Discuss: Ronnie Coleman disses barbell curls

[Synpax]

He speaks in this article of favoring cable work - even for beginners.

http://www.getbig.com/articles/biceps2.htm

What do you make of this? Does it tempt you to drop your barbell/dumbell curls in favor of cable work?

 

[anabolicmd]

No, I wont drop my heavy barbell curls. He makes a lot of good points, especially about the bar momentum, and forearm and shoulder involvement resulting in the biceps not doing all the work. But its still a great mass builder, and the foundation of my bicep work although biceps are not my highest priority. I might throw in some single arm cable work, because Ronnie did remind me that some isolation work is good too

 

[Sammy Sosa]

Best thing I ever did for arms was to drop the volume. I believe bicep mass come from heavy back work. Pullups being #1

 

[anabolicmd]

Best thing I ever did for arms was to drop the volume. I believe bicep mass come from heavy back work. Pullups being #1

I have to agree with the volume part. I do 6-9 sets of 3-4 heavy reps and I like how its working for me.

 

[Synpax]

While I was in the gym I thought of two things:

1) Ronnie is a BB. I guess his point is to disregard the BB/DB curls if you are trying to work *only* on your biceps. I guess they are good if you are looking for broader development.

2) Why doesn't he mention concentration curls? Those seem ideal for targeting the biceps.

 

[Dave949]

If thats the case (isolation) then why did he limit it to just the biceps ? That (his) logic would pretain to other bodyparts as well and that logic would say benching, inclines and dips should be dropped in favor of cable flys and pec decks because of shoulder and tricep involvement with benching or dips. So heavy compound movements are out and iso movements are in ????

IMHO.....the bodies musculature was meant to work in unison and not in an isolated way. I will stick to compounds and good ol fashioned basic movements, (including barbell curls) thank you very much

 

[anabolicmd]

I gotta think that a lot of the stuff he says is just kind of off the top of his head, to fill up the article. Im sure this is not Ronnies absolute training philosophy, but rather how he was feeling that day, lol.

 

[Dave949]

Im sure this is not Ronnies absolute training philosophy, but rather how he was feeling that day, lol.

And how much he got paid too !!!

 

[anabolicmd]

And how much he got paid too !!!

Yup, that too!

 

[collegiateLifter]

also we don't really even know if Ronnie wrote that article... theres a lot of ghostwriting in the world of bodybuilding.