Who doesn’t want bigger biceps with those roadmap veins bursting through your shirt sleeve?

Although they’ve been replaced by a killer six-pack as the glory muscle of today, big biceps still turn heads and command attention.

If you want to have those sleeve-busting biceps, use these five tricks for bigger arms.

1. Start with Compound Movements

Compound exercises recruit several muscle groups at once; usually a major muscle like the back and several smaller muscles such as the biceps and forearms.

More often than not, you should begin your workout with compound movements such as a barbell row or deadlift.

Isolating the biceps first will result in decreased performance during compound exercises, ensuring you won’t be able to lift as much as you normally would.

During compound exercises, your biceps will still be feeling the workload.

2. Isolate Your Biceps

Once you finish with the multiple muscle group exercises, you can isolate your pre-exhausted biceps. In order to do this, you’ll need the right exercises.

Curls are a classic but I suggest targeting your biceps from different directions. Here’s my selection of the best biceps exercises:

• Alternating Twisting Dumbbell Curls
• Hammer Curls
• Outside to Inside Dumbbell Curls
• Reverse Barbell Curls
• Barbell Wrist Rolls

Cycle through different set-to-repetition ranges. The heavier the weight, the lower the repetitions.

3. Superset for the Pump

To trigger the maximum amount of hypertrophy or muscle growth, you need to feel the pump during every set.

That pumped up feeling is the pooling of the blood going into the heads of the biceps. This is a tell-tale sign that the bicep is working and your causing the microtears needed for growth.

One of the best ways to get that pump is to superset your exercises.

Supersetting exercises involves performing one set of a bicep exercise then immediately going into another one with no rest in between.

For example, complete one set of Alternating Twisting Dumbbell Curls and immediately perform a set of Hammer Curls. Only then should you take a break.

Try the workout above as a superset workout:

• Superset 1: Alternating Twisting Dumbbell Curls
• Superset 1: Hammer Curls
• Superset 2: Outside to Inside Dumbbell Curls
• Superset 2: Reverse Barbell Curls
• Perform until failure: Barbell Wrist Rolls

4. Target the Biceps Three Times Per Week

If you want to see serious growth in minimal time, you’ll need to make your biceps a priority. Make sure you’re hitting your biceps three times per week. This doesn’t mean you have to isolate them every workout.

For example, if you work out your back twice per week and only isolate your biceps once per week, then you’re activating and working the biceps three total times each week.

5. Increase Your Protein Intake

Protein is broken down into usable amino acids, the very building blocks of muscle tissue. If you want to see growth in your biceps, you need to increase the amount of protein you consume on a daily basis.

On average, you should try to consume one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you should be eating 150 grams of protein each day.

Most of this protein should come from whole food sources such as chicken and steak. You can also use two or three servings of a protein supplement to reach your goal.