The 10 Most Effective Bodyweight Biceps Exercises
Without owning fancy equipment or a gym membership, it can be challenging to train your biceps. But some alternatives target your biceps a lot more than you might expect.
Want to grow your biceps like Popeye without even eating spinach? Then you're at the right place here; You will find the best biceps exercises to do only using your bodyweight.
Also, there are going to be three different at-home workouts from beginner to advanced that you should try out!
The exercises below are sorted by difficulty, so start at the top if you're a beginner!
Let Me In's
All you need to perform this exercise is a door & a towel, leaving no excuses to do this exercise at home. Open the door and wrap the towel around the two handles, and stand with your legs at shoulder-width apart while your feet are on each side of the door.
Your arms are going to be bent in the starting position, and you should slowly lean back while extending your arms. Depending on how complicated you want the exercise to be, you can perform it with straight legs (harder) or bent legs.
Once your arms are entirely straight, you are going to pull yourself back into the starting position while focusing, that the power primarily comes from your arms & not your legs/hips.
Towel Curls
Another excellent exercise that doesn't require fancy equipment are towel curls. Grab a long towel by its two ends with each arm; now put your foot onto that towel.
With towel curls, your body works against itself, whereas one of your legs is going to push the towel down, while your arms are going to try to pull it up primarily using your biceps.
To make the exercise harder or more comfortable, you have to press more/less with your leg, which will usually always be stronger than both arms combined in this exercise.
Ledge Curls
Find a stable ledge and put both your arms underneath it; now try to lift it (although it shouldn't be able to be raised). At the same time, lower your upper body down while bending your arms & keep applying as much pressure as possible.
Pull Forwards
If you don't have a door, towel, or a ledge at all (which i doubt), you can still do an exercise called the pull forwards. The exercise might sound silly but is surprisingly practical;
Start by laying on your stomach, preferably on a wood/slippery floor while wearing a t-shirt. Put both of your hands onto the floor and try to pull your entire upper body forward (similar to doing a pull-up).
Once you reach the point where you cant pull yourself further, bring your arms forward again & perform the same motion.
To make the exercise harder, you can add friction (do it on sth less slippery), or you can try to do the same exercise but with only one hand.
Australian Pull-up
Australian pull-ups require a bar at hip/knee height, but if you feel like you don't have access to that, you can create one yourself.
Take a broomstick and two chairs and put the broomstick across the two chairs. Alternatively, you can use a stable table to perform the exercise.
Start by laying under the bar, whereas your chest should be right below it. Depending on how difficult you want the exercise to be, start with your knees bent (easy) or with straight legs (hard).
Grab the bar with both hands while your palms should be facing away from you; then start to pull yourself up until your chest touches and then slowly lower yourself down.
Australian Chin-up
Australian chin-ups are the same as the exercise above, but with one difference; your palms should be facing you this time when you start the motion.
The chin-up grip is going to activate your biceps a lot more, as your lat has to work less.
Narrow Grip Pull-up
Wide-grip pull-ups are primarily good for your lats & upper back, but by getting your hands closer to each other, you are going to activate your biceps more.
In case you don't have access to a pull-up bar, you can use a stable door and place a towel on top of it to perform the exercise.
Start in a dead hang, and pull yourself up as fast as you can, hold the position for 1-2sec at the top and then slowly go down again.
Chin-up
The chin-up is similar to a regular pull-up, but with the difference that you grip the bar with your palms facing you. This is going to work on your biceps a lot more. Why?
Bend your arm & contract your biceps; now turn your palm facing towards you and you are going to see that the biceps is going to be far more activated.
Ring Chin-up
If you don't have access to a bar, you can still get rings for less than 30$ online and perform ring chin-ups. Rings are an excellent tool to build upper body strength since they are quite versatile and can be hung up in a tree.
Start in a regular pull-up position with your legs in front of you and straight. Now pull yourself up while turning the rings into a chin-up position.
Lower yourself down slowly and then repeat the same exercise.
Archer Pull-ups
Now, if you're quite advanced and can do more than 15 chin-ups with perfect form, you should consider moving onto more challenging exercises to train your biceps.
If you want to focus on your biceps when doing archer pull-ups, you should place one hand in a chin-up grip, while the other one stays in the regular pull-up grip.
Now pull yourself up towards the arm in the chin-up position while keeping the other arm straight the entire arm. Then slowly lower yourself down and perform the exercise a couple of times on the same arm before switching sides.
This is going to be quite challenging if you haven't done a lot of Pull-ups & Chin-ups before, which is why it isn't a beginner-friendly exercise.
BONUS: Pelican Push-up
The Pelican push-up works best in rings and is by far the most advanced exercise on the list. Since it can be a little bit complicated to explain, I recommend you to watch the video below instead!
Biceps Workout
With all three of the workouts, you are going to do three sets of each exercise with 2 minutes of rest between each exercise. You should be able to perform at least 6-8 repetitions in each set (otherwise it is too hard for your current level). If you can do more than 12 repetitions, you should move to a harder exercise.
Beginner
- Australian Pull-up (bent legs)
- Let Me In's
- Pull forwards
- Towel Curls
Intermediate
- Narrow Grip Pull-Ups
- One-handed Let Me In's
- Australian Chin-ups (straight legs)
- Towel Curls
Advanced
- Pelican Push-ups
- Archer Pull-ups (6 reps each side)
- Regular Chin-ups
- Australian Chin-ups
Adjusting Difficulty:
To make pull-ups easier, you can use an elastic band and wrap it around the pull-up bar and put your feet into it. If you want to make pull-up variations harder, you can add weights, although archer chin-ups & pelican push-ups are going to be more than challenging enough for most people.
Feel free to change up the exercises in the workout, but try to stick with exercises from this list to make the workout easier/harder for you.
Conclusion:
If you have any questions regarding the workouts & exercises, you can leave a comment below. Also, share this article with your friends if they might find it helpful. It helps me to grow this site and might find you a training partner, that helps you to stay more motivated.
Have fun training and keep progressing!
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