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A little tweak can make all the difference, especially when it comes to targeting a muscle group. Maybe you don’t feel the muscle working when it should, or maybe you never knew how to do a certain exercise. While I won’t spend time specifying exactly how to do each of these exercises, adding these tweaks should turn something good into something great.
Dumbbell Curls Tweak #1: When you curl the weight up, try rotating your pinkie outwards and squeezing your biceps at the top of the motion. By outwards, I mean rotating your pinkie towards your shoulder and your thumb away from your body (so your entire forearm should pivot a little bit). You should feel your biceps contract harder than it does in normal biceps curls. If you don’t like this tweak, just don’t use it.
Tweak #2: A different and perhaps simpler tweak you can use for dumbbell biceps curls is this: don’t twist your wrists as you curl the weight up. This motion is called “supinating;” it’s when you start with the dumbbells at your sides (palms in) and your literally curl and twist (or supinate) your palm as you lift the weight, so the dumbbell faces your shoulder at the top of the movement. With the tweak, you won’t supinate; so you’ll start with your palms facing away from your body (facing forward) at the bottom of the movement. It may feel a little awkward at first, but try to keep your palms facing away from your body throughout the entire movement; simply curl the weights up (keeping your elbows pinned to your sides) and squeeze your biceps at the top of the movement.
If you typically dislike dumbbell curls, I would recommend trying Tweak #2; I feel like this method helps a lot of people (including me) feel dumbbell curls in the biceps muscle itself, rather than the shoulder.
Bench Press: Try slowing your descent on the bench press for a different feel, and actually pausing at the bottom for a count of one. This is called changing the “tempo” of your lift, and different tempos can target different goals. Shoot for a 3 second descent and a 1 second hold at the bottom; this should help eliminate any weaknesses you have in the lift, and should help you focus on form in general. You’ll find you can’t use as much weight with this method. In my opinion, that’s a good thing–you’re actually focusing on the lift itself, and not bouncing the weight off of your sternum or letting it float left and right as you lift it up. This Tweak works with Dumbbell Presses as well, both Flat or Incline.
Chin-Ups: To make chin-ups a killer finisher for your biceps workout, keep your legs lifted in front of your body as you perform the chin-up. A nice side-effect of this Tweak, besides allowing the chin-up to target your biceps more effectively, is that you simultaneously train your abdominal muscles (and hip flexors). Shoot for 3 sets of as many reps as you can get, with no weight, at the end of your next biceps workout.
If you’re a man or woman training for fat loss, the chin up (with your legs lifted in front of you) also makes a fantastic addition to a circuit program. Always look for exercises that can target multiple muscle groups simultaneously; it can help increase both the intensity and efficiency of your circuits. Another, off-topic suggestion may be the curl and press, or overhead barbell squat, or push-up to squat jump to pull-up combination (where you do a push up, scramble to a crouched position and then leap for the pull-up handle and do a pull-up), etc.
Bent-Over Barbell Row: Flip your grip to better target your lower lats. So instead of pulling with an overhand grip, pull the bar with an underhand grip, and try pulling it to a lower point in your abdomen (near your belly button) then you did with normal Bent-Over Barbell Rows.
This is an important tip to keep in mind–when you’re doing Bent-Over Barbell Rows, you can actually change which area of your back you’re targeting by pulling the barbell higher up on your abdomen or lower down on your abdomen. The higher up you row it, the more middle back / trapezius you’ll target, while the lower you pull it, the more lower lats you’ll employ. So keep that in mind. And of course, this to a certain degree (ie; you don’t want to be pulling it to your upper chest, etc.).
Lying Triceps Extensions: A recent study showed triceps extensions to be more effective (in terms of targeting the triceps muscle) when performed on a decline bench. So next time you do triceps extensions, whether it’s with a dumbbell or a barbell, try performing them on a decline bench. Also, experiment with where you extend your arms; oftentimes, extending your arms directly above your head (the traditional way) may not feel as “effective” at targeting the triceps then if you extend your arms slightly backwards (say, if you extend an invisible line straight up from your face, about 30 degrees from this line–away from your torso–at the top of the movement). So you’ll be, in effect, extending your arms slightly behind you instead of directly above you.
Whatever you do, make sure you keep your elbows STATIONARY during the entire extension, to the best of your ability.
Weighted Decline Crunch: To make this exercise substantially harder, try holding a relatively light plate behind your head. When you curl your body up, try keep your chin up (not to an exaggerated degree; your head should still be straight). Just don’t curl your head in as you perform the crunch; try to keep your head straight, chin slightly elevated (like you’re snobby), and hands resting softly behind your head. The plate should really be a second-thought, at first; once you feel comfortable performing the decline crunch this way (or if you do), and you want increased resistance, consider holding a light plate (10 pounds, perhaps) behind your head.
A quick note: these tweaks are just suggestions, and some are harder than others. In no way do you have to incorporate every single one of these, or any of these, for that matter. Hopefully, you’ll find something in here that you like, and your workouts will be that much better as a result.
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