Thoughts about the Brachialis

[siske1995]

Hey guys, been a lurker for a while and thought I would post something to debate. I'm a graduate Fitness Instructor and Personal Trainer, moving onto Physiotherapy in Oktober because of my interest in human Anatomy and injuries.

To the point, I was toying with how to hit the Brachialis, the workhorse of elbow flexion sitting beneath the Biceps Brachii in the most optimal fashion to get the best isolation out of it. This has led me to Overhead Curls first. Makes sense, putting the arms overhead puts the Biceps Brachii in a semi contracted position at the shoulder joint, trying to flex both the shoulder and the biceps would result in "Active Insufficiency", meaning the Biceps cannot contract optimally and therefore produce as much force. This moves a lot of the load to the Brachialis on its own already, but I tried to play with hand positions, and found that Reverse OH Curls really hit and activate the Brachialis A LOT.

My reasoning is that both Biceps and Brachioradialis are put at an disadvantaged position to exerct force, putting a lot more load on the Brachialis. Anecdotally, my Brachioradialis is strongest in neutral position, hence my reasoning and experimentation.

I have not put this to the test in real world application of hypertrophy, nor do I expect anyone to do so, I just like to think about this stuff and as I'm going to study Physiotherapy, I should think a lot about stuff like this.

Try it for yourself, position your arm overhead and use your other hand to pinpoint the Brachialis between the Biceps and Triceps down the lower half of the humerus. Now supinate and curl, then pronate and curl, the difference in activation is quite significant!

What do you guys think?

 

[muscleupcrohn]

I've actually been focusing on working the brachialis as well.

I've found that cross body hammer curls really seem to work this well, as I can see and feel my brachialis working especially well on these. It's important not to cheat here though; the elbows and upper arms should not move, which means you don't have to throw around huge heavy weights while swinging your arms and rocking your body like a lot of people do when they do hammer curls. I tend to use anywhere between 30-40lb dumbbells depending on when in my workout I do them.

This is a pretty good picture demonstrating the form; the elbows don't really move at all during the set.

 

[siske1995]

Cross-Body Hammer Curls seem to be recommended a lot for the Brachialis too while normal Hammer Curls are prescribed mainly for the Brachioradialis. I wonder why? Maybe due to the more internally rotated shoulder, putting it in slight flexion and thus moving some of the load on the Brachialis?

Thanks for the reply too! Not too many in-depth threads about this to find online, so I would like to try and speculate about more muscles and the best ways to train them to put some quality information on the internet for everyone.

Anyone else? Science? Anecdote? I have read that the Brachialis gets a lot of work during Preacher type curls due to the biggest load being in the end range of the movement and that the Brachialis is more active there, not sure where I read this and the merit of it though.