Better Form, Better Biceps

The topic of biceps never gets old in the weight lifting realm. Before I go over my bicep exercises from yesterday, I want to break down a YouTube video showing what not to do. As you watch the video see if you can count how many times the vlogger breaks form. Also, notice what muscles he is using to hoist the weight.

Very bad form shown in this video.  The first thing I noticed is his arm motions aren’t the same for his left and his right arms.  When lifting weights, you want to have both of your arms do the exact same exercises.  In other words, strive for symmetry.  Along these lines, he also appears to change his intentions on whether this exercise is for regular curls or hammer curls.  The line is blurred but I think he thought he was going to perform regular dumbell curls but because of the weight, he tried turning his arms to perhaps a better range of motion (ROM) for him.

Of course, you can also see a nice rock in his lifts but its actually not as bad as some other YouTubers.  I think he was consciously aware of bad form from rocking so he was trying to avoid it.  The next infraction was how much his shoulders came into the lift.  Once he started turning his shoulders, the exercise was no longer about his biceps.  You’ll also see that as he tires, the weight really starts jerking his body around.  You should never let the weight control you.  You should always control where the weight goes.  One more thing is his breathing patterns were non-existant and he started holding his breath.

50 lbs is a heavy curl and this video goes to show how much compensation and leverage the lifter needed to get each rep up.  A better, more effective weight for this user would have been 35 lbs at 3×12.

Yesterday was a brief, only bicep day for me.

2×12 dumbell curls, 25 lbs

2×8 (maybe it was 12 can’t remember) hammer curls, 45 lbs

3×12 smith machine, EZ bar curls 67 lbs

I can’t remember the last two.  I’ll have to try to start writing my workout down.