[Video of Mike Mentzer] And it just so happens
to be true, audience, the close grip palms up pull down is the best bicep exercise in the
world, better than any curl you can do.
Well, shit, now what am I supposed to do? You
might be having the same thought as me, especially if your current bicep workout looks a little
bit like this: a hefty dose of barbell curls, if you ve been watching this channel any length
of time, probably some chin ups in there too, and of course, a variety of other curls that we've
known to be shown effective here. Well, maybe it's time to change it up, at least if you're listening
to what Mike Mentzer has to say. See, Mike Mentzer is somebody that I've actually listened to and
admired for a long time. This is Mike from his Heavy Duty book from about 30 years ago. The
idea, though, is, is there merit to what he's talking about and are you training your biceps
wrong? Well, I have a story to tell you that might blow your mind here. As a matter of fact,
three times in this video, Mike Mentzer might blow your mind. But I want to first hear what he
thought in full of why he thinks that exercise was so good. Let's hear that clip again.
[Video of Mike Mentzer] And it just so happens to be true, audience, the close grip palms up pull
down is the best bicep exercise in the world, better than any curl you can do. Here's why.
When you do a curl, whether it's a Barbell Curl, a Nautilus Curl, a Dumbbell Curl, whatever, you're
working this muscle around a single joint axis, the elbow, which is why the stress is limited
exclusively to the lower bicep if you've noticed. When doing a close grip, palms
up, pull down, on the other hand, you're working the bicep around the joint,
the elbow joint and the shoulder. The muscle is contracting more uniformly from both ends.
And so there you have it. But is he right? Well, let me bring it back to that story of mine. So,
about a year and a half ago, I was walking my son into school, and he slipped on the ice. And
when he slipped, I went to go catch him and at the same time, I actually successfully caught him, I
unsuccessfully kept my distal bicep tendon intact because I tore it 99%. The only part that was
still intact was something called the aponeurosis. That's the tendinous encapsulation of both heads
of the bicep as it enters into the forearm. Well, needless to say, I was kind of screwed, There's
a lot of things I couldn't do. I couldn't lift a heavier weight, I couldn't do anything
pain free, I couldn't lift without cramping up. I couldn't feel that my muscle connection
that I had known for a long period of time, a lot of things were instantly gone. And because
of that, a lot of exercise choices were instantly eliminated from my workouts. Right away I was
not going to do any Incline Bicep Curls because that would place that bicep in too much stretch
at the bottom of every single repetition. Also, no Preacher Curls and for those of you who
are wondering, well, how come? Well, here's your three second warning, and yeah, mind you, it
will be gruesome. Three, two, one. [Video Clip] I did warn you, and that's probably largely why
I didn't want to show up as the next guy to be in that type of video, so, no Preacher Curls.
But I did think about those Chin Ups that we talked about before. And remember, I told you that
what I learned here is going to be serving every single one of you, no matter whether you've been
injured or not. I went to the chins because I know that it does exactly what Mike was talking about
on that exercise. It applies the stress to the biceps from both ends because we're going into
that flex shoulder position and bent elbow. And it's the reason why I told you for all these
years why it's such a great exercise for you to be doing. And I did it until things went
wrong. And that is, I developed elbow pain, a lot of medial elbow pain. And I've done a
whole video that I'll link for you at the end of this one about why you get medial elbow pain,
particularly if you don't have enough strength in your biceps. And now we're talking about the
compromise strength I had, so I was feeling too much stress on that inner elbow and the chin ups
themselves weren't working too much body weight for me to have to handle and pull up on every
repetition. The biceps couldn't handle it alone, so they were forcing the forearm to do more of
that work. Again, detailed explanation of why that happens and how to avoid it in the other video.
So needless to say, now that's off the table too. And the Bicep Curls was just not really where
it was at for me because I wasn't able to really manage too much weight there anyway and I
did feel that cramping I mentioned before, But I do remember that clip from Mike Mentzer.
Again, this is someone I watched from childhood, and it stuck in my brain, and I thought to
myself, I know there's something else I could do that would unweight the whole weight of my body
that wouldn't force me to have to do assisted pull ups and use the underhand close grip pull down.
