Besotted with Bulging Byceps?

[Whitebelt]

I'm not!

This is probably quite an origonal complaint among men:

Since starting training a little at home and doing a rather pushup rich class I have developed large byceps. Is there anything I can do about this without losing streingth? I've met some people without this mascho ego manifestation who have immense power in their strikes.

The pushups I do at home are varied but most often are either 60-70 short snappy pushes, 40 slow with finger and thumb touching or 50-60 with feet on a chair. Can you suggest a kind that does not cause this?

Thanks

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Im not sure Im copying you clearly here partner. You are concerned that your biceps are getting to large?

 

[orjan]

Pushups will have minimal impact on your biceps. You also mentioned training at home. Are you doing some form of curls? If so, they are not needed as part of a well-designed sports performance routine. If you do curls, do not train with a moderate weight, 8 - 10 rep routine. That will result in greater size with actual strength/power gains trailing the size gains by a significant margin.

 

[orjan]

Almost forgot. The biceps have a neglible contribution to strikes. Some believe the triceps are a major factor in power but that is true only if you are using strength only and not applying power thru your center = a not very powerful strike.

 

[zDom]

Sounds like it is just a genetic thing for you — something you will just have to learn to live with.

I could think of worse genetic issues to deal with

My genetic makeup gives me large calves, even though I don't train them for size. My weight lifting friends are often envious as I do nothing to enlarge my calves and they are unable to get theirs to grow even when targeting them.

I don't mind though

(shrug)

Ya just have to play the hand you are dealt when it comes to genetics, for the most part.'

The silver lining is: sounds like you can really work your pushups without having to dedicate any time to working biceps to keep an imbalance from occurring.

I had to add some curls because I was getting an imbalance from all the pushups I do and was causing pain in my elbows.

 

[Whitebelt]

Im not sure Im copying you clearly here partner. You are concerned that your biceps are getting to large?

No, I just don't like it

As for the rest of your answers: very helpful, thanks alot.

 

[Whitebelt]

Exellent replies Orjan, you obviously have a great understanding or martial biomechanics(if thats a word).

 

[Skip Cooper]

It is true that the pushups have a minimal impact on the biceps, but this exercise does include the bicep group. The action of pushups is a push/pull technique in that when you press up, the target muscle groups include the chest, triceps, and delts. As you return to the starting position, your traps, lats, abs, biceps and forearms act as stablizers controlling your descent. In a sense, the pushup can be seen as a great upper body workout. If you do not wish to train with weights, you can add pull-ups as a good compliment to pushups. The push/pull action is opposite that of the pushup.

Since you are elevating your feet when doing the pushups, you are placing more load on your biceps which are stablizing your body. By keeping your rep range low and elevating your feet, you have increased the load you have to work with. This is a perfect formula to promote growth. If one is doing alot of pushups and they genectically predisposed (as was mentioned earlier) to large biceps, this could explain such a malady. Alot of men would be envious of you, because many train hard for large biceps. Large biceps have always been a sign of strength. This is where the saying "Curls for the girls" comes from.

As it translates to fighting, bicep strength plays little in punching power. As stated earlier, the triceps come into play when striking. Punching is also a push/pull type of movement and tricep extension is the major mover in this action. A strong foundation is also important for striking power. Not to discredit strong biceps, I feel they come into play more with grappling.

All of this strength training is moot, if you do not train for speed. Speed + power = knockout

 

[Whitebelt]

Sounds like fun Skippy, how's best to train for speed?

 

[Skip Cooper]

Sounds like fun Skippy, how's best to train for speed?

Cute...never ceases to bring me back to elementary school.

Check out plyometrics.

 

[exile]

Im not sure Im copying you clearly here partner. You are concerned that your biceps are getting to large?

I had the same reaction... a lot of guys would give their right arm to have bigger biceps.... uh, wait, wrong figure of speech....

Almost forgot. The biceps have a neglible contribution to strikes. Some believe the triceps are a major factor in power but that is true only if you are using strength only and not applying power thru your center = a not very powerful strike.

In karate and TKD, hip rotation is constantly emphasized as a source of power in arm strikes, maybe the chief source. Joe Lewis' jabs were probably more powerful than most boxers' crosses, but he was a phenomenon in that respect, completely unique—typically, jabs are way less powerful than, say, reverse punches, and the reason is whole-body involvement in the latter (but not the former), especially the hip rotation. So yes, powerful triceps will give you a more powerful punch so far as just the arm-muscle component goes, but that component is on one, small component of the total power that the arm strike delivers. From my own punching, my impression is that the chief contribution of powerful triceps is supporting the phase of skeletal rigidity on impact that effectively transfers kinetic energy from the puncher to the, um, recipient of the punch. The actual generation of that power is primarily a matter of lower body torque.

Sounds like it is just a genetic thing for you — something you will just have to learn to live with.

I could think of worse genetic issues to deal with

My genetic makeup gives me large calves, even though I don't train them for size. My weight lifting friends are often envious as I do nothing to enlarge my calves and they are unable to get theirs to grow even when targeting them.

I don't mind though

(shrug)

Same with me. I've never worked calves, but I have large muscular calves anyway. On the other hand, I have to work twice as hard as the average ectomorph to get any size in my pecs, and my lats are... well, `unimpressive' is way too generous, let's say!

