Working out using barbells and dumbbells exercises have always been the best exercises for increasing masculine features of your arms. Anyone, a beginner or a professional considers it the most difficult training and workout. Sometimes people feel awkward to ask their queries about the techniques, diet to be taken, no. of reps and sets and this happens mostly with the beginners. Approaching an experienced weight-lifter doesn’t seem to be a good option to them.
Biceps are considered to be one of the most sought-after muscles which add up to one’s physical appearance and inner strength. And if anything messes up while exercising and working out on your biceps, they are prone to an extent that can go wrong with them. While the newbies are excited that they can do a lot new exercises using a barbell, some common mistakes should be avoided by them so as to get the desired results without getting into any unfavorable circumstances.
Further in this article is a compiled list of mistakes which anyone should avoid while doing workouts using barbells.
Bad technique
Lifting a barbell without the correct technique can become the worst nightmare for you. Remember, there is no other way of doing a particular barbell exercise. May be there are variations to the original exercises but one must consult a professional gym trainer before trying any such modified exercises.
A bad technique may include all the possible mistakes you can do while lifting the barbell like doing the exercise only halfway, swinging the barbell, applying more power and stress from either side etc. Lifting weights in an ill-manner is quite dangerous and also can lead to injury, most possibly on your back area and shoulders. And if you are careless, there are high chances of you dropping the barbell on yourself while doing the bench press or any other barbell exercises.
High reps/light weights
One of the most common queries of bodybuilders is, “How many reps of a workout are needed for building the best muscles?” Simply speaking, there is no straight answer to this as there are many variables which are to be considered. But one common rule is always to be followed while working out with barbells, and that is, doing lesser reps with heavier weights to get bigger and stronger muscles. So, to get the most out of your barbell workout, drop down to 6-8 reps on your exercises and do a few extra sets.
Overtraining
In my opinion, overtraining is the biggest mistake in case of barbell exercises as they’re very common, mostly due to the competitive environment of bodybuilding. You may have heard it too, ‘Excess of everything is bad’ and in bodybuilding, it can be termed up as superbad. Follow the general rule here: If the muscles are still sore of your previous workout, don’t train on them. Here are a few outlined concepts to aid you in avoiding overtraining of muscles:
Get 8 hours of sleep daily, at least.
Get a surplus amount of calories in your diet.
Workout on your biceps not more than twice a week.
Avoid adding up newer exercises in your workout plan.
Keep yourself stress-free.
Take a week off every 3 months of workout program.
Don’t always try to gain strength or mass.
Another myth between many beginners is to lift a lot of weight at once in any exercise so as to build the body quickly. Lifting the wrong amount of weight, whether it be too heavy or too light, can limit your muscle gains, severely. This is why, determining how much weight to be lifted for each exercise in your program demands a lot of attention.
Not enough rest
For the beginners in the field of working out, this isn’t any new stupid misconception from their side. Even if you ask an elite muscle builder, you’ll be getting the answer that rest is just as equally important as workouts.
During a workout session, there is a build of osteosclerosis (which makes bones denser by continuous breakage and joining of porous parts of brain. For the repair part, a resting condition is very much essential. Not enough rest means not enough muscle growth. Enough resting is also important considering the aspect that a person needs to be fully present, not only physically but mentally too, during the exercise session. If you skip some hours sleep and come to the training the next day, you may feel more restless and exhausted.
Avoid compound bicep exercises
It is just a mistake which can be made out of ignorance and also a good example to differentiate between a professional and dedicated weight-lifter from someone rookie and inexperienced or someone who wants the easy way out. Remember, start your workout session with the bigger exercises first!
You can use this following rule for the purpose. If you feel that the exercise is somewhat harder to do, there are chances of it being a bigger compound exercise than the ones you feel comparatively easier to do. Incorporate at least one compound exercise in your workout routine followed by a few isolated exercises like dumbbell bicep curls and concentration curls.
Poor eating
There is a saying to support this point, “Eat big to get big”, and it is quite true in case of bodybuilding. Hoping for big biceps without proper eating is like shooting without a proper aim. In particular, eat surplus amounts of calories to get as much protein and complex carbohydrates as possible. To get a rough idea about how much daily dose of calories are required by your body, here is a calculator.
Also, a balanced diet with proper proportions of proteins, carbs and fats is very much important. It’s not favored to get all your calories from either one of these fats, carbs, or proteins.
Eating small meals, more often is mostly preferred. Split your meals into 5 or 6 sub-meals and have them with a time spacing of 2 or 3 hours apart, keeping your body nitrogen balanced so as to counter the muscle breakdown.
Pre exhausted biceps
It’s important to plan your workouts in a better way so that before doing your biceps exercises, you don’t work on them in any other exercise. For the reference, take an instance of training your back before working on your biceps. This is very unfavorable for your biceps because while doing the back exercises you are also using the biceps as a secondary muscle group.
So, don’t get the biceps exhausted in those exercises where you are unknowingly using them in the workout. Don’t do it the other way round too, i.e., training your biceps and then training your back, as now the back will be used secondarily. Work on your back and biceps on separate days.
Incomplete squats
This one mistake is done mostly out of the concern. Squats with barbell is a really useful exercise that is done in an improper way widely. They don’t complete the squat and stand up. The proper way for doing it is that it should be done to parallel or below parallel for much better results. This means that while squatting down, your quadriceps must be parallel to the ground. It is very much required to do so as to put the workload on your quadriceps to get them worked out too. They need to be pushed hard to grow.
It happens that people put far too much weight that they are unable to handle, on the bar and with this much heavy weight, they can squat for only a few inches which is quite dangerous. Try to lower the weight till the time you get appropriate weights on the barbell and do the workout with a proper form. When you are very much used to it, increase the weight to as much as you are comfortable with, keeping your form proper.
Improper barbell curling
Due to the incorporated long handles, barbells are primarily used for bilateral exercises, employing both left and right sides of the body simultaneously. Standing barbell curls is also a well known barbell exercise to attain big, strong and better biceps. The standing barbell curl is an isolation (single-joint) exercise. It isolates the biceps so as to work hard on them.
The biggest mistake often committed while doing these curls is that the trainees usually hoist up the weight and by swinging their back into an arch. You will notice a lot of swinging with every rep. This eliminates the isolation of the muscles due to the swinging which causes other muscles to get involved too.
Another mistake pointed out in standing biceps curls doers is that most of them release the uplifted weight too hastily, which eliminates the negative or eccentric phase of the rep. Negative is as important to be handled correctly as this is a common reason in most cases of muscle fiber breakdown.