The landmine is an essential piece of gym equipment but is almost always used to work your chest, shoulder or even lower body muscles. Yet, did you know you could also use the landmine to build yourself a set of huge arms? If you do it correctly, it’s a sure-fire route to ~gains~.

The landmine refers to a barbell being anchored to the floor via a specific landmine plate. Once anchored, the barbell can then be moved horizontally and vertically, allowing you to integrate a range of exercises into your workout routine.

Some of the most popular landmine exercises include a landmine row for your back, a landmine standing press for your chest and shoulders, and the landmine squat for your lower body. But Dr Joel Seedman, founder of Advanced Human Performance, has put forward a new use for the landmine, which could help you build some huge arms.

WATCH: Dr Seedman explains the landmine bicep curl & skull crusher

Taking to Instagram, Dr Seedman has posted a video showing one of his clients performing eccentric overload bicep and triceps exercises. These exercises incorporate the Biltaerial Assisted Negative Accentuated training method, which Dr Seedman says means “up with 2 limbs and down with 1 limb.”

Landmine Bicep Curl

The first of the landmine arm exercises shows the lifter performing what is essentially a barbell bicep curl, but instead of having both hands holding the bar with an underhand grip, only one hand is held in an underhand grip.

The other hand (furthest away from the weight at the end of the bar) holds the bar with an overhand grip and is there for added support to help curl the bar up. This, Dr Seedman says, “allows the lifter to do self-assisted reps with slight assistance, thus allowing the lifter to handle greater than 1RM (1 rep maximum) for their single arm bicep curl.”

Once at the top of the bicep curl, the hand using the overhand grip is removed from the bar, and the hand using the underhand grip slowly lowers the bar back to the starting position (the eccentric part of the movement).

The landmine bicep curl is already a known exercise, but Dr Seedman’s method of adding the second arm for assistance should allow you to lift a greater amount of weight. It also capitalises on the eccentric hypertrophy benefits of lowering a heavy weight.

Landmine Skull Crusher

The landmine skull crusher is a great exercise for training your triceps that also accentuates the eccentric part of the rep. With this landmine variation, the lifter needs to lay down on the floor with the bar in line with their eyes. Again, the hand closest to the weight at the end of the bar should hold the bar throughout the exercise, using an overhand grip.

The hand furthest from the weight provides assistance pressing the bar up. It’s then removed so that the remaining arm can slowly lower the bar back down to the starting position.

Dr Seedman adds, “Eccentric overload has been consistently shown in research to be one of the most effective training methods for stimulating muscle growth, strength, and injury prevention. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to implement on your own as it often requires a spotter to assist you on the concentric (the lifting/curling part) since you’ll be handling supramaximal loads (greater than 1RM).”