How To Grow Your Biceps In 10 Minutes (Using Science)

I'm going to give you a killer 10 minute bicep workout using only dumbbells. We'll use three different training methods that will cut your workout time by a third without sacrificing gains. I'll show you how each of these methods work using science and exactly how to use them to grow your biceps. Alright, so Here is the 10 minute workout. Method 1 takes about 2 minutes to complete and we'll use something called Rest pause sets. Method 2 We'll pair two bicep exercises together as a compound set that will five minutes to complete. Method 3, we'll finish the workout off with drop sets which are brutal but will only take one minute to complete. Assuming one minute of rest between each method, you'll be done in just 10 minutes. So to kick the workout off, we're going to implement rest pause training. This is a method where instead of doing a bunch of sets for an exercise, you combine it all into just one long set. Illustrating its effectiveness is a recent 2019 study where participants were split into two groups. One group trained their biceps with a traditional method using three sets of six reps with 90 seconds of rest between each set. The other group used rest pause training where they performed just one long set. Within this set, they tried to do as many reps as possible, only took 20 seconds rest, and then repeated this process until they achieved the same amount of total reps as the traditional group. What they found is that both training methods resulted in similar gains in size and strength in the biceps. Despite the rest pause group only training for half the time. We're going to take the science and we're going to apply it to our workout with an exercise that is completely safe for us to push our limits with. But you need to maintain proper form as you do so. Otherwise you're going to risk the rest pause method actually not working. Start by finding a way that you could typically do six to eight reps with. Then using that weight, perform your first set and try to do as many reps as possible. So as this set gets more difficult, be mindful of two things. First, keep your elbow locked by your side. Letting it swing forward is going to take tension away from the biceps and onto the front delts instead. A little bit of movement as shown here is perfectly fine, but any more than that is just too much. Second, also be mindful of your wrists. You want to avoid curling the wrists excessively at the top, which is going to cause the forearms to take over. Instead, to maximize the tension on the biceps, the keep them neutral and Keep your palms facing up, even at the bottom. Okay, so once you finish your first rest, pause set and can't do any more reps, put the weights down, rest for just 20 seconds and then immediately pick the weights back up. Perform another set using that weight for as many repetitions as you can. It's not going to be as many as you could do the first time, but keep repeating this process until you have completed a total of 20 reps. If done correctly, it'll likely take you around 4 to 5 mini sets to get a total of 20 reps and would look something like this. Alright. Method 2 Compound Sets. This is where we take two types of bicep exercises that can be performed back to back without rest. This is possible because a bicep is composed of two heads. There's a short head, which is the inner part of the bicep, and then there's the long head, which is the outer part of the bicep. And these two heads have slightly different functions. During bicep curls, where your arm is held in front of the body, the short head is more active and the long head is less active, whereas the opposite is true for exercises where your arm is held behind the body. We can take advantage of this to save time by performing a compound set of two bicep exercises performed back to back without rest. To perform this compound set, start by setting an adjustable bench up to 30 degrees. This is generally the third or fourth notch of the bench. Then you're going to go grab a weight that you typically do 1012 reps with for a normal bicep curl. With the dumbbells in hand, lay with your stomach on the bench and your arms hanging down in front of you. You're going to lock your elbows in that position and then curl the weight up. But as you do so, fight the urge to let your elbows move back towards your body instead. Keep your upper arm perpendicular to the ground, and then you're going to do as many reps as you can with good form, ideally between 8 to 12 reps. Immediately after, we're going to flip over on the bench. Keep the exact same pair of dumbbells, but now position the arms behind the body. Then you're going to lock your elbows in place and curl the weight up. But in this case, you're going to be tempted to let your elbow move up closer to the body. Fight this by keeping your upper arm perpendicular to the ground to maximize tension on your biceps. Once again, you're going to empty the tank on this one by performing as many reps as possible while keeping good form. And after doing so, you'll have completed one compound set. Take 60 seconds of rest, and then repeat this two more times. Okay, so to finish the workout off, we're going to use drop sets. This is where you do a bunch of sets without rest, but you actually drop the weight after each set. Illustrating this Effectiveness is a 2017 study where researchers had participants perform curls two different ways. One group used a traditional method of three sets with 90 seconds rest between each set. The other group used drop sets where they performed an initial set where they tried to do as many reps as they could to failure, decreased the weight by around five pounds, immediately performed another set to failure, and continued this without rest until 5 sets in total were done. What they found is that both groups experienced similar gains in size and strength, but the drop set group finished each workout in less than a third third of the time. As for the exercise that we're going to apply drop sets to, we actually want to use an exercise that will target an arm muscle called the brachialis. That has yet to be emphasized with our previous exercises. This muscle, it runs under the biceps, but when grown, it can actually help to push up your biceps and create an illusion of a bigger bicep. It can be targeted by using curls where the hand is in a neutral position, such as in a hammer curl where you hold the dumbbells as if they were hammers. To implement this, start by finding a weight that you can initially do between 15 and 20 reps with. Using that weight, perform one set of hammer curls to failure with good form, keeping that elbow locked in place with minimal swinging. After you can't do any more reps, immediately move to the next lowest set of dumbbells and perform another set to failure. You're gonna Repeat this until 5. Yes, 5 total sets are completed. It's gonna burn. It's gon. But trust me, it's worth it for the growth. Then you're done. You can see how much more effective your workouts can be if you apply the right science to apply this same science to all of your workouts, not just your biceps. Then head over to builtwithscience.com and take our quiz to find the best program for you and your body. Our system has transformed the lives of thousands all over the world. To learn more about how to grow other muscles like your chest, your shoulders, you can check out these two past videos that I made. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.