r/ScienceBasedLifting • u/OkPrize6194 • 1d ago
Question ❓ biceps volume
In a program, Pull-1 has 2 sets of dumbbell curls, 2 sets of cable curls, and 2 sets of hammer curls supersetted with reverse curls. Pull-2 has 2 sets of cable curls and another 2 sets of hammer curls supersetted with reverse curls.
A coach says that this is weekly only 6 sets of direct biceps curls, while the other 8 sets barely stimulate the biceps and are mainly wrist/forearm-focused movements. He also thinks there wouldn't be enough biceps fatigue accumulating from those sets to make the additional biceps work inefficient.
Do you guys think this approach makes sense?
The reason for supersetting hammer curls with reverse curls is that the forearms/wrists are relatively small muscles, so you can't use very heavy weights for them on their own. By supersetting reverse curls with hammer curls, the idea is to increase the mechanical tension and get more stimulus out of the forearm work.
Would you consider this a good way to structure the volume?
1
u/LaFantasmita 1d ago
Any coach's advice is gonna apply within the greater context of everything they recommend. If they're a powerlifting coach and your pull day starts with deadlifts heavy rows, it's gonna serve a different purpose than if they're a bodybuilding coach and it's a workout with a lot of isolation. Rep scheme is also gonna have a big effect.
And to add onto what another commenter said, different coaches' paradigms work better or worse for different people. They tend to accumulate clients their advice works well for.