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00:00The irony of growing big arms is this. In order to build muscle, we have to lift
00:04heavy. But in order to really isolate our biceps and triceps without involving
00:08other muscle groups, a lot of times we can't lift as heavy as we want to. That
00:13creates a problem because the quest for growing big arms means we have to
00:16isolate but we still have to lift heavy. How do we solve that problem? That's
00:20where a move like the cheat curl comes in. By cheating, just with a little bit of
00:24extra body English, we're able to do our curls with extra heavy weights. And while
00:28that's gonna cost us a little bit in terms of a strong concentric contraction,
00:32it sets us up for an ultra good eccentric contraction. And that is
00:35critical for muscle building, as is the fact that during the cheat curl we can
00:39spend extra time in the stretch position. We're gonna get plenty of time under
00:42tension as our muscle is extending. The cheat curl can be a really excellent
00:47move in any biceps workout, but it is not a move that we want to abuse in our
00:51workouts. Here are four ways not to use the cheat curl in your training. So in
00:55order to understand how to do the cheat curl, the basic fundamental thing you
00:59have to remember is how to do a basic biceps curl first. All we're gonna do
01:02with the cheat curl is we're gonna break a couple of those rules so that we can
01:06go extra heavy when we're doing this curl. When we do a standard biceps curl,
01:10whether we're doing this with dumbbells or a barbell, we're gonna make sure to
01:13set up with our shoulder blades squeezed tight, our glutes squeezed tight, and then
01:17our abs working to keep our ribcage down. We're gonna work to keep our elbows at
01:21our sides as we curl up, and that winds up being our standard biceps curl. In
01:25order to do the cheat curl, we're gonna get our hips involved in this. That way
01:29we can lift an extra heavy weight up, then you've got to organize your body,
01:33get all that tension back in it, and then we're gonna lower slowly back down. If we
01:37are doing this with dumbbells, we have one extra option. We can alternate sides.
01:41We're still gonna make sure to keep ourselves back as tight as possible and
01:46making sure that our shoulder blades are squeezed, but we can lean a little bit to
01:50get into the weight a little bit more. That's gonna, again, set us up for a nice
01:53strong eccentric, but we can get that good hip rock, then lean into it a little
01:57bit, and then we can lower down, and that's gonna be one thing that we can do
02:00with dumbbells that we can't do as effectively with the barbell or an easy bar.
02:03The other thing we don't want to do with our cheat curl, we don't want to come
02:07down fast. The entire point of the cheat curl is not about cheating the weight up.
02:11It's about getting yourself in position to lower the weight with control because
02:16that's when we get that really, really good eccentric contraction. We get that
02:19eccentric overload that's going to eventually spur growth and get us used
02:23to working with that heavier weight. In order to do that, you have to make sure
02:26to think very carefully about your cheat curl. Once you cheat the weight up, we
02:30want to pause for a split second. Think about squeezing your glutes, squeezing
02:34your abs and getting your ribcage nice and tight, and then squeezing your
02:37shoulder blades. Once you've done that, then we can focus on slowly lowering the
02:41weight. You want to think about lowering for four full seconds. If you aren't
02:45fighting to lower for at least four seconds, you're wasting the entire
02:49purpose that you cheated the weight up for in the first place. So really battle
02:53for that. You are going to go heavy with this curl, but you still want to make
02:56sure that you really, really get that good eccentric. The other piece when we're
02:59doing the cheat curl that we want to avoid, you don't want to flex your wrists
03:02as you're lowering. So we want to create as long of a forearm lever as possible.
03:07That's not going to happen when we're flexing our wrists. So what you want to
03:10do, once we get into that top of that cheat curl position, instead of flexing
03:14our wrists and lowering, which is also going to lead to us using our forearms
03:18more instead of our biceps, what we want to do is extend ever so slightly. So
03:22think about just getting a little bit of open bend at the wrist. This is true
03:26whether you're using dumbbells or barbells. We want to just get that
03:29extension, maintain that position. That's going to force this to be all biceps as
03:32we lower, and that's what we're really, really going for on the cheat curl. Once
03:37you have mastered the cheat curl, it is a tremendous move that you can use for a
03:41ton of biceps gains. It's going to get you through a ton of plateaus too, but
03:44the thing you have to remember is that you're never going to do this move for
03:48high reps. This is something that's meant to be done for four to six reps max, and
03:53we can do this one of two ways. Either A, you can do this as a lead exercise within
03:57your biceps workout. Think about doing it then for three sets of four to six reps,
04:01and we're going to curl up and get that nice slow lower. By keeping the reps low,
04:05we're going to ensure that we can really focus on the eccentric. We're not going
04:09to overwhelm our mind by trying to do ten reps of this. The other way that you
04:13can do this is we can do a full set of curls with, say, a weight that we can
04:18control, and you can do, say, eight to ten reps of that, and then when you can't do
04:22any more reps with that weight that you can control, we can throw two to three
04:25reps on the end of that set, cheat the weight up, and then lower with control.
04:29Either way, those are your two options, and the better way is to use the cheat
04:33curl. This is not a high rep move, but it is a great move that's going to help you
04:36bust through your biceps plateaus and really, really grow your arms.