It is true that the pushups have a minimal impact on the biceps, but this exercise does include the bicep group. The action of pushups is a push/pull technique in that when you press up, the target muscle groups include the chest, triceps, and delts. As you return to the starting position, your traps, lats, abs, biceps and forearms act as stablizers controlling your descent. In a sense, the pushup can be seen as a great upper body workout. If you do not wish to train with weights, you can add pull-ups as a good compliment to pushups. The push/pull action is opposite that of the pushup.

Since you are elevating your feet when doing the pushups, you are placing more load on your biceps which are stablizing your body. By keeping your rep range low and elevating your feet, you have increased the load you have to work with. This is a perfect formula to promote growth. If one is doing alot of pushups and they genectically predisposed (as was mentioned earlier) to large biceps, this could explain such a malady. Alot of men would be envious of you, because many train hard for large biceps. Large biceps have always been a sign of strength. This is where the saying "Curls for the girls" comes from.

Yup. Pushups are a good compound exercise, although since you're generally only working your own body weight, you aren't really stressing the muscles groups involved much. Very short-range reps using massively heavy weights in a bench press routine carried out in a power rack is much more effective at overloading all of the muscle groups involved, if size is your goal. If it's not, and you're getting those kinds of results just from pushups... you better stay away from high-intensity benches!

As it translates to fighting, bicep strength plays little in punching power. As stated earlier, the triceps come into play when striking. Punching is also a push/pull type of movement and tricep extension is the major mover in this action. A strong foundation is also important for striking power. Not to discredit strong biceps, I feel they come into play more with grappling.

All of this strength training is moot, if you do not train for speed. Speed + power = knockout

Well, there's another side to it as well. In various reading I've done in exercise physiology, a lot of people who seem to be independent sources were quite insistent that when you first start weight training, you gain measurable strength increases without concomittant muscle growth, for the first month or two, and it's been a mystery as to why. But apparently, the very first thing that happens when you overload a muscle's capacity is that the body `tries' to ensure that the muscles involved are functionally optimum, before going for structural modification. That means that the early phases of strength training have a positive effect primarily on motor-unit synchronization—getting the neural activation groups that cause muscular contraction to work together over the same short interval. The first four to six weeks of weight training for any particular muscle group have the effect of linking motor units to the max so that, unlike what happens with untrained counterparts, these units fire together to allow maximum activation of the stressed muscle groups. This synchronization allows much more effective utilization of existing muscular capacity. The fun only starts once you've maxed out on that front.

So anyone who's seeing major muscle growth as a result of weight training has, in the course of getting there, also trained his or her neuromuscular system to get all its components to work as a team—which means, in the end, fast contraction speed. And that means you're faster, period. All other things being equal, weight trainees who've added significant muscle mass are going to be not just stronger but markedly faster than their untrained counterparts.

Now all other things are rarely equal, so you can have people who haven't worked on strength but who have worked on training reaction time—another area of performance which can be separately developed and improved. But again, if you have two individuals who've both worked on reaction time training and responded to it in roughly comparable ways, the one who's also done weight training to the point of adding significant lean tissue growth is going to be physiologically faster. That's one of the reasons, btw, why everyone from slalom racers to table tennis competitors to swimmers does intensive weight training these days. It's not just for strength; it's for muscular speed as well...

 

[Skip Cooper]

Yup. Pushups are a good compound exercise, although since you're generally only working your own body weight, you aren't really stressing the muscles groups involved much.

You can increase the stress of the exercise by either elevating your feet or increasing the rep range. But it depends on what you are seeking from your training. I agree that to gain mass one will need to incorporate heavy weight training with low reps. However, if one is involved with high intensity type of martial arts training (i.e. alot of sparring) this type of intense aerobic activity can be counter productive in muscle growth. The body must recover from the weight training sessions for the muscle tissues to repair and become stonger.

Well, there's another side to it as well. In various reading I've done in exercise physiology, a lot of people who seem to be independent sources were quite insistent that when you first start weight training, you gain measurable strength increases without concomittant muscle growth, for the first month or two, and it's been a mystery as to why.

I have come across this in my reading as well. I remember along time ago when I began weight training as a teenager. My mom thought I was taking steroids because of the quick change in my body due to the training. I have read that the growth in this transistion is greater than any other time in a body builders training.

So anyone who's seeing major muscle growth as a result of weight training has, in the course of getting there, also trained his or her neuromuscular system to get all its components to work as a team—which means, in the end, fast contraction speed. And that means you're faster, period. All other things being equal, weight trainees who've added significant muscle mass are going to be not just stronger but markedly faster than their untrained counterparts.

If one is training only with heavy weights and low reps, then he is only training his fast twitch muscle fibers. He never taps into the slow twitch fibers that require higher reps to exhaust. The athlete who trains for speed and power will choose training techniques (i.e. plyometrics, pyramids, overloading) that will force him to exhaust both types of muscle fibers.

It is like a boxer who only works out on a heavy bag fighting another who only trains on the speed bag. The former has awesome knock out power, but if he is not quick enough to hit the latter he will never win the fight. And sure, the speed bag only boxer has quick hands, but he has no power to knock out his opponent. Of course, he could outpoint the guy, but who wants to watch that fight?

But again, if you have two individuals who've both worked on reaction time training and responded to it in roughly comparable ways, the one who's also done weight training to the point of adding significant lean tissue growth is going to be physiologically faster.

Well put. I agree.