I am trying to work out a good split right now, splitting my upper body into 2 days, right now i'm doing 1 day back/biceps/forearms, other day chest/shoulders. So here is the thing, this week Monday I did back/biceps/forearms ( it wasn't a great workout, I was rushed and didn't feel like I worked my muscles that hard), Teusday was leg day, Wednesday I had a great chest/shoulder workout and I was planning on hitting back/biceps again this (Thursday) morning, but.....my biceps are super sore! So I just stayed home and took the day off from the gym. So finally getting to my question...I am wondering what I did to work my Biceps so much, I'm pretty sure they won't be this sore from monday, so it must be from my chest/shoulder workout? Here is what I did: overhead/shoulder presses, lots of chest flies (cable, machine and dumbell), dumbell bench press, dips, incline dumbell press, tricep cable rope pulls, and I think thats about all. The one that I'm thinking MIGHT have killed my biceps is the flies. Do flies normall use the bicep? Or could I be doing them wrong? Any help on this is appreciated, as well as some help deciding what my best 2-day upper body split should be if that needs changed. Thanks!

Hey man, I dont think you hurt yourself with the Fly's. I'm thinkink you may have hyper-extended your biceps when doing the rope pulldowns. I did this a few months back because my arms naturally hyper extend.

What I mean by hyper extend is when I stretch out my arms straight out in front of me, my forearms actually stretch past the straight (elbow locking) point.

When I was doing the rope pulldowns, I stretched my arms so far that i actually pulled my bicep muscle! I didn't feel any pain in my bicep till about 4-5 days later when I went to work out my back and then it started to sting. I had to take off another week before my bicep healed and I was able to lift again.

I think you'll be alright man, just take a small break on the biceps. Focus on core and legs and then you'll be able to do curls in no time!

#HTH

Could be from the DB Bench. They work your biceps more than using the bb. My biceps get more sore from db bench than doing bicep curls sometimes.

Hey man whats up!

Pushing exercises like bench press or Overhead press cannot stimulate your biceps. Yes, the bicep is a very weak shoulder flexor so in theory it might help a bit to get the weight away from you but its so minimal, its not even worth mentioning. Your triceps should get destroyed though due to elbow extension in all pressing exercises.

Sounds to me like you did something wrong with your dumbell flys. Flys are a dangerous exercise and are not actually necessary to build a symmetric chest. If you know how to press you can achieve incredible pecs with just incline/flat/decline bench press and dips. People do the flys because for some reason they think it stretches their chest out. It does not. At least it doesnt stretch it any more than a dumbell bench press. Simple biomechanics. The reason you feel a "Stretch" when doing it, is because you are actually stretching your bicep tendons that attaches in the shoulder, close to where the pec tendons attach. So its always recommened when you do a fly to keep your elbows bent. You will see PRO bodybuilders even bending their elbows to 90 degrees. They do that to protect their shoulder from excessive stretch when they lift huge weights. Most likely you slighly pulled your biceps during the flys.

Furthemore, Jose aboce is correct about the tricep extensions. Over-extending the elbow joint can cause the bicep to stretch beyond its capacity,causing further problems. But thats a form problem so if anything like that is happening just slow down and pay closer attention.

Thats it, I hope I ve been of some help to you.

#HTH!

Kostas

Well when you train back and biceps together on the same day you are putting a lot of stress on the biceps and forearms period. A lot of inexperienced lifters use their biceps a lot during back training. Naturally when you train your back your biceps are going to be engaged to an extent with pull-ups, pull-downs, and various rows. What you have to do is develop that mind muscle connection with your back. The best advice I can give when training back is to never put the death grip on any exercise, but instead pretend that your fingers are hooks that you are just hooking to the bars. This will take tension off your biceps and place more tension on your back muscles giving you a greater back workout. A lot of times you can train a muscle group and the very next day it isn't sore, but the following day it will be sore. This is called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

To be honest a lot of guys go way to heavy on chest fly's which causes them to recruit muscle fibers from other muscle groups such as the delts and even the biceps. My advice to you here when doing fly's is to lighten the weight and develop more mind muscle connection with your chest. Most likely the soreness in your biceps isn't from all the chest fly's, but its most likely due to training 2 muscle groups that involve pulling in 1 session. I always stick to push/pull/legs. Maybe you should adjust your training split accordingly to prevent joint and tendon strain. Here is a great weekly split that I myself follow:

Day 1) Chest (push), back (pull), abs.

Day 2) Shoulders (push/pull), Biceps (pull), Triceps (push).

Day 3) Legs, abs.

Day 4) Chest, back.

Day 5) Shoulders, biceps, triceps.

Day 6) Legs, abs.

Thanks for the help everyone! I'll get it figured out soon what exactly is causing it, your advice helps a lot.