The biceps are a small muscle group that have taken on a level of importance that far outweighs their size. That’s because your biceps muscles are the show muscle of your body. It’s hardly surprising, then that millions of guys the world over spend more time training their biceps than any other muscle group. Unfortunately, many of them are not performing the best bicep exercises to stimulate growth.

This article separates the best from the rest to bring you the 18 top biceps blasting moves to get your upper arms locked and loaded. We’ll also present sample beginner, intermediate, and advanced biceps workouts designed for maximum results in minimum time.

Bicep Workouts By Difficulty And Experience Level

Try one of our tailor-made bicep workouts or, if you’re a seasoned pro, mix and match them for massive growth.

Beginner Bicep Workout

Intermediate Bicep Workout

Advanced Bicep Workout

Bicep Exercises With Dumbbells

Dumbbells allow you to work each arm separately. This provides unilateral training to isolate each bicep, ensuring equal strength and muscle development. You are also able to supinate and pronate your wrists with dumbbells, something you cannot do with a barbell.

1. Bicep Curls

How to perform this bicep exercise: 

1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and a pair of dumbbells held at your sides, palms facing inward.
2. Turn your right wrist to face forward, then curl that arm to bring the dumbbell to shoulder level.
3. Lower under control to the start position, turning the right so that is is again facing inward in the bottom position.
4. Repeat with the left arm.

Too often, guys will swing their arms to help give some extra momentum to complete the rep, but this takes tension away from the bicep muscle itself, thereby doing practically nothing for your gains. If you’re finding you do have to swing your arms to curl the dumbbells fully, you should consider dropping the weight. It’s far better to complete proper, full reps with a lighter weight than to perform them incorrectly using a heavy weight. Leave your ego at the door!

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 8 to 12 reps per set (or per arm, if alternating)
Tempo: 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down

2. Incline Dumbbell Curl

How to perform: 

1. Set your bench to a 45-degree angle and sit on the bench with a dumbbell in each hand. Allow your arms to hang at your sides.
2. Curl the right hand dumbbell up to shoulder level and squeeze tight in the top position.
3. Lower under control and repeat on the left arm.
4. Make sure to keep the tempo slow and ensure you fully straighten your arms back to the starting position before completing another curl.

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 8 to 12 reps per set (or per arm if alternating)
Tempo: 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down

Bicep Exercises For Size

1. Dumbbell Hammer Curl

How to perform: 

1. Stand with a pair of dumbbells held at arm’s length with a neutral grip (palms facing inward). take a dumbbell in each hand, and hold them with your palms facing inward.
2. Curl the right-hand dumbbell up to shoulder level.
3. Lower under control and repeat with the other arm.
4. Make sure you keep your upper arms close to your body at all times, and keep them static, the only movement you want to see is in your forearm.

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 8 to 12 reps per set
Tempo: 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down

2. Concentration Curl

How to perform this bicep exercise: 

1. Sit on a bench and rest whichever arm you choose on the leg of the same side and let the weight hang down naturally.
2. Curl the weight up at the elbow, keeping the tempo slow and controlled.
3. Repeat for the alternate arm.

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 8 to 10 reps per set
Tempo: 3 seconds up, 1 second won

3. EZ Bar Curl

How to perform: 

1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and an EZ Curl bar held at arm’s length. Grasp the bar with an underhand grip on the first angled portion of the bar.
2. Curl the bar up to your upper chest.
3. Squeeze tightly in the top contracted position.
4. Lower under control and repeat.

Sets: 3 sets with 10 to 12 reps per set
Tempo: 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down

4. Overhead Cable Curl

How to perform this bicep exercise: 

1. With a cable machine either side of you, set the pulleys to around shoulder height, or one notch above. Attach a D-ring to both pulleys and grab both with an underhand grip.
2. Curl your hands towards your ears, bending at the elbow. Your upper arm should stay parallel with the floor during the movement.
3. Once your hands reach your ears, hold for a second or two, before slowly returning to the starting position to complete one rep.

Sets: 4 sets with 10 to 12 reps per set
Tempo: 3 seconds curling, 2 second return

Bicep Exercises For Mass

1. Zottman Curl

How to perform: 

1. Stand with your arms shoulder-width apart, a pair of dumbbells in hand, and palms facing up.
2. Curl the weights up to shoulder level from a starting position with your arms by your side.
3. When you reach the top of the movement, rotate the dumbbells so your palms face down.
4. Lower under control to the start position.

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 10 to 12 reps per set
Tempo: 3 seconds up, 3 seconds down

2. Bicep Cable Curl

How to perform: 

1. Set the pulley on a cable machine to its lowest position and affix a straight bar handle. Grab the bar with an underhand grip and step back about three feet from the machine.
2. Curl the handle to your upper chest.
3. Lower under control and repeat.

