Biceps Workout
A focused biceps session covering every curl angle that matters, run twice a week for six weeks at seven or eight hard sets a time.
Program Overview
The biceps has two heads and a neighbor underneath it, and hitting all three is what actually changes how your arm looks. The long head responds to curls done with the arm behind the body, the short head to curls with the arm in front, and the brachialis underneath to neutral grip work. This session covers all three angles every workout. It is short by design, seven or eight hard sets in about twenty minutes, so you can bolt it onto the end of a session or run it on its own. Fourteen to sixteen direct sets a week is where the biceps stops rewarding more, so there is no version of this that benefits from being longer. Every exercise includes a form video.
If you would rather train arms alongside back work, our back and biceps workout pairs them properly. For biceps and triceps in one session, see our arm day workout.
Who Is This For?
This workout suits you if:
- Your arms lag behind the rest of your upper body
- You want direct biceps volume on top of your normal training
- You have twenty minutes twice a week
- You have access to dumbbells, a barbell, and a cable stack
Direct arm work is an add-on, not a program. Browse our muscle building programs for the rest of the week.
Weekly Schedule
Phase 1: Cover the Angles (Weeks 1-3)
Three weeks covering each head of the biceps from a different arm position. Elbows stay pinned throughout. The single most common mistake in curling is letting the elbows drift forward, which hands the work to your front delts and shortens the range where the biceps actually loads.
Elbows glued to your sides on every rep. If they travel forward, drop the weight.
Curl the bar to shoulder height with elbows pinned, then lower slowly.
Lie back on an incline bench and curl with the arms hanging behind the body.
Curl with a neutral, palms-facing grip, alternating arms.
A relaxed walk on your off days. It adds up more than people expect over eight weeks.
A short mobility circuit for the hips and thoracic spine.
Phase 2: Intensity Techniques (Weeks 4-6)
Same angles, higher intensity. The preacher curl removes every scrap of momentum, and the cable curl keeps tension on at the bottom where dumbbells give you a rest. On the last set of the final exercise, keep going past failure with partial reps from the stretched position.
Partials from the bottom of the range at the end of the last set. The stretched position is where the growth signal is strongest.
Curl with hands inside shoulder width to bias the outer head of the biceps.
With the upper arm on a preacher pad, curl the dumbbell up and lower fully.
Curl a low pulley handle up with elbows pinned to your sides.
A relaxed walk on your off days. It adds up more than people expect over eight weeks.
A short mobility circuit for the hips and thoracic spine.
Biceps Workout PDF
A focused biceps session covering every curl angle that matters, twice a week for six weeks at seven or eight hard sets a time.
This is a single session you run twice a week for 6 weeks with full gym access, around 20 minutes a time. Phase 1 (weeks 1-3) runs 3 exercises for 7 sets: the barbell curl for load, the incline dumbbell curl for the stretched long head, and the hammer curl for the brachialis underneath. Phase 2 (weeks 4-6) swaps to the close grip barbell curl, preacher curl, and cable curl for 8 sets, and adds partial reps from the stretched position on the final set, which is where the growth signal is strongest.
- Three Angles, Three Heads Long head, short head, and the brachialis underneath each get a curl built for them. That is what changes how the arm looks, not more sets of the same curl.
- Fourteen To Sixteen Sets A Week Two sessions of seven or eight sets lands exactly where a small muscle stops rewarding more. Anything bigger is time you could spend elsewhere.
- Elbows Pinned, Every Rep The PDF's single most repeated cue. If the elbows drift forward, the front delts take the work and the biceps stop growing.
Get Your Biceps Workout
Includes both training phases, the weekly schedule, and exercise cues for the full session. Download instantly after you submit the form.
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Nutrition Guidance
Twenty minutes of arm work twice a week does not warrant its own diet. It rewards already having the basics right. Our macro calculator sets your calorie and protein targets, and our recipes make hitting them easier. For more depth, read the complete guide to bulking and cutting and post-vacation weight gain.
What Actually Matters Here
- Protein: 1.6 to 2.2g per kg a day. Arms are a small amount of tissue, so this is about your overall intake rather than anything arm-specific.
- Calories: Whatever your main program calls for. Arms grow fastest when the rest of your training and eating is already working. Use our macro calculator if you have not set that yet.
Arms grow on the same protein and calories as everything else. There is no special arm diet.
