Hany Rambod wields one of the most impressive coaching résumés of all time and doesn’t shy away from helping others online. In his latest effort, Rambod shared his top three biceps exercises and opened up on the importance of dumbbell movements, as well as whether achieving failure is essential to muscle growth.
In the world of bodybuilding, Hany Rambod’s name shines brightly. He has guided and trained royalty of the sport, including former seven-time Mr. Olympia Phil Heath and four-time titleholder Jay Cutler. In addition to overseeing the training of Men’s Physique competitor Andrei Deiu, Rambod is also responsible for coaching the reigning Mr. Olympia Derek Lunsford, former champion Hadi Choopan, and reigning five-time Classic Physique Olympia Chris Bumstead.
With a firm understanding of bodybuilding at the highest level, Rambod’s knowledge of training and exercise is unmatched. He created a proprietary training program called FST-7 (Fascia Stretch Training), which is not a single workout, but instead a system that can be applied to each training session.
Hany Rambod’s Best 3 Exercises for Bicep Growth
Below, Rambod reveals his three go-to exercises for bicep development.
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- Spider curls
- Hammer curls
- Drag curls
Spider curls
Rambod favored spider curls due to the contraction they provide.
“Alright, so number one would be spider curls. I love spider curls. That’s the one where you’re leaning forward on a bench, chest is up on there and you really get that great contraction. I’ve shown you how to do them.”
Hammer curls
Perhaps the most essential exercise Rambod named for bicep growth was hammer curls, which he credits as a staple in his routine.
“My second exercise, I love hammer curls. Hammer curls, good forearm activation, bicep brachialis, just sometimes, you know changing it up a little bit by going slightly cross-body but any variation of that. Again, you can even do those on the spider bench too but that is a staple, making sure you do a hammer curl is a very very good exercise for biceps.”
Drag curls (Panatta machine)
Lastly, Rambod advocated for drag curls but mentioned that he prefers to use the total arm machine from Panatta for this exercise.
“Third one, right now, if you ask me, I’m really loving the total arm machine from Panatta. That’s kind of my go-to. I know most of the gyms don’t have it. I like it because you can either use a straight bar or a cambered bar and do what’s called drag curls.”
“You’re basically dragging the barbell across your body and if you don’t have that machine and you want to do drag curls you just basically use a straight bar or a cambered bar and it goes right up to your belly button and you just curl all the way up but you literally drag it across there,” shares Hany Rambod.
When asked about why bodybuilding legends would swing their bodies during heavy reps, Rambod explained that ‘body English’ used to be much more common than it is nowadays.
“Back then, there was a lot of body English. I still think that it works. You just gotta be careful not to do too much because then you will end up swinging the weight and it’s just all of the momentum is what is carrying the weight up and down and it’s not really putting enough force on the actual bicep.
But I think a little bit of that, we call that body English, adding a little bit of that momentum, especially on the heavier weights is okay but for the most part you want to try to keep it, especially on the eccentric on the way down, you want to keep it a little bit slower. But you’ve seen Shawn Ray do it, you’ve seen Jay Cutler like you mentioned, many different bodybuilders back in the day do it in those old videos but now it’s a little bit less.”
Rambod Breaks Down Why You Should Master Dumbbells and If Going to Failure Is Necessary for Every Set
According to Rambod, exercises like the incline dumbbell press are a ‘have-to,’ and the younger generation should ‘build that base’ with dumbbells.
“There’s a meme with me and Jay and Jay is doing incline dumbbell presses. It’s on every person’s iPhone right now. You can look it up. There’s a picture of me spotting him and he’s doing dumbbell presses. I think that was getting ready for 2009 or 2010 Olympia. Those exercises are have-to’s. Doing barbell squats are have-to’s. They are so essential, especially the younger generation, you need to build that base.”
Rambod doesn’t believe it’s necessary to train to failure on every set. He underlined the need for warm-up and working sets.
“Every set to failure? No. First of all, you need your warm-up sets, second, when you do your failure set, it should be one or possibly two for a particular exercise but it’s not every set because the first two or three sets are warm-up sets.
Then you go into what I call the working sets. Usually, that constitutes one to two sets of really good high working 8-12 reps going to failure and then possibly if you want to go to a really like next-level-like failure, let’s just say we’re using partials, let’s just say you’re doing forced reps, or you’re doing some type of negatives, you’re really taking it to that absolute failure.”
Whether he is imparting training wisdom or coaching athletes at the Mr. Olympia contests, Rambod always offers valuable insight. He has also discussed the differences between coaching enhanced versus natural talents, making it clear that athletes can only rely on performance-enhancing drugs for a limited amount of time.
Currently training the top two bodybuilders in the world, Hany Rambod’s advice is backed up with results on some of the sport’s most decorated stages. Feel free to try out his three essential bicep movements for muscle growth.
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