Lee Priest Explains How to Build Bigger Biceps in Your 50s

Bodybuilding veteran Lee Priest still sports huge arms since stepping away from the sport competitively. In a recent YouTube video published on May 15, 2025, he explained how to build bigger biceps in your 50s and underscored the importance of rest. 

During the prime years of his career, Priest was known for his granite conditioning and insane arm detail. Despite his shorter stature, he held his own against mass monsters in the 1990s and 2000s. He even managed to defeat former eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman seven times. 

Priest has held on to substantial muscle volume in retirement. While he’s considered a comeback in the future, atrophy in his chest and triceps has stalled those competitive aspirations. In the meantime, he offered insight into how to build a body part that he’s well-known for. 

Lee Priest Gives Tips for Building Bigger Biceps in Your 50s: ‘If You Don’t Get Enough Rest, It’s Not Going to Grow’  

In the recent YouTube video, Priest said exercise order likely won’t nudge lifters toward bigger biceps, especially in their 50s. 

“Whether you do barbell, dumbbell, preacher first, no matter what order you do these exercises that’s still the same exercises so me telling you what order to do them makes no difference.

You know how to do biceps. Just train biceps, if they grow, they grow, if they don’t, they don’t. Just keep on your fitness journey and keep at it. Like I said, we all might want big arms and big biceps but sometimes genetically you don’t have it.” 

Sometimes growing the biceps can be a challenge, so Priest suggested achieving a leaner physique, which could make them appear bigger.

“If you lose a bit of body weight, I don’t know how lean you are, trust me, if you get a lot leaner, you’re going to look a lot bigger,” said Priest. “Sometimes people do that. They think oh I got a lagging body part, I’ll train it more regularly and sometimes you can overtrain it and it doesn’t give it enough time to grow.” 

He likened growing bigger biceps to a balancing act, revealing that sleep and rest are just as important as the training. 

“Sometimes you think I got to keep training, I got to train to get big, when rest is just as important. If you don’t get enough rest, you’re not going to grow. It’s that fine line, and you have to find what works for you and what’s optimal for your body.” 

Instead of assessing progress from day to day, Priest encouraged others to train their biceps for a month and try not to look at them in the mirror, as it could derail progress if they get discouraged. 

“Just train hard and enjoy, get the rest, get the sleep, and as we said, whatever is going to happen is going to happen,” shared Priest. “It’s like when people weigh themselves every day and they get depressed. If you keep looking at your arms every day and flex them and say it doesn’t look right, that mental negativity you’re giving yourself can make it 10 times as bad.” 

“Don’t even look at your arms, and if you can avoid it, just train them and don’t look at them, that way when you see them you’ll think they look good. If you see yourself every day you get very critical,” he said. 

Priest has been an open book since leaving behind the sport in a competitive capacity. He recently unveiled solutions for improving muscle imbalances, sharing that clean eating, rest, and recovery are staples that can make a substantial difference. 

Known for his massive arms, Priest continues to offer fans insider knowledge on how to grow them. He believes a combination of training, rest, and patience is the fastest route to improving arm size in your 50s. 

RELATED: Lee Priest Explains How to Use Straight Sets, Supersets, Tri-Sets, and Giant Sets in Training

Watch the full video from the Sam’s Fitness – Gym Equipment YouTube channel below: 

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