BRACHIALIS: THE KEY TO BICEPS WIDTH
Many people focus on the height of their arms by working on building up the bicep peaks. While this is a sound approach, it’s neglecting the muscle that has the greatest effect on bicep width.
You can build those bi’s up to Mt. Everest height, but they’ll never be as impressive as if they were also trained for nice solid width!
The brachialis is the muscle that is most responsible for bicep width…
And it’s often sorely neglected in our training!
The brachialis sits up on the upper arm, crosses the elbow, and its only job is to control flexion of the arm at the elbow.
The bicep shares this function, but it also is responsible for the additional functions of supination of the forearm and flexion of the humerus at the shoulder.
The brachialis is the muscle that is most responsible for bicep width and it’s often sorely neglected in our training.
Let’s find your brachialis so you can get the lay of the land to be aware of what we’re trying to target. The brachialis is situated beneath the biceps and is slightly visible if you flex the arm and palpate on the outside of it.
Just underneath your long head of the biceps is a muscle that might be popping out a bit that is located between the biceps and triceps.
That is your brachialis!
The brachialis is situated just under the long head of the biceps between the biceps and triceps.
You may find that this muscle is a little sore, because it’s a common area of a trigger point for anyone that does upper body training.
The biceps and the brachialis share the common function of flexion at the elbow, so it’s not possible to isolate the brachialis. However there is a key difference between how the brachialis and the biceps prefer to work that can help us favor the brachialis by using a specific technique.
Since the brachialis is strongest in the midrange of the movement, it has a greater contribution to elbow flexion in the beginning third to half of an elbow bend, whereas the biceps will kick in more strongly from the midpoint up.
This means that we can hinder the contribution of the biceps by impairing its preferred action. This can be achieved by pronating the forearm in some of our exercises, which I will show you how to do below.
WHY HAMMER CURLS AREN’T THE PERFECT ANSWER…
You’ve probably heard that the hammer curl is a great exercise for building up the brachialis to help push it outward and give you thicker looking arms?
That is true, BUT…
Many times people don’t perform the exercise properly and so it doesn’t pay the dividends in wider thicker arms!
The Hammer Curl can be a good exercise for building the brachialis, but this is not the best variation of it.
A regular hammer curl is inadequate for hitting the brachialis because if you involve any sort of supination while bending the elbow you’re going to shift the focus over to the biceps and away from the brachialis.
The hammer curl puts you in a neutral grip position halfway between supinated and pronated with knuckles pointing straight ahead. You still get a little bit of bicep activation in terms flexing the elbow meaning that your brachialis isn’t kicking in as much as it could.
What can we do to turn the biceps off a little bit more?
We want to take ourselves out of supination and put us into pronation to turn on and fire up that brachialis.
Again, a regular hammer curl is inadequate for hitting the brachialis because if you involve any sort of supination while bending the elbow you’re going to shift the focus over to the biceps and away from the brachialis.
To get the most out of the hammer curl, the key is changing that position of the forearm and elbow during the movement. Instead of just keeping your hand in neutral with your knuckles pointed straight ahead, fold the arm against the chest and pronate the forearm into a Crossbody Hammer Curl.
From here, simply flex and extend the elbow to lift and lower the dumbbell. This will really ignite the brachialis while minimizing the contribution of the biceps to the movement.
This is the absolute best way to focus much of the effort on the brachialis and help really develop that muscle over time!
The Crossbody Hammer Curl puts the forearm into pronation to turn off the biceps and increase the influence of the brachialis in the movement.
BRACHIALIS WITH BODYWEIGHT
What about some bodyweight options for building biceps width? You probably already know that I love the chin up, and we can use a specific variation of it to home in on the brachialis!
Regular chin ups receive a large contribution from the biceps because of the supinated forearm required to do the exercise, so instead you would want to do an overhand grip pullup to get those arms into pronation.
But we’re not talking about just any pullup!
You’re going to want to take a very narrow grip on the bar and aim to close down the angle of the elbow joint as you pull, rather than worrying about getting your elbows behind your body.
NARROW GRIP PULL UP
The Narrow Grip Pull Up helps you target the brachialis and takes the biceps out of the equation because of the overhand and narrow grip.
We’re using our entire bodyweight for this pull up, which is a fantastic way to overload our muscles.
This pull up variation is a hard exercise, and it may be too difficult right now depending on your fitness level.
If that’s the case, don’t think you’re getting off so easy!
I’ve got a great modification for you.
You can apply the same concept in a Narrow Grip Inverted Row by lying on your back and hanging from a bar.
NARROW GRIP INVERTED ROW
The Narrow Grip Inverted Row is a great beginner alternative if the Narrow Grip Pullup is too difficult. It puts the arm in a similar position to maximize the influence of the brachialis.
To do this, you take a very narrow overhand grip, and when you pull your body up you’re NOT trying to row your elbows back behind your body. That wouldn’t close the angle down enough to hit the brachialis as much as you could.
What you want to do instead is try to pull your body up by pulling the back of your forearms up into your chest. This will light up this brachialis more than you’ve ever experienced before, and trust me, over time it’s going to build it up a lot!
You can see the brachialis engaging in the Narrow Grip Inverted Row.
GETTING THE BRACHIALIS TO RESPOND!
I’ve got one final piece of advice for you when it comes to training the brachialis. This little tweak could make all the difference when it comes to developing wider, sleeve busting biceps!
We know that muscles will be recruited in a sequential pattern in the order of demand. So that means if you go really hard, really heavy, and accelerate your reps on the exercises I’ve shown you, you’re actually doing your brachialis a disservice!
The biceps are going to be called into action because elbow flexion is one of their three functions and they’ll take over, leaving your brachialis in the dust!
The best way to try to taper that down is by going a little slower with our movements.
If you go really hard, really heavy, and accelerate your reps on the exercises I’ve shown you, you’re actually doing your brachialis a disservice!
It’s also helpful to know that the lower portion to midrange of the curling motion on any of these exercises is going to be handled more by the brachialis. From the midrange up, the biceps will take over a little bit more especially as we get shoulder flexion involved.
The low to midrange portion of the curling movement is handled by the brachialis.
So this means if you go a little bit slower on the reps and are more deliberate about the movement as you’re coming up, you can ensure that more of that work is being done by the brachialis.
Taking the reps slower will help you to ensure that the brachialis does more of the work in the low to mid portion of the movement.
As you can see, since the biceps and the brachialis share the function of elbow flexion, we have to employ any techniques we can to try to minimize the recruitment of the biceps and call the brachialis to attention instead.
Remember, if you can build wider biceps, your arms will look more imposing from EVERY angle.
You’ll be busting the seams of those sleeves, because not only are you creating an impressive set of peaks, you’re training the biceps in all dimensions!
