Ono's guide to building muscle - Biceps

[ono]

Isolating any one muscle group is rarely beneficial towards any athletic pursuit.

Once again, this article is for aesthetics only. Nothing to do with Boxing or any other sport.

[tyciol]

I don't see why we should try to eliminate the brachialis. Since it partly runs beneath the biceps, if it increases in size it's going to make the biceps stick out more anyway right?

No correct. I mean chin ups. palm in. Biceps Exercises - Chin Ups

The guy in the video is performing a pull up, not a chin up. Regardless of what the title says. Chin-up - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia specifically "Chin-ups are often incorrectly referred to as pull-ups. The term pull-up is traditionally used when the exercise is performed with a pronated grip"

pronation /pro·na·tion/ (-na´shun) the act of assuming the prone position, or the state of being prone. Applied to the hand, the act of turning the palm backward (posteriorly) or downward, performed by medial rotation of the forearm. Applied to the foot, a combination of eversion and abduction movements taking place in the tarsal and metatarsal joints and resulting in lowering of the medial margin of the foot, hence of the longitudinal arch.

The guy in the video looks like he's performing a chin-up, not a pull-up, to me... his arms ARE supinated, not pronated. Perhaps they corrected the video since you last looked at it?

i've seen the best results doing chin ups and weighted chin ups, there much better than any weights IMO and you see faster results, at least in my case i did.

They seem like something better for beginners to me, for building the 'foundation' at least, sort of like doing squats and deadlifts for hamstrings even though you might isolate them with leg curls later on.

To be honest, even though I've always enjoyed and still do enjoy biceps... ever since I found out what lats were and was actually able to feel mine after doing chins a while, I enjoy them way more than I ever did biceps. Maybe it was seeing that one pic of Bruce Lee's lats, but they're a way cooler muscle, they're like bird's wings the same way traps are like a cobra's hood.

Incorrect. Chin ups primarily incorporate your lats. I think you mean pull ups. Biceps are involved when performing pull-ups (not chin ups)

I think he's right actually, chinups' supinated grip has the biceps in a much stronger position. I think pull-ups might actually be the ones that rely on lats more. The elbows tend to be more 'out' when you do them pronated and I think that stresses the lats more or something. Not sure why.

To build muscle, you have to recruit as many muscle fibres as possible (into the exercise). While pull ups and chin ups are excellent compound movements they do not completely isolate the biceps anywhere near as effectively as the 3 mentioned exercises.

It's true you have to stimulate as many as possible, and it's true that it doesn't isolate them... why do isolation exercises necessarily stimulate the most muscle fibres? Initially, you might be blocked from unleashing your full strength because the biceps may not be the first to fail (often in chins, it's your grip or maybe your lats that fail first) but once the strength of weaker areas catch up it should be getting stressed too. Since you can use heavier weights with compound exercises it's easier to microload them. With curls you have to make pretty big jumps in weight, it can be sort of stressful and you have to vary the rep range a bit more to build up to that, doing higher reps before making the next jump, or using tricky stuff like forced reps or negatives to make that jump. It's sort of like the same problem you get curling dumbbells versus curling barbells, the jumps.

I think having a compound/isolation combo's the coolest because the isolation lets you more directly measure if youre strength is improving or not, and you can always do it after the compound if you've still got juice left but can't keep doing the compound because some other area got weak first. I think it's called a 'post-exhaustion' or something.

[ono]

I don't see why we should try to eliminate the brachialis. Since it partly runs beneath the biceps, if it increases in size it's going to make the biceps stick out more anyway right?

No correct. I mean chin ups. palm in. Biceps Exercises - Chin Ups

The guy in the video is performing a pull up, not a chin up. Regardless of what the title says. Chin-up - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia specifically "Chin-ups are often incorrectly referred to as pull-ups. The term pull-up is traditionally used when the exercise is performed with a pronated grip"

pronation /pro·na·tion/ (-na´shun) the act of assuming the prone position, or the state of being prone. Applied to the hand, the act of turning the palm backward (posteriorly) or downward, performed by medial rotation of the forearm. Applied to the foot, a combination of eversion and abduction movements taking place in the tarsal and metatarsal joints and resulting in lowering of the medial margin of the foot, hence of the longitudinal arch.

The guy in the video looks like he's performing a chin-up, not a pull-up, to me... his arms ARE supinated, not pronated. Perhaps they corrected the video since you last looked at it?

They seem like something better for beginners to me, for building the 'foundation' at least, sort of like doing squats and deadlifts for hamstrings even though you might isolate them with leg curls later on.

To be honest, even though I've always enjoyed and still do enjoy biceps... ever since I found out what lats were and was actually able to feel mine after doing chins a while, I enjoy them way more than I ever did biceps. Maybe it was seeing that one pic of Bruce Lee's lats, but they're a way cooler muscle, they're like bird's wings the same way traps are like a cobra's hood.

Incorrect. Chin ups primarily incorporate your lats. I think you mean pull ups. Biceps are involved when performing pull-ups (not chin ups)

I think he's right actually, chinups' supinated grip has the biceps in a much stronger position. I think pull-ups might actually be the ones that rely on lats more. The elbows tend to be more 'out' when you do them pronated and I think that stresses the lats more or something. Not sure why.

To build muscle, you have to recruit as many muscle fibres as possible (into the exercise). While pull ups and chin ups are excellent compound movements they do not completely isolate the biceps anywhere near as effectively as the 3 mentioned exercises.

It's true you have to stimulate as many as possible, and it's true that it doesn't isolate them... why do isolation exercises necessarily stimulate the most muscle fibres? Initially, you might be blocked from unleashing your full strength because the biceps may not be the first to fail (often in chins, it's your grip or maybe your lats that fail first) but once the strength of weaker areas catch up it should be getting stressed too. Since you can use heavier weights with compound exercises it's easier to microload them. With curls you have to make pretty big jumps in weight, it can be sort of stressful and you have to vary the rep range a bit more to build up to that, doing higher reps before making the next jump, or using tricky stuff like forced reps or negatives to make that jump. It's sort of like the same problem you get curling dumbbells versus curling barbells, the jumps.

I think having a compound/isolation combo's the coolest because the isolation lets you more directly measure if youre strength is improving or not, and you can always do it after the compound if you've still got juice left but can't keep doing the compound because some other area got weak first. I think it's called a 'post-exhaustion' or something.

Just to answer your questions/points:

1: I'm not all for eliminating the Brachialis. I was saying it would be more beneficial to incorporate an exercise that thoroughly stimulates the bicep rather than an exercise where the brachialis takes over before the bicep can be fully stimulated (like the barbell curl). Once you have fully stimulated the bicep, then it would be beneficial to specifically stimulate the brachialis, as like you said, the brachialis runs partially beneath the biceps brachi, thus pushing the bicep up which creates the illusion of bigger arms. Hope that clears it up.

2: I stand corrected, the literature i was using has a few incorrect terminologies in it (quite a dated textbook). Specifically the difference between chin ups and pull ups. Apologies all around. Luckily it's not important the thread

3: Isolation exercises don't stimulate the most muscle fibers overall. But they stimulate the most muscle fibers within the targetted area. Isolation exercises are useful when you want maximum growth within a targetted area. Like the biceps for example.