Best for bicep beginner: dumbbells or barbell?
September 28, 2013 4:44 PM   Subscribe

Weightlifting beginner looking to bulk up my biceps purely for aesthetics using free weights. I don't do any other weight training currently. Would I be better off with a dumbbell set like this or an EZ Curl barbell like this?
posted by iamisaid to Health & Fitness (8 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
It doesn't really make any difference
posted by RustyBrooks at 4:58 PM on September 28, 2013


Overtraining one muscle is never a good idea.

The best way to get good biceps: overhand pull ups and deadlift.
posted by irishcoffee at 5:14 PM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dumbbells. With a barbell you're more likely to reinforce imbalances between left and right side, and although the EZ-curl bar is easier on your wrists, it's easier still to simply use dumbbells.

That said, if you work only your biceps and not the rest of the muscle in your arms, shoulders, chest, and back, you aren't just risking looking silly (the people who you think have JUST big biceps actually have well developed arms and shoulders and chest and back), you are risking causing yourself injury by pulling your joints out of alignment with muscle imbalances. This is something I have actually done and not an abstract wishy washy warning.
posted by telegraph at 6:17 PM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I agree with everyone above. Pull ups and chin ups are a great bicep exercise and they will develop your back and triceps, in addition to building your grip strength. Doing only bicep curls is basically the fedora of the exercise world.
posted by pravit at 9:42 PM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


You'd be better off buying a pull-up bar or gymnastics rings and doing pull-ups. I found that pull-ups, chin-ups (underhanded/palms-facing-you/supinated grip) in particular, were great for building my biceps with the added bonuses of a bigger, stronger upper back and shoulders too.

But if you're really, really excited about working just your biceps and nothing else then I'd get a pair of 25 pound dumbbells and do a bajillion variations of curls. (Then, if you ever decide "Hey maybe I should do something other than just work my biceps", you'll have dumbbells! Dumbbells are great for all sorts of lifting.)
posted by daveliepmann at 12:53 AM on September 29, 2013


Dumbbells - do negative curls.
Barbell - Preacher curls.
Dumbbells - 21s.

The above is if you've got access to a gym.
On your own, dumbbells is the way to go.
posted by notsnot at 3:38 AM on September 29, 2013


Strictly for the purposes of biceps curls, I think you're better off with the dumbbells -- the biceps is a supinator of the forearm as well as an elbow flexor, meaning that it rotates the forearm as well as bending the elbow, which the dumbbells will allow you to do, providing superior activation of the biceps.

I think you'll also find a larger variety of other exercises that you can do with the dumbbells, should you decide to expand beyond biceps curls, which you definitely should.

The biceps only have a secondary role in pullups, and anyone involving their biceps in a deadlift is about to get hurt. There's nothing wrong with doing curls to get bigger biceps, but doing nothing but isolating a single muscle is asking for an imbalance and eventual injury as well.
posted by ludwig_van at 9:02 AM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Agree with previous answers that dumbbells will reduce imbalances between arms, exercise the stabilizers more, and allow a fully supinated grip.

Also agree with previous answers that if "I don't do any other weight training currently" means "I don't plan to exercise anything except my biceps," this question is basically asking, "if I'm going to reproduce Fast Food Nation, would it be less hilariously terrible for me if I ate only Burger King instead of only McDonald's?"
posted by d. z. wang at 8:36 PM on September 30, 2013


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