And so, I ran my ass right over to a pull-down bar and started to do the exercise as part
of my recovery back. And guess what happened? My biceps grew a lot. Why? Because I could apply
good tension in that shortened position with the arms up elevated into shoulder flexion and
having that flexed elbow. And the safety of the exercise was actually unmatched for me
because the eccentric part of this was actually occurring at the same time that I was flexing my
shoulder. So, while I was getting lengthening of the bicep at the elbow, I was actually getting a
shortening of the bicep as the bar raised up. So, it was actually very safe for me, unlike
those inclined curls that would have actually put that under a great amount of stress.
And as far as the exercise itself utilizes, some of those Mentzer intensity techniques,
I could either self-spot myself by going to failure and then applying a couple of negatives
by just dropping down into position by holding on to the bar and then concentrating on the slow
ride back up. Or I could actually have Jesse here who could help me with the concentric portion of
the lift after I was fatigued and then help me as I slowed it back up to the top. Either way, I was
able to apply a lot of intensity to the exercise, again, making sure that I was making it a curl
variation and not just a lat driven exercise. And if you do the same thing and stop overlooking
that exercise, I guarantee you that you will also see something start to change. Number one,
that my muscle connection that you may not have right now and your ability to control the
bicep contraction, to actually feel discomfort when you do it is going to be instantly solved.
But that's not where I stopped because I still wanted to curl. And one of the other things about
Mike Mentzer is he talked heavily about volume and making sure you don't do too many sets. As a
matter of fact, you might be shocked to hear how many sets he thinks is actually good.
[Video of Mike Mentzer] On occasion, I've had a phone client ask,
Mike, would it make a difference, would it be the mistake to do a second set? You
keep making such a big deal about doing one set. And I respond something to the effect that doing
a second set is neither necessary nor desirable. In fact, it would be the biggest mistake you
can make. Going from one set to two sets is literally the biggest mistake you can make,
because going from one to two, audience, is not merely a linear increase of one unit, one to
two, it represents a doubling. A 100% increase in the volume of the exercise. And remember, that's
a negative. Even once that represents a negative, because insofar that you train it all, you make an
inroad. Well, some people might say, Well, Mike, if I do a second set, maybe I'll get a little
bit more growth stimulation. But then I point out whatever little bit extra growth stimulation,
you made a doubly deeper recovery ability, so that negates any greater growth stimulation.
Well, one set, hell Mike, now you got to go and ruin everything for me. Again, as someone
who actually enjoyed training and training my biceps specifically, one set was a hard pill
for me to swallow, so I didn't do that. But what I would recommend is potentially investigating a
lot fewer sets for you right now because it can't hurt. And my thought was in this state where I
was injured, I had nothing else to lose because I couldn't simply continue to go. In other words,
I had a car accident right here and I either chose to go get a new car and have it operated on or
continue to drive the same banged up car and do my best with it and I chose Option B. And in
doing so, I had to realize that it's not the same car anymore and I have to respect that fact,
so, I have to take it a little bit slower. So, cutting that volume down was a good idea and
doing a lot less of it was a good idea in order to salvage what was left of that tendon and
build up the strength of that muscle while I was reformulating the scar tissue in the elbow. Could
I make it work? Well, I was about to find out.
So, I cut things way back and when I started
to do was this variation of a curl where I would simply just run the rack here, one set. I
start at the bottom here of this easy curl rack, again, Intensity was the name of the game for Mike
Mentzer, I made sure that this one set was going to be ultimately intense. I d rep out, I put the
weight down, go right up to the next one up the rack, curl again, continue to rep all the way out,
hit failure, keep it going. Again, the intensity was the equator of the lower volume. If I can keep
the intensity high, I could keep that stimulus that Mike talked about, flipping that switch
for anabolic adaptation. Go up the next step up the rack, again, to failure. And I was limiting
again the number of repetitions or rotations on that tire that was already banged up here.
