YES! Biceps mass will be well on its way once you master this exercise. By keeping your hands close together and focusing on your biceps to lift your body, you will be essentially doing bodyweight curls. How much do you weigh? 150? 180? 220? Can you straight bar curl that much? I didn’t think so.
There is a big difference between pull ups and chin ups though. While pull ups are good for your arms and back, close grip chin ups bring that whole movement to a whole new bicep-mass-building-level.
TO SET UP find a straight bar that you can comfortably reach from a standing position. Grip the bar with an underhand/supinated grip (your palms should be facing you). Keep the hands about 4-6 inches apart; they should be right outside your chin on either side.
If you are strong enough to do weighted pull ups or chin ups, add some weight either by crossing your feet and placing a dumbbell between your ankles, or hanging a couple plates from a weighted belt. A weighted belt should have a chain on one end and a loop on the other end, to which you should hook the chain. Put the chain through the hole in the middle of the plates and clasp the chain to the loop. Good stuff.
standing barbell curl
If there was ever a ‘compound biceps exercise’, this would be it. This is the only direct bicep exercise that you can just pile weight on and use all the muscle of the biceps and forearms to get the weight up. Standing barbell curls are the only must-use exercise if you want tank arms.
To set up: load a standard 45 lb barbell with some weights, and pick it up. Your hands should be supinated (palms up), about shoulder width apart. Arms should hang down beside/in front of your body, the bar in front of your hips. Tuck your elbows into your sides and DON’T move them throughout the exercise.
To curl: keeping your elbows tucked in place at your sides, curl the bar up to your chin, but not so far that your forearms are perpendicular to the floor. Always keep tension on the biceps throughout the motion. Do not let the biceps relax at the bottom of the rep, but also don’t bounce the bar off your hips or quads in order to start the next rep. Keep tension on the biceps.
Variations: wide grip, medium grip, narrow grip; standing ez curls with a 20-25 lb ez curl bar. Do reverse curl to work your forearms.
Alternating rotating dumbbell curl
This is a simple exercise, that feels natural in its plane of motion. By alternating, you can focus maximal intensity on each arm separately.
To set up: grab two dumbbells and hold them down at your sides, arms straight, palms facing your body. Again, keep your elbows tucked into your sides as soon as you start curling.
To curl: start the movement with a hammer curl, then as the dumbbell clears your body, begin to rotate it so that at the end of the movement, your palms are facing your head. Once you lower the dumbbell back to the starting position, start curling with the next arm.
Cheat Principles
Here is an example, but this guy is definitely swaying and cheating. I couldn’t really find a good video for standing alternating bicep curls. Basically take this principle and instead of swaying, keep your elbows locked at your sides and just stand still while you curl.
When you get to the last rep, you may feel free to apply a cheat principle by either swaying a bit or by raising the elbows away from the body, but this should only be on the last rep of the set.
