Want to build arms like two-time Arnold Classic champion Kai Greene? That’s fine—just don’t attempt to emulate his biceps workout rep for rep. We’ll let him explain why.
Looking through this Kai Greene biceps-training article, you might notice one key element is missing. Sure, you’ll see the requisite photos of the 275-pound Brooklynite, showing of a physique that might just earn him a Mr. Olympia title next year. You’ll also read plenty of information about work-outs, and even a few key biceps exercises you might want to take advantage of.
So what’s not there? Well, an actual biceps workout. No sets. No reps. No handy little box neatly listing everything, ready for you to tear out and take to the gym with you, all in an effort to start crafting arms you hope to one day be as voluminous, muscular and ripped as Greene’s mighty peaks.
Indeed, you have come across a rarity in bodybuilding media. Who knows, it may even be the very first of its kind. Because right now, you’re about to delve into a biceps workout article that, oddly enough, doesn’t include an actual biceps workout.
And if you think that’s a head scratcher, well, that’s all part of the territory when exploring the often surprising, inimitable psyche of Kai Greene—bodybuilding’s resident philosopher and reigning king of ultrafreaky, otherworldly muscle development.
KNOW THYSELF
Greene trains biceps about once a week, usually on the same day as chest, triceps, and forearms. A student of the iron game would assume pecs would come first, followed by arms…but when it comes to the enigmatic 2012, 2013, and 2014 Mr. O runner-up, you soon learn to expect the unconventional.
“Say I’m traveling and not really expecting to perform big lifts for my chest, but instead just want to pump some blood into the area—there’s a chance I may do triceps first,” Greene says. “I might also start with forearms, triceps, biceps and then do chest, or start with chest and triceps followed by forearms and then biceps.”
Greene pauses a moment, as if he can hear the visceral reaction from exercise physiologists and by-the-book lifters alike as they react to the perceived lunacy. After all, doesn’t tiring your triceps negatively impact your ability to work your pecs to their max? Not to mention launching a workout with forearm moves, which can compromise your grip strength for the heavier chest and arm exercises to come.
For Greene, though, personal experience trumps the science. “There are days you don’t want to go too heavy and risk injury,” he says. “You may be nursing a shoulder injury, or dealing with some elbow issue, or be worn out from long days on the road. For chest, I may be select exercises with that in mind, and lift lighter than usual.” To that end, then, pre-fatiguing his arms hasn’t compromised his performance.
How does he know? Well, for one, you’ll probably never come across an athlete so attuned to the inner workings of his body. Greene doesn’t zone out during a workout. He doesn’t aimlessly rattle of reps. He’s not haphazardly stringing exercises together. Greene is 100%in the moment, analyzing every twitch and tremor of his physique.
“The absolute wrong way to go about biceps training is to turn off my mind and not process what my body is feeling, what it’s telling me,” Greene explains. “From the frst rep to the last, sensory triggers are stimulated, and if you’re attuned enough, you can interpret that data and make good decisions that’ll further advance you toward your desired goal. It does take experience in the gym, so you can’t expect a beginner to walk in and do it, but it’s something that can be learned.”
With that statement, we have some proof to the theory that Kai Greene isn’t a mere mortal, but a super- charged, bodybuilding machine that can create otherworldly, freaky, dense muscle mass with precise superhuman calculation.
But for the rest of us, there’s an integral lesson to be learned: Successful training requires immersive, unyielding engagement of the mind on every single rep. Cue the exit of the old workout paradigm: The sweat-beaded guy in the stained T-shirt grunting through intensive sets, zoned out to power through the pain, all while aggressive guitar chords envelop the scene in hazy harmony.
A Greene workout requires reading and reviewing a constant stream of data. During biceps training, his vital feedback includes the feeling of the biceps contracting and extending during a rep, the strum of connective tissues, the recognition of “good” pain versus “bad,” and the monitoring of blood fowing into and out of an area, creating the internal pressure of a pump on muscles that triggers growth. “Working out is a mental activity—your mind is the key to making the activity proftable or a waste,” he says simply.
ONE OF A KIND
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”wysiwyg”,”fid”:”436916″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image media-image-right”,”style”:”width: 300px; height: 276px; border-width: 4px; border-style: solid; margin: 4px; float: right;”,”title”:””,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]The 39-year-old has often unabashedly cited his ultimate goal: “Over the past 20 years in bodybuilding, I’ve been working to create a masterpiece,” he says. In his view, all the workouts (many of them performed in the hard-core basement environs of 5th Avenue Gym in Brooklyn), along with every single competition since his seventh-grade teacher pointed him toward the stage as a better way to dispel his aggression, have culminated in the person he is today.
