Building muscle isn’t easy, but if there’s one muscle that men prize above all others, it’s the humble bicep. While we’ve been trying and compiling bicep workouts for years, never before have we come across one so brutally efficient as one shared by former pro-bodybuilder Eddie Abbew this week.
At his peak, Eddie Abbew competed in the 2007 Mr. Olympia alongside bodybuilding icon Ronnie Coleman for his final professional appearance; Abbew finished the competition in 16th. Since retiring from professional bodybuilding, Abbew has become an internet sensation, using his unique skillset to educate his 1.5 million Instagram followers on the potentially harmful supplements that we’re all guilty of taking to maximise our output at the gym.
WATCH: Abbew Exposes His Most-Hated Gym Supplement
Known for his straight-talking, no-nonsense approach to nutrition, Abbew also has the qualifications to back it up, training and registering as a nurse after he gave up competing following a 12-year pro career. It’s a novel idea during a time when we’re all looking for that edge in the gym, with fitness influencers and so-called Liver Kings selling an unattainable dream if we just take any of the many supplements from their sponsored product range.
Abbew’s simple approach to no-nonsense nutrition is a welcomed addition to the saturated social market and presents fat loss and muscle gain as an achievable goal for everyday gym-goers. For Eddie Abbew, the way to achieve your fitness dreams is simple: stop eating s*** food that’s doing nothing for your goals.
The Big Bicep Workout
Naturally, good nutrition means little for building muscle without putting in those hard yards in the iron paradise and, for many blokes, no other muscle is prized quite so highly as the buying bicep. Lucky for us, on top of his usual nutritional knowledge, Abbew has dropped a one-movement workout that he used to blow up his biceps to a whopping twenty inches when training for competition. Here’s how he did it:
Advising that you “don’t overdo it with training”, given that the bicep, despite its worldwide acclaim, is a relatively small muscle, Abbew then lines up a row of dumbells that gradually increase in weight. He smashes out ten reps of each weight, starting from the lightest and building up to the heaviest, taking no rest in between each weight, only stopping to draw breath after completing all forty reps.
He then repeats this on the opposite arm. A single set barrel takes him thirty seconds — there’s an important note here: the weights he chooses are all relatively light, allowing him to move at speed, rather than focus on moving heavy weight — but by the end, his biceps are absolutely pumped.
Repeating these movements for a total of fifteen minutes, twice a week, it’s easy to see how your biceps really could explode if you did this regularly enough, combining as it does both progressive overload and the high-intensity reps that you need to really get your blood pumping.
Though some of Abbew’s dietary advice may be a little intimidating — I’m yet to be sold on mass consumption of liver — this workout is an absolute no-brainer.