Who has never experienced monotony, leading to unwillingness for workouts? When your concentration is disrupted, the quality of the workout drops; the results are bad or none. You can allow yourself some rest to set things right, but what you really need is a new and fresh training approach. In my bag of charms there is a shock-trick, consisting of only three series which take 7 minutes to perform – super! This is a radical workout for the biceps that can really set the muscle on fire. I mean shock series that will test your ability for training and entering the pain zone.
21 REPETITIONS for big arms. My favorite biceps technique is a trick you might have already heard about. Now I am going to explain how you can do a complex series of 21 repetitions. Standing with the barbell in your hands, bend from its lowest point until half its way seven times, then from its halfway point to its highest for another 7 times and finally, lower the barbell to its lowest and perform the lifting in the whole range of the movement upwards for the last seven repetitions. That makes a total of 21. After warming up, do three series of 21. You will not want and will not be able to do more – and there is no need either!

Some culturists use this method in standard barbell bending but I prefer to do it seated with dumbbells on a bench. The back-rest of the bench is inclined. I recommend an incline of about 45 degrees. This angle makes you concentrate on the performance form because in fact you cannot apply auxiliary movements and cheating in this position. Besides being a great exercise for growing the mass of the biceps, 21 helps build the insertion point of the muscle. The dumbbell variant on the other hand provides a limited movement, helpful in working the central part of the biceps. I do the repetitions with two dumbbells simultaneously. I wish you good luck if you think you will be able to alternate the arms while performing 21 with dumbbells.  
THE LIST OF RULES
Let us take a look at some of the rules, so that you remember when you should apply the shock series on your biceps.
- When performing 21, use medium weight – a little lighter than you normally use in you series of 8 to 10 repetitions
-  Bend the two arms simultaneously. Alternating your hands while bending will throw your body off balance as you move the center of gravity from one side to the other all the time. Bending the arms simultaneously will allow you to use bigger weights as well.
-  Apply two types of rotation in performing the exercise. In the first part, when your arms are dropped down, bend your wrists to their back. Start bending from this position, first straightening the wrist, then bending your arms with straight wrists until halfway into the movement. For the first 7 repetitions finish here by bending your wrists again, this time forwards, as far as they can go.
My second suggestion is for the second 7 repetitions. While bending the dumbbells bring forward the pinkies of your hands and try to touch with them your shoulders at the end of the movement.
The two methods really isolate the biceps at the point of peak contraction.
- In case you wish to add another 10 % of intensity, extend for a second at the peak of the repetition This is Weider’s principle for extended peak contraction and it is one of the most important and easily applied in all kinds of bending. Use it no matter which exercise you are performing. Extend! Contract tightly in every repetition and maintain the contraction!
- To make the peak contraction more effective, prop up your elbows against your body. However, you must not forget that when you begin to shift your arms to the sides, the load on the biceps is lessened and that on the shoulders is increased.
- Lower the weight slowly and rhythmically; don’t drop it sharply. Don’t let the weight lead you, control it!
- Rely on how you feel when gripping the dumbbells. Some of the champion culturists advise taking the dumbbell with your hand touching the inner disc. According to them this provides a more natural loading in bending, but this technique has proved ineffective with me. Do what is best according to you and how you feel.
- When lowering the weight don’t rest in the lowest position. Don’t let your arms hang loosely by the body. This is a serious mistake which will give your biceps the opportunity to rest before the next repetition. The biceps should be in contraction and tension all the time while the exercise is being performed. When doing dumbbell bending alternating the arms, the tension again must be maintained all the time – even in the non-performing arm. How do you achieve this? Hold the non-performing arm tense by bending it at the elbow at about a 15 degree angle.
GROWING MASS
The shock series must not be mistaken for the ordinary mass growing programs. Therefore, do not use them regularly but only when you need to boost your intensity. In my usual workouts I begin with lying incline bench dumbbell bending and I use very heavy dumbbells because they grow mass. I also include standing barbell bending and seated dumbbell bending. As to the latter, I do a variant entirely my own. I perform with the right arm first, then I do the repetitions with the left and finally with both arms – all this in one series. I use a light weight in order to pay the necessary attention to the contraction.