Ever since he emerged as a force on the pro scene by winning the 2007 Colorado Pro, his particular “masterpiece” has defied categorization. He’s nearly impossible to compare to any of his contemporaries, because his physique is so dramatically different than just about any body that’s come before it.
He’s had to overcome much along the way, from living as a ward of New York State during his troubled teen years, to dealing today with the certainly less-bleak but still challenging trappings of success—including, for example, the constant demands on his time, which— while appreciated—send him jet-setting across the globe, continually jostling his training and nutrition regimen.
But no matter what obstacle has been thrown his way, Greene has responded with studious aplomb. It certainly helps that his physique has proven eager to respond. “Over the years, I’ve had body parts that at times I haven’t been as connected with as I’d like, and have needed to concentrate on more,” he says. “That’s been an issue at different times in my career, but I’ve had no stubborn body parts.”
Take his biceps, which have blown into cartoonish proportion thanks to an approach that often changes from one workout to the next. Greene walks into the gym with a plan, but it’s malleable and ever morphing as each exercise, set, and rep is catalogued.
“A lot of times people are too rigid in their workouts,” Greene admonishes. “You gotta be fexible, so you can make gains while dealing with varied circumstances.” You also need to be willing to toss aside preconceived notions about what a “perfect workout” really is.
“If you’re an athlete working to see your vision realized, you have to be wiling to do more, to stretch beyond your comfort zone. In so doing, you’ll learn a lot,” Greene says. “But there’s a lot that goes into training that’s not interesting to a layperson. It’s like a baseball player who’ll swing at 1,000 balls in practice. An average person might stay interested for little while, but after 20–30 swings, the enthusiasm wanes.”
How does that translate to a biceps workout? “You can leave no stone unturned,” Greene says. “You may have arm-training sessions that last two hours. It may become an ongoing effort that continues over the course of multiple sessions in three days. It may require doing something related to arms at the beginning of every training session for a little while.”
In many ftness circles, what Greene does is considered overtraining. It’s an argument he’s heard many times—so often, in fact, that he hesitates to talk about it. “People don’t argue with results—if your arms are 22 inches, or look like they are,” he says, “most of the time people don’t care what it took for you to get them there.”
But Greene also offers a counter to those who stick to a preset set-and-rep scheme. “What if, at the end of your workout—say, 12 working sets in—you find that you’re really just starting to get a contraction in your biceps? What if you weren’t working with the presence of mind to make sure each contraction counted? If your approach is set in stone and you see you’ve done all your exercises for the day, what then?"
“The truth is, you can go through your entire ‘training session’ but were really just warming up—so you need to technically ‘overtrain’ just to get the muscle to really do the work that’s needed.”
Just as you need to learn to read the signs telling you to continue, you must also absorb the signs your body gives to tell you your mission’s complete. For those looking for an exact frame of reference, well…you may be disappointed. “You need to use your best judgment, based on your past successful training experiences,” Greene counsels.
But as you gain experience, the signs will become more and more obvious: The tautness of a pump, the fatigue of the targeted muscle group, the feeling you’ve left it all in the gym and that any further reps would be counterproductive—these are all the hallmarks of a fruitful, finished effort.
DUEL IN THE DESERT
Ask any pro bodybuilder what his favorite biceps exercises are, and he’ll quickly recite a list etched in memory. Greene, however, hesitates before naming four: the barbell curl, the incline dumbbell curl, the preacher curl, and the alternate dumbbell curl. However, they come with a caveat.
“I’m reluctant to name these, because if I believe I have a preferred exercise, it can impair my ability to think clearly and make good decisions during a workout,” he says. “If I have a favorite, it may lead me to do one exercise when really I should be leaning toward another.”
His mantra? Don’t play favorites. “Don’t get into the habit of checking of a selection of favorite exercises each time. Think about it—how many people do you know who do a particular exercise in a particular way because they saw their favorite bodybuilder in a magazine recommend it? That can lead you down the wrong path.”
Earlier this year, Greene’s path ran straight toward Las Vegas, where a three-time reigning Mr. O, Phil Heath, awaited a rematch. But that final step is the most difficult breach to cross, as Greene knows. The annals of history are filled with amazing bodybuilders who’ve finished second—Mohamed Makkawy, Rich Gaspari, Lee Labrada, Kevin Levrone, Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray—who, despite maniacal efforts, were destined to fall just short of the pinnacle. Greene’s approach, however, is unrelenting.
“Honestly, my goal now is to amass a body of work…I’m still eager to learn and study,” he says. “I started on this bodybuilding journey as a teenager. Now my expectations of what I can do on stage are higher. I’m putting forth my highest effort. I’d like to stand and be counted at my absolute best—I want to know what that would look like. My goal and that of my team right now is to do that, to always bring the ultimate Kai Greene.”
