Having a pair of big muscular biceps lets everybody know you workout regularly. Let’s be honest everybody wants big guns as arms. And how about, if I tell you, there are more exercises than the well-known boring bicep curl. With calisthenics, you can spice it up a little bit. Make it more appealing and fun. Some people claim that calisthenics does not work as well as weights. But, I am here to tell you, there are plenty of calisthenics biceps exercises that are just as good as the ordinary bicep curl.
In this post, I will give you a few different bicep bodyweight exercises that you can implement in your routine to build some big calisthenics biceps.
Calisthenics biceps exercises
Chin-ups(weighted)
The first bicep exercise is a famous-one and not without any reason. This classic exercise is great for building big biceps as well as a strong back. Just like the pull-up, you pull yourself up. Only with the chin-up, your palms are facing towards you. Your biceps will be engaged more this way.
If you still a beginner to calisthenics or fitness in general, you might be too weak to perform a chin-up. If this is the case, we need to make the exercise a bit easier. A way to do this is by doing a negative chin-up. You grab the bar, and you jump up. From this point, you lower yourself really really slow. A perfect replacement of the chin up.
It is also possible that you might find the chin-up too light. You can make the chin-up much harder by doing weighted calisthenics. Eventually, you will hit a plateau when doing bodyweight exercises. If you attach some weight to yourself, you can keep progressing. However, this goes a little bit against the rules of the article. We only talk about bodyweight biceps exercises, and you need weights to do weighted-calisthenics. But take this as a tip, when you notice chin-ups are getting too easy.
Comando pull-ups
The Comando pull-up is a variation of the standard chin-up. To do this exercise, you hold your hands closer to each other, just like you see in the image. You pull yourself up and try to touch the bar with your left shoulder. When you come down, you try to pull yourself up again, but this time, you touch the bar with your right shoulder.
In this chin-up variation, you put more tension on one bicep than the other one. That is why you switch sides between your reps. This exercise is very similar to the assisted one arm pull up, the perfect exercise for building big biceps.
Regular pull-ups
And if you think pull-ups are not great for building bigger biceps, you are wrong. However, they are not as good as a bicep exercise as chin-ups but still will do a decent job. Pull-ups are harder than chin-ups, that is because they require more back-muscles.
Inverted row
The inverted row, also known as the Australian pull-up. An exercise, which is very similar to the weighted barbell row. It is, in fact, an easier progression of the traditional pull-up. For this exercise, you need a bar that is around waist height. You place yourself, just like you see in the image, and you pull yourself up. To make this exercise harder for your biceps, you rotate your pals inwards like the chin-up grip.
Bonus: The one arm pull up and hefesto
In my opinion, the best bicep bodyweight exercises, are the one-arm pull-up and the hefesto. However, these exercises require an insane amount of strength to perform. They are a real challenge for your biceps. I call these bonus exercises because not many people are able to do them.
Doing a one-arm pull-up speaks for itself, but the hefesto? What is an hefesto? I hear you asking. The hefesto is also known as the german-hang muscle-up. Here is a video to demonstrate it.
It is as hard as it looks. You will need an insane bicep-strength in order to complete even one rep. You can see it like a bicep-curl, but with your whole body weight.
Why do I mention these two exercises? Well, if you can pull yourself up with one hand, you probably already have a lot of power in your biceps. Training and progressing in these moves is a perfect way to build a pair of big biceps. You work your way up with easier progressions for example, with the use of resistance bands. Eventually, you are able to perform these skills and have built big biceps along your way.
Calisthenics biceps exercise tips and tricks
Frequency, how many times a week should you train your biceps? Some people will most likely want to train them every day, but that is not the most effective way to obtain big biceps. Muscles need rest to grow, especially after a tough workout. I suggest you train your biceps around 2-3 times a week. Not more or not less.
Do not chase the pump, A lot of people, when they find themself doing bicep exercises, the bigger the pump, the better. The more veins you see, the better. However, only chasing the pump will not develop the strongest biceps. Many people think when they feel the pump, their bicep has done enough work. When you feel the blood flowing in your veins, keep going! Do not stop yet. Control your reps and keep going until you cannot anymore. That is when you know you had a good bicep workout.