Bulging biceps make you look good and help improve your sports performance. There's no need to hire a personal trainer or spend money on gym memberships or equipment to work your biceps. Using heavier loads and performing reps slowly will help you increase your biceps' size.
Plan Ahead
Write a list of exercises that target the biceps. Include chest presses, flyes, curls, rows, pushups, chin-ups and chair dips. If you lack access to dumbbells or resistance bands, use milk cartons filled with water, cans of soup or other homemade weights.
Practice
Practice each exercise with little or no weight to familiarize yourself with the technique. Experiment with the placement of your hands to see which hand placements emphasize your biceps the most. Start with weights at shoulder height, in a T position with your palms facing forward, and bring your hands together in front of your chest to perform flyes. Place your hands even with or in front of your hips when performing chair dips. Perform chin-ups with your palms facing you on the bar. Experiment with your hand placement during chin-ups and pushups to see which position emphasizes your biceps the most.
Workout Pattern
Create a workout routine -- such as three-by-three, five-by-five or 10-by-10 -- depending on your strength, if you want to build your biceps. A three-by-three refers to three repetitions of an exercise and three sets of that exercise. A five-by-five might include two warm-up sets using less weight or resistance than the final three sets. If you use bodyweight exercises such as pushups, dips and chin-ups, perform more reps, as you may not use the maximum weight you can move with these exercises. Perform all sets of one exercise in a row before you move to a new exercise. Alternate exercises to use upper-body and then lower-body muscles if you are working on your biceps during a full-body workout. Use less weight and perform 10 to 12 reps if you want to exercise your biceps to improve their endurance, rather than to build them. Switch exercises after each set.
Muscle Contractions
Use muscular effort to perform uplifts and downlifts, rather than letting your body or weights drop. For example, after you shorten your muscle by lifting yourself during a chin-up, lower yourself slowly, rather than letting yourself drop. These muscle-lengthening contractions provide more muscle-building benefit, according to fitness author and radio host Dr. Gabe Mirkin.
Workout Format
Warm up before each lifting session. Swing and raise your arms, turn your torso and perform other movements that raise your heart rate while you perform moderate-intensity dynamic stretches. Perform your exercises. Cool down by moving your arms without weights, raising and lowering them to help excess blood and lactic acid -- which have pooled in muscles -- leave them. Hold the stretches for 20 to 30 seconds.
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