Gymnasts Have Freakishly Big Biceps – These Dumbbell Exercises Mimic Their Training to Hit Your Arms Hard

Gymnasts are renowned for their incredibly strong arms and shoulders, built through years of training highly advanced movements on rings and bars.

Take the back lever, where you suspend yourself horizontally beneath a pull-up bar or gymnastics rings with your front facing the floor. Or the iron cross, which requires you to support your entire bodyweight between two rings with your arms extended out to your sides.

They're seriously advanced skills that require considerable strength, mobility and preparation – and aren't movements the average gym-goer should simply attempt without working through the appropriate progressions.

But coach Lucas Hardie, who specialises in unconventional methods for building strength and flexibility, believes you can borrow some of the principles behind gymnastics training without needing to become a gymnast.

He's taken inspiration from three advanced gymnastics movements and devised dumbbell variations that allow you to train some of the same positions and qualities with far more manageable loads.

'The deeper you explore gymnastic methods you’ll find they have creative ways of strengthening positions and tissues their skills demand with free weights,' Hardie says.

'I think more people should borrow these ideas from them. You don’t need to be training for an iron cross to benefit from developing straight arm strength. You don’t need a back lever to benefit from getting stronger in shoulder extension. And you definitely don’t need to be a gymnast to explore parts of your body your current programme ignores.

'A lot of this “advanced” looking training starts with surprisingly basic exercises too.'

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Back Lever Press

• Lie face down on a flat bench, allowing your arms to hang freely towards the floor.
• Pick up two light dumbbells and hold them with your arms straight, positioned roughly in line with your midsection.
• Keeping your elbows straight, raise the dumbbells behind you towards the ceiling, allowing your arms to move slightly away from your body.
• Lift only as high as you can comfortably control before slowly returning to the starting position.

'Trains active straight arm shoulder extension, building the muscles you need to pull into and stabilise that position,' Hardie says.

The key word here is light. You're loading the shoulders in an unusual position, so there's little benefit in chasing heavy dumbbells.

Pelican Curl

• Set a bench to a steep incline.
• Position yourself so your upper back is supported at the top of the bench and your feet are planted on the seat.
• Lift your hips into a bridge so your torso is roughly parallel to the floor.
• Holding a light dumbbell in each hand, allow your arms to hang down and slightly behind your torso.
• Curl the weights towards your shoulders, pause briefly at the top, then lower slowly back into the stretched position.

The unusual set-up places your arms behind your torso, creating a significant stretch through the biceps at the bottom of each rep.

It's similar in principle to an incline curl, with the emphasis placed on challenging the biceps at longer muscle lengths. Again, start light and only use a range of motion you can comfortably control.

Iron Cross Press

• Stand tall holding a light dumbbell in each hand.
• Raise your arms out to your sides until they're roughly at shoulder height, creating a 'T' shape with your body.
• Keeping your arms straight, continue raising the dumbbells in a wide arc overhead.
• Stop just before the dumbbells meet, then slowly reverse the movement until your arms return to shoulder height.

'Builds straight arm strength around the elbow while also challenging the clavicular pec fibres in a position most traditional pressing never touches,' Hardie adds.

Don't let the name fool you: doing these won't suddenly give you an iron cross. But they do provide a novel way to challenge your shoulders, chest and arms through positions that probably don't feature in your usual pressing and pulling programme.

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