#1: ONE-ARM MACHINE PREACHER CURL
Preacher Curl Movements—including barbell, ez-bar, and dumbbell curls on the free-weight preacher bench as well as single- and dual-arm curls using the machine—often find their way into Greene’s repertoire. The bench helps restrict cheating and focuses form on the bi’s like a laser point.
DO IT RIGHT Adjust the seat height so your upper armpit is snug against the pad when you sit. Grasp the handle with your working hand, using your nonworking arm as a brace. Without standing or wiggling in the seat, curl the handle as far as you can without your elbow detaching from the pad, then lower it to a point just before the weight stack touches down.
MAKE IT HARDER Selectorized machines make dropsets easy—simply drop the pin a plate or two after failing, and work your way all the way down the stack.
#2: STANDING EZ-BAR CURL
Greene isn’t married to one type of bar—he’ll use both a straight bar and the cambered bar, and flirt with a number of grip widths (including a very close grip and a very wide one, out near the plates) to coax the desired response from the muscle.
DO IT RIGHT
Take a sturdy standing position and hold an EZ-bar with a shoulder-width grip, hands on the cambered portion where your palms are angled slightly inward. With your abs tight, chest up, and eyes focused forward, contract your biceps to curl the bar toward your chest, keeping your elbows at your sides throughout. Hold for a one-count at the top, squeezing out the muscle peak, then slowly return the bar along the same path. Repeat for reps.
MAKE IT HARDER
If you have a partner, you can do handoffs. Stand facing each other, and do your reps to failure, then immediately hand the bar of to your partner. He does the same thing, then hands it back to you for your second set. Continue passing the weight back and forth. This technique offers two intensity boosters: It limits your rest periods, and it introduces a competitive aspect as you try to outdo your partner at each turn.
#3: STANDING ONE-ARM DUMBBELL CONCENTRATION CURL
Greene likes the typical standing dumbbell curl, but in his world, variations are not only welcome, they’re mandatory—whatever it takes to elicit muscle growth.
DO IT RIGHT
Bend over slightly at the waist, with your nonworking hand on your hip and your working hand holding a dumbbell next to your outer thigh, elbow straight but not locked out. From there, moving only at your elbow, curl the dumbbell in front of you toward your upper chest. Squeeze the biceps hard at the top before lowering the dumbbell back to the start. Finish all reps with one arm, then switch.
MAKE IT HARDER
If you sit while doing a concentration curl, you can use your nonworking hand to finish your set with three to five negatives after initial positive failure, lifting the dumbbell up with an assist and then lowering it slowly and under control.
#4: CAMBERED BAR CABLE CURL
Cable movements offer the beneft of continuous tension throughout an exercise; unlike free weights, the cable offers resistance throughout the arc of a biceps curl. Those types of slight differences in how a movement engages the biceps are why it’s smart to include various free-weight, machine, and cable exercises in an overall biceps training blueprint.
DO IT RIGHT
Stand holding a curl bar attached to a low-pulley cable with an underhand grip, arms extended. Keep your abs tight, chest up, and head straight. Contract your biceps to curl the bar toward your chest, keeping your elbows at your sides. Hold and squeeze at the top, then slowly return the bar along the same path. Repeat for reps.
MAKE IT HARDER
Once you’ve failed through the full range of motion, continue with partial reps, bringing the handle as high as you can, until you can move it only a few inches at most.
Click "Next Page" to contine >>
#5 ONE-ARM DUMBBELL PREACHER CURL
Single-arm movements are key, in that they don’t allow a weaker limb to piggyback on the strength of a stronger one, which tends to happen with bar-based exercises. You may discover a strength discrepancy between your arms, which you can work to correct over time by pushing the weaker arm to perform the same number of reps as the dominant arm.
DO IT RIGHT
Grasp a dumbbell and place your arm over a standing or seated preacher bench. Keeping your shoulder down and wrist rigid, raise the dumbbell in an arc toward your head, stopping just before your forearm is perpendicular to the foor. Squeeze your biceps to get a maximal contraction at the apex, then return to the start position, making sure to stop before full-lockout elbow extension.
MAKE IT HARDER
Upon reaching failure, with your palm facing up, twist into a hammer-style grip and continue for as many reps as you can muster. This position engages the brachialis muscle along with the biceps.
Career Highlights: 2014: Mr. Olympia, 2nd, 2013: EVLS Prague Pro, 1st; Arnold Classic Europe, 2nd; Mr. Olympia, 2nd, 2012: Mr. Olympia, 2nd; Sheru Classic, 2nd. 2011: new York pro, 1st; Mr. Olympia, 3rd; Sheru Classic, 3rd. 2010: Arnold Classic winner; Australia Grand Prix winner; 2009: Arnold Classic winner; Australia Grand prix winner; Mr. Olympia, 4th; 2008: New York pro winner. 2007: Colorado pro winner
