Monday is "International Chest Day" at gyms worldwide, and Tuesday might be "International Back-and-Biceps Day," considering how often those muscles are coupled in a workout. (Following the cliché, leg training would be pushed back until Wednesday at the earliest, but we'll reserve that gripe for another piece.)
5 Effective Back and Bicep Workouts to Build Muscle
There is no hard and fast rule indicating that back and biceps should be trained together, but apart from anecdotal bro science, there is some rationale to combining these two muscular groups that enable you to pull very hard.
Our guide to training the back and biceps together teaches you how to develop effective upper-body routines for a strong back and muscular arms.
Why work your back and biceps together?
"When it comes to back training, the biceps are the secondary or tertiary mover in any form of row, pulldown, or pullup.
For the purpose of efficiency, "it makes sense to hit the biceps a little more directly in conjunction with their corresponding compound lifts," (i.e. back motions that involve more than one joint, as opposed to biceps workouts that merely bend the elbow).
Back and bicep workouts often begin with rowing or pulldown movements to target the larger back muscles while you're fresh.Starting with biceps curls may exhaust your arms, hindering your ability to help with back motions. Therefore, it's recommended to keep bicep workouts until after back training.
The push-pull split is one of the most famous and time-tested exercise splits in muscledom, in which you train muscles that push one day and pull the next. For example, on Monday, focus on chest, shoulders, triceps, quadriceps, and calves, followed by back, biceps, glutes, hamstrings, and rear deltoids exercises on Tuesday. This kind of timetable makes it simple to maintain balance in your training and guarantees that no muscle groups are overlooked.
Of course, you do not need to workout your whole body every day. You may perform upper-body pushing one day, upper-body pulling (aka back and biceps) the next, followed by a leg day later in the week. A back and biceps workout works well with all forms of the push-pull split.
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Back and biceps anatomy
The key muscles engaged while exercising the back and biceps are:
Back*
- Latissimus dorsi (often known as the "lats").These are the large muscle sheets that stretch down the sides of your back, allowing you to drag your arms lower and backward.
- Teres Major. A tiny muscle below the shoulder that helps you bring your arms down and back.
- Rhomboids. The upper back muscles lift, retract, and rotate the shoulder blades downward.
- The middle and lower trapezius muscles ("traps").These men retract and compress their shoulder blades.
Biceps
- Biceps brachii: Your main biceps muscle, it twists (supinates) the wrist outward and flexes the elbow.
- Brachialis: Located between the biceps and triceps on the outside side of the arm. It flexes the elbow.
*When addressing "back training" in strength and conditioning circles, experts often refer to the upper back. The lower back, namely the erector spinae muscles, play a significant role in leg workouts like deadlifts and squats.
The Best Back and Biceps Exercises
Back and biceps workouts may be divided into many types. There are three sorts of back workouts and five kinds of biceps exercises.
Back
1. Horizontal pulls (rows).
Consider standing to comprehend back exercise categories. Pulling something toward your stomach horizontalizes it. Any exercise on that plane is a row, including seated cable rows, face pulls, one-arm dumbbell rows, etc. A bent-over barbell row is still a horizontal pull since you're still pushing toward your body as if it were upright.
"Rows should make up the majority of your back training volume," says Rusin. "When rowing with dumbbells or handles, rotate your hands externally at the peak of the pull [thumbs aside]. We already internally twist our shoulders while we drive, text, and write, so pulldowns and pullups won't work. We need train to get out of it, thus I advocate more horizontal pulls than vertical pulls."
2. Vertical pulls (pullups, chinups, and pulldowns).
Compared to horizontal pulling, vertical pulling is a little bit simpler to picture. Vertical pull workouts include a variety of pullup and lat pulldown variations where you pull yourself up in a straight line or bring a bar down to meet you.
The upper lats and teres major are the muscles targeted by lat pulldowns and pullups, which widen the upper back.
The following are some variations of the exercise: chinup, assisted pullup, wide-grip pulldown, neutral-grip pulldown, reverse-grip lat pulldown, wide-grip pullup, and chinup (using a machine or bands).
3. Isolation exercises: straight-arm pulldowns and pullovers.
Straight-arm pulldowns and pullovers almost eliminate the use of the biceps muscles by keeping the elbows in a fixed position throughout, while horizontal and vertical pulls are often complicated lifts with the biceps functioning as a secondary mover. This makes it possible for you to concentrate more intently on your lats and other upper back muscles, forcing them to work on their own. "You'll need to use lighter weight with these exercises," Rusin says, "but the mind-muscle connection tends to be higher with these isolation movements." Muscles that are the focus of attention have a higher potential for development.
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Biceps
Because the elbow is a basic hinge joint, the curl is the only activity suitable for direct biceps training. Curls, on the other hand, may be modified in both hand and shoulder positions to target the biceps (and their supporting muscles) in quite diverse ways. There are five different kinds of curls.
1. Supinated-grip curls (or regular curls): In a standard barbell, dumbbell, or machine curl, the forearms are supinated, with palms facing forward at the bottom.
Supinated curls primarily target the biceps brachii, which are the major arm muscles used while flexing the elbow.
Exercise versions include barbell curls, dumbbell curls (standing or sitting), and cable curls (bar attachment).
2. Hammer curls are done with a neutral grip: A hammer curl (or any version thereof) is performed by turning your wrists such that your palms face inward toward your body.
The brachialis muscle, located underneath the biceps brachii, and the brachioradialis muscle, located on the thumb side of the upper forearm, become more active during the action. However, the biceps remain the primary mover. Exercise variants include dumbbell hammer curls, cable hammer curls (rope attachment), neutral-bar curls, and cross-body hammer curls.
3. Pronated-grip curls (or reverse curls): Pronated curls are the inverse of a supinated grip, with the palms facing you in the down position and downward to the floor at the peak of the lift.
Pronated/reverse curls primarily target the brachialis and brachioradialis, compared to supinated and neutral-grip curls.
Exercise variants include barbell reverse curl, dumbbell reverse curl, cable reverse curl, and preacher reverse curl (dumbbell, barbell, or cable).
4. Shoulder flexion (Preacher curls): Curls performed on a preacher bench need the upper arms to be locked into a modest shoulder flexion. Your elbows are positioned in front of your body.
Target muscles: The flexed shoulder posture allows you to isolate the biceps more effectively and establishes a stronger mind-muscle connection.
Exercise variants include barbell/EZ-bar preacher curl, dumbbell preacher curl, machine preacher curl, and cable preacher curl.
5. Shoulder extensions (incline curls): Unlike the preacher curl, holding the upper arms behind the chest (shoulder extension) throughout the curling action allows for a larger stretch in the biceps. The most frequent method is to lie back on an incline bench, keeping the upper arms perpendicular to the floor during the action.