Bicep Challenge

Training biceps and want to push yourself to the limit? Give this challenge a try and tag @MuscleSquad in your video.

The Challenge

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MuscleSquad (@musclesquaduk)

The Rules

Line up five pairs of dumbbells in order of heaviest to lightest. You should be able to complete ten reps with the heaviest pair.

Once you've done ten reps of the first pair, immediately move on to the second pair and complete ten more. Repeat this process until you've done ten reps with the lightest pair of dumbbells. You shouldn't be taking any rest time between your sets.

How Does it Work?

Your last sets will be the hardest even though they are the lightest weight. This is due to muscular fatigue.

As your first set will be close to failure, your muscles will become fatigued and accumulate lactic acid.

Usually, you'd take a rest between sets so your muscles can recover, which would help you to complete another set with the same weight. Not resting between sets means you're pushing yourself past failure. The muscles become so fatigued that they cannot perform to even close to their full potential when rested.

Dropsets

This style of training is known as a dropset.

Usually, a dropset is composed of two sets. You start off with a heavy weight, push yourself to failure, then reduce the weight by 30-50% and push yourself to failure again. Obviously in this case, the bicep challenge is no conventional dropset.

Dropsets are a great way to fit in more training volume over a shorter period of time. They can also be used to increase the overall intensity of your workouts.

Jamie Grover, Fitness Journalist from Bristol.