Are two exercises for biceps enough?

Hi,

I am working with weight lifting for two months now, and I am trying to gain mass (hard because I am ecto), so I am overeating.

I have tried today a new way to work biceps, I only worked did seated dumbbell with one arm at a time, holing the arm over my leg, and the preacher.

I did 3 sets 8 reps each, and the last one with more weight I did negative, someone put the weight in top possition and I fight against gravity until the weight goes slowly down, I could only make 7 reps of this last set.

I really ended with the biceps completely tired, I wonder if that is enough or I may need to add another 4 sets, of any other biceps exercise.?

thanks in advance.

What are you doing for your OTHER muscles?

I am doing the Body For Life program and its program is 2 exervises for each muscle group - one exercies is a rep of 12, 10 , 8, 6 then 12 then one exercise of 12 reps - the secret is to up the weight for each set so 10 lbs x12, 12 lbs x10 15lbsx8 etc... my muscles burn for those last reps and weights.  If you are pushing yourself to fatigue and keeping form you are going to be fine with just 2 exercises- just be sure you are working the muscles. 

If you're trying to gain muscle mass why are you spending so much time on such a small muscle?

Skip the curls, add chinups and make sure you're doing squats, deadlifts and some sort of press.

Nice set of isolation exercises you've got there but meh - I've seen a few studies showing that if you do compound exercises involving the arms like deadlifts, rows, chinups, bench presses and military presses, adding isolation exercises doesn't lead to more muscle growth.

 Now, I know people would just die without their bicep curls (me included), but if you want size and strength for your biceps, do chinups and rows instead. And if you really want to add some direct arm work, try Mechanical drop set #3 instead of - well, any exercise where you sit down.

 But what the he** are you doing working to failure and doing negatives as an ecto? Your system can't handle it, and it will only be counterproductive to your desires. What you need to do is something basic like starting strength or one of the intermediate variations of the 5x5 workout, and to eat like it's your job. You can get significantly stronger without adding mass due to neurological adaptations so if you want muscle you have to eat - but not too much since you don't want to add (too much) fat along with the muscle.

 Anyway. What's the rest of your program look like? That's more important than those fiddly isolation exercises.

Thanks a lot for your answers,

Yes I am working chest (four excercises), back (also four, including chin up) and triceps (three).

I had an injury in my knee so, I am recovering my legs (recovering strong and the doctor said) to start working hard my legs, I do squats (no weight at all) all days, and three days a week the chair (cuadriceps), and leg curls, all of them with few weight, that mean to recover the strong of my knee after a period of 10 years without doing excercise I had a surgery 10 years ago more or less.

I was doing spinning since february to loose body fat, but since october I stop it to gain weight, the I will start again.

Thanks for all your replies.

Hi,

More details.

Monday

Chest -

Barbell bench press 4 sets 8 to 6 reps (fatigue)

Incline barbell press 4 sets 8 to 6 reps (fatigue)

Pec deck butterflies 4 sets 8 reps

Dips 4 sets 8 reps

Biceps

preacher 4 sets 8 to 6 reps (fatigue)

dumbbell curl 4 sets 8 to 6 reps (fatigue)

Wednesday

Legs

Chair (cuadriceps)

Leg curls

Triceps

Cable extensions 4 sets 8 to 6 reps (fatigue)

Seated dumbbell extensions 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

standing single arm dumbbell extension 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

Friday

Back

Chin up 4 sets 6 reps (can't to more)

Pull down 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

single arm dumbbell  rows 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

T-bar rows 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

Shoulders

Military press 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

Two Arm Front Deltoid Dumbbell Raises 4 sets 8 to 6 reps

That is my routing, sometimes I change something, but keep to the basics, Like bench press, chin up or pull up

Ah - stop doing leg extensions, immediately. They're bad for your knees in general, and for you they're actively dangerous. The exercise gives you maximum strain and maximum load at right angles to where your knee is designed to take it, and the shear forces on your knees will do more harm than good.

