Everyone wants bigger biceps, but not everyone trains them smart or uses the right biceps exercises in the workouts. The truth is that curling heavy often doesn’t guarantee growth. Instead, building thick, peaked biceps comes down to precision: exercise selection, tempo, angle, and recovery all matter.
The biceps brachii has two heads (short and long) and crosses both the shoulder and elbow joints. That means if you’re doing the same curls every week without thinking about range of motion or arm positioning, you’re leaving serious growth on the table. Your biceps can handle volume, recover fast, and love variety, but only if you’re targeting them from different angles with real intent.
In this edition of our Best to Worst Workout Series, we’re breaking down popular biceps exercises from top-tier mass-builders to those that might not deserve much space in your routine. Whether you’re chasing sleeve-busting arms or want to train smarter, this list will help you program your way to bigger biceps.
The Best Exercises To Build Your Biceps
These are your moneymakers, movements that maximize tension, range, and growth potential. They allow for clean execution, a deep stretch, a strong peak contraction, and easy progressive overload.
Incline Dumbbell Curls
One of the best long-head biceps builders. Sitting back on an incline bench places your arms behind the torso, stretching the biceps in the loaded bottom position, an underrated key for hypertrophy.
Coach’s Tip: Let your arms hang naturally and resist the urge to swing. Stretch at the bottom and squeeze hard at the top.
Preacher Curls
Eliminate momentum. By locking your arms into the pad, you isolate the biceps and extend time under tension in the most challenging part of the curl.
Coach’s Tip: Use an EZ bar or dumbbells. Pause and drive each rep with control.
EZ-Bar Curls
More wrist-friendly than straight bars, EZ-bar curls allow heavier loading with less strain, hitting both heads of the biceps and even the brachialis.
Coach’s Tip: Use a shoulder-width grip to balance long- and short-head activation.
Cable Curls (Low Pulley)
Constant tension is the name of the game. Cables remove free weights’ “dead spots” and offer a consistent resistance curve.
Coach’s Tip: Try single-arm or bilateral curls. Adjust the cable height to emphasize different parts of the movement.
Average Exercises To Build Your Biceps
These are effective, but they come with caveats. Maybe they’re easier to cheat, hard to load correctly, or limit the range of motion. They’ll work, but you must dial in your form and intent.
Barbell Curls
Classic and powerful, but often overused and butchered with momentum. Great for building strength, but too much ego lifting turns this into a shoulder exercise.
Coach’s Tip: Keep your elbows pinned and go lighter than you think. Tempo and control trump weight here.
Hammer Curls
These hit the brachialis and brachioradialis more than the biceps themselves, but still contribute to thicker arms overall.
Coach’s Tip: Alternate arms or go cross-body (diagonal curls) to keep tension high and make the movement more biceps-friendly.
Concentration Curls
Old-school and effective when done right, but often treated as an afterthought. They’re hard to overload and easy to turn into a partial-rep fest.
Coach’s Tip: Slow down the lowering phase. Use a mirror to monitor form and keep your elbow anchored.
Spider Curls
This is another strict curl variation with solid isolation benefits. However, the angle limits stretch, and lighter loads are typically required.
Coach’s Tip: Try a slight pause at the top and focus on the squeeze. Treat it as a burnout finisher.
Below-Average Exercises To Build Your Biceps
These might activate the biceps to a degree, but they’re not worth anchoring your routine around. Either the stimulus is minimal, or the mechanics make loading the biceps difficult.
Cable Front Double Biceps Pose Curls
They look cool, but the resistance curve is awkward, and the short range of motion does little for real muscle-building.
Coach’s Tip: Save these for a light finisher or pose practice—not your primary curl.
Chin-Ups (for Biceps)
Yes, your biceps work hard during chin-ups, but they’re not the prime mover. They’re great for back-and-biceps combo training but not direct hypertrophy.
Coach’s Tip: Use chin-ups as a strength builder. For size, stick to isolated curls.
Reverse Curls
These target the forearms and brachialis more than the biceps. They are good for arm density but not for biceps peaks.
Coach’s Tip: Rotate these in for forearm and grip training, not as your prominent biceps movement.
Cable High Curls
Standing at a cable crossover station, arms held high—more flare than function—limited stretch, tricky mechanics, and tough to progressively overload.
Coach’s Tip: Use occasionally for noelty, but don’t count on these for size gains.
How To Train For The Most Biceps Gains
Want arms that pop under a T-shirt? Here’s how to turn these exercises into results:
- Train biceps 2 to 3 times per week: They recover fast, primarily when split across push-pull or arm days.
- Prioritize full range of motion: Full stretch at the bottom, full squeeze at the top.
- Control the tempo: 2 to 3 seconds up, 3 to 4 seconds down. Time under tension builds muscle, not momentum.
- Don’t skip curls for different angles: Include exercises where arms are in front, at your sides, and behind your torso to hit both heads.
- Vary your tools: Use dumbbells, cables, EZ-bars, and machines to keep stimulus fresh.
- Finish with intensity techniques: Dropsets, 21s, or tempo curls are great ways to exhaust the biceps without needing super heavy weight.
- Watch your grip: Wider grips bias the short head; narrower grips hit the long head. Mix it up based on your goals.
The Takeaway
Big biceps don’t happen by accident. Focus on the “best” movements for consistent overload and clean form, use the “average” ones to spice up your routine, and keep the flashy, “below average” moves where they belong: as accessories, not priorities.
