the “shorter” your muscle insertion is and the harder it will be to develop full big biceps. One to two fingers, and you have fairly long insertions, and thus good bicep potential. Three or four, and you’ll find it hard to add much mass to your biceps.

If this is you, you’re going to have to train the hardgainer way. Don’t worry though, this is the most effective way to build bicep size, and get pretty damn strong in the process. You can’t afford to waste your bicep training doing endless sets of cable and machine curls – they’ll tire your arms out, but at the same time they are probably the least effective type of growth stimulus.

To get huge biceps, you’ll need to go hardcore. Here’s an example bicep routine:

Close grip Chins 3 sets of 6-10
Barbell Bicep Curls 3 sets of 8-10
Alternating Dumbbell Curls – 2 sets of 8-10

This bicep workout is designed to be performed once or twice per week. As you can see, its based around bodyweight and free-weight exercises. These exercises have been proven again and again to elicit the largest growth and strength responses, and will serve you much better than cables and machines. (If you really want to learn how to build whole-body muscle, week in week out, then you can check out Vince Delmonte’s program here, which I highly recommend). If you can drink some whey protein immediately after your workouts, and work your whole body in a weekly split, then you’ll be well on your way to huge biceps.

Currently huge biceps are a prime fitness goal of mine. I’ve spent a good amount of time building my strength and overall mass, and since coming back from travelling, rekindled my enthusiasm for training. Time to go from a decent, fit 190lbs to a sculpted, athletic and lean 205-210lbs, with arms to match.

So how am I going to go about building huge biceps?  First of all, I’m going to train in the 8-12 rep range, and no less. When I first started training, I used to read a lot of bodybuilding forums and absorbed a lot of “hardgainer” advice. This is the sort of “back to basics” thinking that you might have found too on the net – heavy compounds, lots of food, protein and rest. There’s certainly merit in it and it’s a great antidote to the ridiculous routines and exercises you read about in muscle mags.

Still though, it’s easy to lose your way with hardgainer thinking, especially if your primary goal is a physique as opposed to strength. I’m sure 2-3 sets of heavy curls per week in the 4-6 rep range was far from optimal for my biceps, and this is what I did for a couple of years.

So after a few years I finally figured out what works and what doesn’t for my body.  If you don’t have 6+ years of training experience under your belt, I suggest checking out this program by Vince Delmonte - I can honestly say it’s about as close as it gets to an effective, no-BS training and diet regime.  For me it’s all about heavy compounds, yes – but I notice I gain best from training my arms twice a week, with at least 6-8 sets per muscle, in the 8-10 rep range.

This is what I’ll be doing in order to develop huge biceps. Close grip chins, barbell curls, dumbbell curls. Simple and effective. You can be sure I’ll be hitting the rest of my body with compounds in the 8-10 rep range, and eating right to boot. Ideally I’d like to see significant differences in the mirror within 3 months time – and with muscle memory and intelligent training, I know for sure that this is more than achievable.

Ok so here’s a quick run down of checkpoints to meet for anyone who wants to figure out how to get huge biceps. This is what’s helped me add a few inches to my arms over the years.

-Train with the right exercises – that largely means close grip chinups, and free weight curls –barbell and dumbbell. For most people, just switching to close grip chinups is more than enough to explode their bicep growth. Endless sets of cable and machine curls do not cut it. Studies have proven that bodyweight and free weight exercises are massively superior, so get on it

-Train your WHOLE body for growth. This is THE most important point to consider, and it’s really hashed out in the top muscle and strength gain program from Vince Delmonte Although there is some leeway, the body does not like growing one muscle out of all proportion. Have you ever seen someone with massive 17” biceps, but no shoulders, chest back or legs to speak of? Very very unlikely, and yet, there are thousands of people who train their biceps hard 4-5 times a week and nothing else. The fact is, the body does not like growing out of proportion – and for good reason, too.

Your body only grows muscle when it receives signals that tell it it’s absolutely necessary - and simply training only your biceps isn’t enough. If you’re hitting heavy compound exercises and working every bodypart at least once a week, and you’re eating a caloric surplus with lots of protein, then your body realises it’s time to build muscle – and it does it all over. So train your entire body with compound, free weight exercises – that’s how to get huge biceps. Again, the principle of whole body growth is seriously important, and if you havent checked it out yet, No Nonsense Muscle Building is by far my favourite resource for spot on information.

Train your triceps hard – when most people say they want big biceps, what they really mean is they want big arms. The triceps make up two thirds of the muscle on your upper arm, and you should train them accordingly – i.e. you should be doing more work for your triceps, than you do for your biceps. Close grip bench press, overhead extensions, dips skullcrushers – these bodyweight and freeweight movements are all good. Change your focus from “huge biceps” to “huge arms”, and you’ll reach your physique goals a lot sooner.