 Replace them with stepups which are both safer and more effective. Similarly, the hamstring curl exercises are pretty useless - can't think of may situations in real life where you're lying on your stomach and trying to lift a weight with your feet. Do deadlifts instead, or maybe Romanian deadlifts.

 Though - your program has 8 pushing exercises and only 4 pulling exercises (not counting fiddly isolation moves you don't need) so it's horribly unbalaced and not in a good way. Most people would do better with a 2:1 or even a 3:1 pull:push ratio to counterbalance the effect of sitting in trunk flexion at a computer all day.

 The basic workout template you should follow would be more along the lines of Mark Rippetoe Starting Strength or Sean10mm's "stripped" 5x5 routine with modifications for your injuries - you might want to get the actual Starting Strength book to see the form modification suggestions from Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore for various special needs. 

Hey! thanks a lot, you really take your time to help others, I appreciate it.

I will take this night to read all you are talking about, thanks a lot.

regards.

Guillermo.

It sounds to me like you're doing great! Your exercise regimen is remarkably similar to my own. I lift 5 days a week, focusing on 1-2 muscles per day, 2-3 exercises for each muscle. For biceps, I do preacher curls and dumbell curls.  However, I do my db curls while standing up atop a Bosu ball (which helps work the core at the same time).

I disagree that you should stop doing the leg extensions.  IMO, they can be great for your recovery if done right. Before I started lifting, I had dislocated my knee 2 times. I had been avoiding any knee-related exercises but my trainer advised against that. She has me doing leg extensions anyway -- just with lighter weights.  In retrospect, this supports my doctor's advice that building up the muscles around the knee will help prevent further dislocations. Honestly, I can't help wondering if my lack of exercise for so many years was part of the cause of the dislocations. (I DO wear an ace bandage on "leg days.")

Hi,

Thanks, According to my doctor (different from the one who made me the surgery) my knee is recovered, what I need to gradually increse excersice until the muscle around are strong enough to support the stress.

I have started now with starting strenght to try it, I will give it two or three weeks to see how it works on me. I think could be OK because I can hardly recover from the my actual routine, I work on monday chest and biceps, and on wednesday I still have soreness, and I have read that you really need to recover in order to grow.

Sometimes, when I want work back (on fridays) I still feel my biceps (worked-out on mondays) to tired to support the work, so maybe I am working to hard and not allowing recovery, and it seems that starting strenght is going to help on that.

Of course I am working the squats with very few load, just 10 kilos on each side of the barbell (22 lbs).

 Oh, man, this is going to sound like a flame and I apologize in advance for the relative harshness of what's about to follow, but...

 Disagree all you want, but if you have weak knees and/or hamstrings leg extensions are a terrible exercise both due to further developing muscle imbalances and because the shear forces on your knees are at a 90 degree angle to where your body is designed to take them.

 Leg extensions can have some uses in rehab training when you're supervised by someone who knows what they're doing, but in general it's on the "things to avoid in the gym".

 Stop doing it, it's bad for your knees.

If you for some odd reason want to do an isolation move for the quads you're better off with the Sissy Squat, which is the only functional movement pattern that targets the quads in isolation. Think about that for a minute - would you ever do that move outside of a gym?

 Maybe if you're a limbo dancer.

 And what's with the bosu ball nonsense? Are you a surfer or a downhill skier? Do you skateboard? No? Then why are you training on an unstable surface? Strength developement depends on progressive resistance with heavy weights, and the unstable surface means your body will not allow your muscles to produce maximal contractions - so you're training to become weaker.

 Real core training is comprised of squats and deadlifts, not trunk flexion exercises on a swiss ball or unstable surface training. Direct ab work can help build core stability and support for the good stuff so it's not utterly useless, but it shouldn't be a large part of any workout.

 Speaking of useless though - why are you doing an intermediate-to-advanced bodybuilder split program? Are you an intermediate-to-advanced bodybuilder looking to step on stage in the near future? If not, you're far better off following a program designed for where you actually are in terms of physique instead of where you wish you were.