Sets: 4 sets with 8 to 10 reps per set
Tempo: 3 seconds up, 2 seconds down

3. Reverse EZ Bar/Barbell Curl

How to perform: 

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and grab the bar with an overhand grip, holding the downward-sloping portions of the EZ Curl bar. Then, curl in a similar way to regular bicep curls.
2. Keep your elbows close to your body and curl your arms upwards, slowly, until your hands reach your shoulders.
3. Hold and squeeze at the top of the movement before lowering back down to the starting position.

Sets: 3 to 4 sets with 10 to 12 reps per set
Tempo: 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down

4. Preacher Curl

How to perform: 

1. Sit at the preacher bench so that your armpits are touching the top and your arms draped over the bench pad. Hold the bar or dumbbells with an underhand grip at full arm extension.
2. Curl the bar up to full contraction.
3. Squeeze tightly in the top position, then slowly lower to the start position.

Sets: 3 sets with 8 to 10 reps per set
Tempo: 3 seconds up, 2 seconds down

5. Chin-Up

How to perform: 

1. Hang from a pull-up bar with your hands six inches apart and hold the bar with an underhand grip. Bend your knees and cross your feet.
2. Pull up with the powr of your biceps to bring your chin over the bar.
3. Lower under control and repeat.

Sets: 3 sets to maximum reps, i.e. perform as many reps as you can until you can’t do anymore
Tempo: The slower, the better

Other Bicep Exercises

1 . Cable Alternating Flex Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Stand between a cable crossover station’s weight stack. Then, in each hand, grab a high-pulley handle. Keep your arms out to the sides, making them parallel to the floor. 
2. Curl your left hand toward your head, ensuring your right arm doesn’t move. Let your left arm straighten very slowly.
3. Do the same movement using your right arm. 
4. Alternate arms to complete your rep count.

Sets: 5-10 sets with 10-15 reps
Tempo: 3 seconds per rep, 2-second return

2. Towel Hammer Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Take a kettlebell and loop a towel through its handle. Grip your towel strongly. Your palms should be facing toward each other, just like they would if you did a standard hammer curl using dumbbells. 
2. Engage your core and your glutes in order to make the base solid, then curl the weight up to chest level.
3. Squeeze your biceps, aiming to lift the weight. 
4. Lower under control.

Sets: 4-5 sets of 10 reps
Tempo: 2-3 seconds per rep

6. Suspension Trainer Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Find a strong overhead structure and hang a suspension trainer from it. Then, set the handles at chest level. Grab a handle with each hand with an overhand grip and stand away from the anchor point while your arms extend out in front of you. They should be at the same level as your eyes. 
2. Bring the handles toward your forehead, bracing your core.
3. Squeeze tightly in the top contracted position.
4. Return to the stasrt positon under control.

Sets: 3-5 sets of 10-15 reps
Tempo: 3 seconds per rep

7. Drag Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Stand with a pair of dumbbells held at arm’s length with a palms forward grip.
2. Stand tall and then drive your elbows back while curling thr weights up to shoulder level. This should make the head of each dumbbell touch the front part of your body during the rep. It will look like you’re dragging the weights up along the torso. 
3. Lower under control.

Sets: 9-10 sets of 15 reps
Tempo: 2-3 seconds per rep

8. Leant-Forward EZ Bar Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Hold an EZ bar in front of your thighs. Make sure your grip is an underhand, shoulder-width one. Then, slightly lean forward, keeping your torso around 30-degrees to your hips.
2. Breathe in, and then curl the bar until your hands reach your shoulders. 
3. Squeeze your biceps, and then lower the bar while maintaining control. 

Sets: 3-4 sets of 5-10 reps
Tempo: 2 seconds per rep

9. Underhand-Grip Inverted Row

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Stand before a horizontal bar that is set at chest height. Grab the bar with an underhand, shoulder-width grip, grab. Make sure your palms face you while you stand with your arms straight. From your head to your ankles, your body should sit in a straight line. 
2. Begin by pulling your shoulder blades back. Keep pulling with your arms until you lift your chest to the bar.
3. Pause, and slowly lower your body back to the initial position. 

Sets: 5 sets of 10-15 reps
Tempo: 3 seconds per rep

10. Prone Dumbbell Spider Curl

How to Perform This Bicep Exercise:

1. Set and incluine bench to a 45-degree angle and lie face down on it. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, and then let the weights hang underneath your shoulders.
2. Curl the dumbbells towards your shoulders.
3. Return to the initial position very slowly, then repeat the movement. 
4. Make sure your chest doesn’t lift off while doing the exercise. Keep it flat throughout the reps. 

Sets: 5 sets of 10-20 reps
Tempo: 2-3 seconds per rep

Wrap Up

You now have a plethora of super effective biceps exercises to build huge upper arms. We recommend that you try each of them to discover the handful that work best for you. Then choose two or three and combine them into a workout. Perform no more than 12 total sets for biceps.

Vary your rep range, from a high of 20 down to a low of 6 with your heaviest weight. Train your biceps twice weekly with focus and determination and you’ll be rewarded with biceps that impress.