Bicep Confusion Workout

Your muscles are naturally designed to overcome resistance and adapt to loads as they grow stronger. This principle of overload, unfortunately, can lead to a frustrating plateau where strength and size gains in your biceps seem to creep along or stall out completely. Changing up your routine with just a few alternative sequences can help confuse your biceps out of complacency and jump-start your progress again.

  1. No Rest

    • Supersets consist of performing two or more exercises consecutively with no rest between sets. Supersets effectively shock the biceps by pushing the muscle to failure over the course of two different movements with no recovery time in between. Start with eight repetitions of alternating bicep curls superset with eight repetitions of barbell curls. Repeat for three sets with two minutes rest between sets. Move on to a second superset of preacher curls and decline bicep curls. Performs eight repetitions of each for three sets with two minutes rest between each set.

    Take It Up and Down

    • The concept of pyramiding up or down involves increasing or decreasing weight with each set. The change in weight and repetitions confuses the bicep by running it through a full range of heavy to light weight and low to high repetitions all within one workout. Load a barbell with a weight you can perform 12 preacher curls with. Rest for one minute then increase the weight so you reach failure by eight repetitions. Rest for another minute and increase the weight so you reach failure by only four repetitions. Move on to three sets of alternating bicep curls followed by three sets of hammer curls following the same pattern of increasing weight with each set. Conversely, you can pyramid down by starting with the heavier weight and only four repetitions and finishing with the lighter weight at 12 repetitions.

    One More Rep

    • Drop sets confuse the biceps by pushing them to failure and then asking them to do more past failure. Attach a straight bar to a low cable and start with weight that is heavy enough that you can just complete eight repetitions. When you reach failure, drop the weight by 50 percent and continue performing repetitions of the same exercise until you reach failure. Rest for at least a minute and a half before repeating the drop set and repeat for a total of three sets. Move on to single arm bicep curls and decline bicep curls, adding on a drop set at 50 percent of your starting weight for each set. You can drop down in weight once, or you can continue to keep dropping the weight in a single set two or three times until you reach failure. Be sure to give yourself enough rest between sets. The more times you drop the weight in a drop set the longer your rest period should be, and the fewer sets you should perform.

    Put It All Together

    • Each of these workouts can be done individually using the same technique across several bicep exercises. However, you can also combine each of these elements into a single workout to further confuse your biceps. You can pyramid through a single set and superset it with a pyramid of the next exercise. Or you can superset two exercises to start with, pyramid up or down through your next exercise, and finish by drop-setting your last exercise. These exercises can help break a plateau and spur the bicep back into progress with strength or size, but be sure to maintain periods of straight sets at some point to allow for growth. Too much confusion can stall progress and potentially lead to over-training. Warm up with light cardio and stretching prior to a workout and become familiar with how to perform an exercise before trying any modifications.