Many times we are forced to train a muscle group when we have little weight. Although it is not a limitation per se because the muscle does not understand so much the weight it lifts but rather what it means to lift it, it is true that some things should be taken into account, especially if for this reason we are forced to do more than 20 repetitions .
That said, in this article We explain how to train the biceps when we have little weight.
The weight we lift and the intensity of the effort
Our body, like any other complex dynamic organism, always tries to remain in a state of balance. The stimuli we receive every day can alter this balance to a greater or lesser extent. If these stimuli do not exceed a certain threshold, the imbalance is not high and therefore our body does not need to adapt to them. On the other hand, if the stimuli are of sufficient magnitude and exceed a certain threshold, our body must invest resources and energy to adapt.
Training is one of these stimuli and therefore it must exceed a certain threshold for our body to become unbalanced enough to need to adapt and become stronger. In this way, in the future, before this same stimulus, it will not become so unbalanced.
So our body does not understand the kilos that our muscles lift, but of what it means to these to raise them. This is where the concept of effort intensity comes into play.
The intensity of the effort is nothing more than what it costs us to perform a series and can be easily measured with self-regulation tools such as the RIR or the RPE. There is consensus in the sector when considering that the effective series or those that exceed the necessary stimulus threshold are those that leave four repetitions at most in the chamber.
Example. Imagine that you have to perform a series of bench presses of 12 repetitions. If you get to rep 12, let go of the bar and feel like at most you could have done four, three, two, one or no more reps, the effort and stimulation are considered effective.
So what we have to find is ways to increase the intensity of the effort when we do not have much room to add more or less weight.
How to increase the intensity of the effort without a lot of weight
As we said, the intensity of the effort can be measured based on the repetitions that we leave at the end of a series. In this way, two of the main variables that we can manipulate to increase it are the load we use or the repetitions.
If the load is limited we can only play with the repetitions variable. When we are looking for strength and hypertrophy, the ideal is to stay in a range of 6 to 20 repetitions, so if we have the option of increasing the repetitions that we have been doing to the upper margin of the range, we could find the intensity of effort required. That would be the first alternative we have.
The second option is to try to choose unilateral exercises, that is, those that are performed with only one arm. These exercises practically they force us to use less weight to be able to execute them. You don’t get the same lift on a straight bar bicep curl as you do on a dumbbell curl. Examples are dumbbell, cable or machine curls as long as they are done with one arm.
Remember that to achieve maximum development of the biceps, it is advisable to select exercises that allow us to play with the degree of shoulder flexion. Those where the curl is performed with the shoulder extended will stimulate the long head of the biceps more. On the other hand, those performed with the shoulder in flexion will stimulate the short head more.
Finally, what we can do are intensification techniques that allow us to reach high degrees of effort if, for example, unilateral exercises or 20 repetitions do not get us too close to muscle failure.
The two intensification techniques that can best fit here are drop-sets and myo-repswhich we have already talked about at Vitónica.
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