How to grow your stagnated biceps

Reached a plateau in your biceps growth?

Follow these 3 tips in your next bicep workout.

“Get your guns ready.” - Mahatma Gandhi

#1: Increase Weight Lifted (Load)

Increasing the amount of weight lifted is the method most people rely on to do progressive overload. It's quite straightforward to apply it.

Let’s say you can currently bench press 100lbs for 8 reps. Next week, you might try to increase the load and do 110lbs for 8 reps. This would create a new stimulus for your muscles to have to adapt to and grow from.

Now, if you’re a beginner, this method of progressive overload will be your bread and butter to help you make gains quickly. You’ll likely be able to add 5-10 lbs to the bar every week - especially on your main lifts like the bench press, squat, and deadlift.

That said, let's go back to our previous example of bench pressing 100lbs in week 1, then adding 10lbs of weight every week. Do the math, and theoretically speaking, you should be benching 620lbs by the end of the year.

#2: Up The Rep Count

When applied properly, adding more reps is another great progressive overload technique to force your muscles to grow. The way this works can be illustrated with a simple math equation.

Let's say I can bench press 100lbs for 10 reps one week. I can multiply those numbers and calculate that I have lifted 1000lbs total across that set. If next week, I go to the gym and lift that same weight for 11 reps, I will have lifted 1100lbs across that same set. This means I’ve technically lifted 100lbs more than last week. And this is essentially similar to adding more weight to my training; it'll create a new stimulus for your muscles to grow.

#3: Increase The Number Of Sets You Perform

The next progressive overload method has to do with how many sets you perform.

Let’s say you’re trying to build up your biceps. Adding sets can be as simple as going from 3 sets of 12 one week to 4 sets of 12 the next week.

Increase the number of sets you do for progressive overload

Let's go back to the simple math equation we used earlier. So, if we were curling 40lbs in each hand, then each of our biceps would be lifting 480 more lbs in the second week by just adding that one set.

It’s a simple way to add a massive amount of training volume to your program.

Be Mindful Of Diminishing Returns.