Curls...

that seems like a lot of reps when your aiming for a 1 rep max. I personally had my best strength increase when doing curls at maybe 2 days a week, 1 type of curls and just really heavy. I also like having a partner either provide additional resistance to my movement or help me with too much weight so that I'd work to the max for sure.

Why on the 1RM ?

I have had good results on focusing on heavy heavy weight with less rep, more concentrated. Always has helped me increase my rep max

Normaly i don`t care about one time max , But a friend is having a competition and i figure i would go and support him, it will be fun competing with the young guys.......lol

with as much as you can swing/cheat on a curl it seems like a silly choice for a strength competition. regardless. You definitely wanna stay under 5 rep range. I would say 5 x 3-5 reps. Also, do some very controlled negatives with about 120% of your max. Doing heavy rows (db or bb) and heavy deadlifts will make your bis strong. I didn't do a single curl for about 6 months and was just powerlifting. One day I walked over and picked up 65's off the rack and did about 8 reps. I was actually stronger not doing any curls. Just food for thought.

I concure with the guys, all of my workouts for bi's are under 5 reps....usually 2 or 3 sets, if ya do em right you wont be able to do more

furthermore staying under 5 rep range (assuming you are using heavy weight) is fucking haphazardly stupid. you will be stressing joint/tendon more than muscle leading to, in time, a weakened link that will actually slow or hault progress. if any of you have injured your bicep tendon then you know how it fucks you on just about every other lift.

Pils, I don't disagree with you about the grip training, but don't most injuries occur when the the body is either not properly warmed up, or when in a fatigued state as in doing heavy weight for 8-10 reps? As I said, deadlifting heavy (grip strength and further more biceps and shoulder girdle strength) will improve your curling ability. Obviously you don't want to stay in a low rep range for an extended period. But you wouldn't see a guy training for a powerlifting meet (1 rep max) by training his body to do higher reps(except for some limited conditioning training). That doesn't prepare you for maximum weight.

most injuries occur bc ppl go too heavy too long. its a myth that higher reps wont build strength, quite the contrary. not to say heavy weight is bad. heavy can be great you just have to know when to implement each. furthermore in powerlifting you are using multi muscle groups, unless doing a raw meet, you are very assisted to the point of fucking lunacy (you 3ply denim users!)
and again this is not a compound lift which are much more forgiving on joints, this a fucking curl. yes you can injure yourself doing 8-10, but come on its much more likely to happen in lower rep ranges bc once again you have connective tissue bearing a greater load than needed for any benefit. in addition most people have the weak fucking hands. i would say 99% of people have grips that are laughable. again weaker the grip more connective tissue/joints are recruited.

Posted by: pillsbury

most injuries occur bc ppl go too heavy too long. its a myth that higher reps wont build strength, quite the contrary. not to say heavy weight is bad. heavy can be great you just have to know when to implement each. furthermore in powerlifting you are using multi muscle groups, unless doing a raw meet, you are very assisted to the point of fucking lunacy (you 3ply denim users!)
and again this is not a compound lift which are much more forgiving on joints, this a fucking curl. yes you can injure yourself doing 8-10, but come on its much more likely to happen in lower rep ranges bc once again you have connective tissue bearing a greater load than needed for any benefit. in addition most people have the weak fucking hands. i would say 99% of people have grips that are laughable. again weaker the grip more connective tissue/joints are recruited.

Obviously you can't stay in one rep range for ever. This isn't the debate. How do you get your connective tissue ready for a load that is way heavier than what you could do for 8-10 reps? You just up and do that 1 rep max one day with no heavy preparation? Aren't we talking neurological training here as well? You have to train the body to develop maximum tension and you can't do that by going to failure on high reps. It is weird that we're talking about this in relation to curls though. I don't even do curls except for on occasion. As a fighter I don't do anything with the intention of getting my arms bigger. It's counterproductive. I cannot argue with you on grip strength and how laughable the average guy's is. The only thing I use wrist straps for is suitcase deadlifts (standing beside the bar and picking up with one hand) with any more than 180lbs on the bar. It starts taking my fingerprints off.

I agree with pilsbury on the grip part.however, I think the rep range should be 10 working down to 6. Anything lower and the risk would outweigh the benefit. Maybe throw in one lower rep wo midway. Be careful it would suck to blow out an elbow just to prove something to younger guys.

fuck i feel like banging my head through the fucking wall. if you read my post i never said to stay anywhere forever. how do you get connective tissue ready? you make the fucking muscle stronger, its not the other way around. train body to maximum tension? cant do that on high reps? first high reps along with heavy weight is all relative. whats heavy to you may be light to someone else as would high/low reps so throw that vocab out the window. and no neurological training we are not talking about! fuck!! neurological training would improve cns and muscle activation not load on fucking tendon! christ come on people! furthermore in relation to grip/hand/forearm training, using thick bars and other shit, you try going so heavy you can only do 5 reps and i can assure you that gains will be fucking nihl! notice nowhere did i give a rep range or weight range as is not the issue! what is most important is activation of appropriate muscles while minimizing stress on joint/tendon. there is definately a point when the load switches from muscle to joint you must be able to find that line and 999 out of 1000 people will not be able to do that using such low reps not bc of low rep them selves but bc of the weight being too high for any benefit other than ego training and looking like a fucking twat.

Posted by: pillsbury

i disagree with under 5 reps. thick bar would be best solution. higher reps a bit better, will improve grip which ultimately will increase curl at a much faster rate then working the bicep directly. the stronger your grip the harder you can hold bar the more weight you can use. actually if you completely stopped training using the traditional curl and focused on hand strength formost followed by thickbar training you would greatly improve at much faster pace not too mention increase any other lift you have to hold shit

grip will increase with pullups and other natural movement exercises, for pure strength keep it at five reps, 90% max with a spot for 2-3 sets, in 4 weeks you'll increase your max by at least 1/4, i promise