What were the results? Better. As a matter of fact, my arms started to feel stronger from
workout over workout over workout. I wasn't able to do the way I was doing in that clip for
you right there when I started. I had built up my strength again pretty decently in my bicep by
taking this approach. So, in this case, less was actually way more than continuing to always think
that more is better. What am I saying to you? Not necessarily that you've got to start doing one
set, but it might be worth investigating fewer sets of whatever you're doing right now, because
I don't believe that there'll be a compromise of the gains that you can get. As a matter of fact,
you might be surprised at how much better you can get. One more set, again, with much lighter weight
here, but at this point, feeling incredibly heavy to failure. And that was my workout.
But that led me to sort of the third point that Mike makes here, and this one might
be the most mind bending of all of them, and that is what type of recovery do I have?
Because it's not really about what I was doing in the gym. If I just did what I was doing here
and I didn't focus on this other aspect, I don't think my gains would have actually recovered.
[Video of Mike Mentzer] Most bodybuilders today do not understand that the big picture is comprised
essentially of two elements of equal value, I emphasize the word equal. By equal value, I mean
literally 50/50, not 60/40, not 70/30, but 50/50. The first element, the first 50% of the
big picture, obviously, yes, of course, is the actual workout. Who would deny
that? But just as important, the other 50%, not one iota less important than the actual
workout is the rest period between sets. And here's why. The workout, you must understand,
does not actually produce - the word is produced. The workout does not produce muscular
growth. Remember, the workout is merely what? A stimulus. It stimulates what? The body's
growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself that produces the growth, but only
if you leave the body undisturbed by further exercise during a sufficient rest period. Or you
can say it simply, in other words, if you don't rest enough, you don't grow enough, if at all.
Well, damn it, Mike. I mean, with all due respect, I love you, but you're killing me here. I thought
my five hours of sleep was adequate. Look, you know, and I know that not getting enough
sleep is not a good idea, not getting proper nutrition is not a good idea, not having
proper supplementation is not a good idea, not when we're trying to maximize our recovery.
But when you hear him say it with such a degree of certainty and how equally important it
is, it really did get me to thinking again, I really have to prioritize a little bit better.
And I tried to get just one extra hour of sleep by just forcing myself to go to bed just a little bit
earlier. And when it came to my training, I was willing to space it out a little bit more.
Again, my bicep work didn t have to come on a regular basis, not every five days or seven days.
I was able to space it out a little bit more and again, without a compromise in the results. And
I want to invite you guys to investigate that for yourselves. Maybe you're going to often
when it comes to bicep training, maybe you need to try to space it out a little bit more.
Realize that when you do your other back work, you're getting that indirect bicep work. If you're
doing any kind of rowing, if you're doing any kind of traditional pulldowns, you're getting some
bicep involvement there that might be enough of a stimulus and trigger in between that direct
work to keep those gains coming. And again, that drop in frequency is likely going to lead
to better results and sort of in a surprise way because you never thought it would.
Well, I will tell you, when it comes to that nutrition side of it, that was never a struggle
for me. You guys know how locked in I stand by nutrition. But if you're not locked in, I suggest
that you do become very much aware of what you're putting in your body because your body will
repair itself if you're providing it with the right nutrients. When it comes to supplementation,
I really believe that a high-quality protein is something that's incredibly important in order
to make that happen. Which is why I actually took my PRO30G Protein, of course, I'm going to
take my own, but it's because I know what's in it. Thirty grams of protein, the highest quality
to make sure I get enough in the day. And also, Rx-3 ReconstruXion is something we have
over on our website if you're interested. It's what our MLB athletes take to make sure
that they're recovered for 162 game season, that takes place in just 180 days.
Guys, if you found this video helpful, make sure you leave your comments and thumbs
up below. Let me know if you implement any of these things I showed you here today because I
do believe it might be a refresher for you and deliver some very surprising results. If you're
looking for complete programs, we have them over at Athleanx.com. If you haven't done so, click
Subscribe, turn on your Notifications so you never miss a video when we put one out. That medial
elbow pain that you might get from chin ups, guys, make sure you watch this video to see exactly how
to fix it. All right, guys, I'll see you soon.
