Bicep Exercises – Looking to grow your biceps? We compiled the best, and our favorite bicep exercises that you can incorporate into your next pull day or arms day to achieve those bicep gains! These can all be performed with dumbbells, cable machines, or with a barbell.
1. Barbell or EZ Bar Curl
Barbell or EZ Bar Curls are a great way to engage your biceps, and you can shift your grip width to target the short head with a wider grip or long head with a narrow grip. The main difference between using a straight bar versus a EZ-bar is wrist comfort, but both are effective in allowing you to curl more weight than with dumbbells.
2. Reverse-Grip Barbell Row
Although the reverse grip barbell row is a back-focused exercise, it also engages the biceps quite a bit. This is a great addition to your back and pull days, and can be done with a barbell or EZ-bar in the bent-over row variation, or on a seated cable machine with an underhand grip.
3. Cable Curl
Although similar to the barbell bicep curl, the difference with the cable curl is that it gives you constant tension on the bicep throughout the range of motion. This creates a higher total time under tension, and therefore can be very beneficial to add to your bicep workouts.
4. Chin Ups
Chin ups, done with an underhand grip, are a fantastic way to work your biceps. You can vary the difficulty from using a resistance band for assisted chin-ups or by adding weights. You can also alternate between neutral grip with your palms facing in, if you feel wrist or elbow discomfort.
5. Hammer Curls
Hammer curls can be done with dumbbells, or even better, with a cable rope attachment, and it recruits slightly different muscles than with a regular dumbbell bicep curl. The cable also allows you to have constant tension through the entire range of motion as well.
7. Incline and Regular Dumbbell Curls
Dumbbell bicep curls are performed while standing or seated, bilaterally or alternating arms, and can be changed up by rotating your wrists at the top of the movement.
Incline curls on the other hand, elongates and stretches the biceps more at the start of the movement, which helps to focus on the long head of the bicep.
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