Phillip Jerrod Heath, AKA “The Gift,” an American IFBB professional bodybuilder who won the Mr. Olympia title seven times. Talking about total domination; he won it every year from 2011-2017 until he was finally bested by the late Shawn Rhoden. With seven titles, Heath is tied with Arnold and just behind Ronnie Coleman and Lee Haney, who both won the title eight times.
One of the best to ever do it, Heath shares a video of his biceps workout that was recorded a few years back. He just released this video on his Youtube channel, where he has amassed about 45k subscribers.
Turing 42 years young tomorrow, there were talks of his retirement earlier this year, but it hasn’t been made official yet. After watching his biceps workout, we hope he sticks around for a bit longer.
Phil Heath’s Biceps Workout
Starting with a super thorough warm-up on the seated curl machine with single and dual-arm curls, Heath tries to get as much blood volume as possible by limiting resting periods. Holding one arm contracted while the other arm was pumping out some reps helped achieve the massive pump he was looking for.
He says, these short resting periods of 10-15 seconds helped him early in his career to avoid career-ending injuries as he’d seen some guys tear their biceps. He thinks it’s essential to focus on the mind-muscle connection when warming up.
Heath says, “when you get that good curl, and you stick it, and you feel like how it’s supposed to feel, that’s the perfect rep in your mind, you need to replicate that.”
Standing Modified Concentration Cable Curls
Moving on from the biceps curl machine, Heath throws 30lbs on the cable machine and sets the handle at around hip height. Standing to the side of the machine, he hinges forward, then grabs the handle and curls his arm up across his body until his fist meets his opposite chest. You’ll see that he uses his inactive arm as a brace against his leg for added stability.
Preacher Curls on Cable Machine
Heath then employs a rickety preacher curl bench combined with the cable machine and EZ curl bar attachment. Fearing the seat might break, he didn’t go that heavy for him, at a mere 105lbs. It looks like he does 10 reps for the set we see, with the last rep having a longer eccentric phase.
Standing High Cable Curls
After a few sets on the cable machine he then transitions to the standing curls. Heath imagines himself hitting the front double biceps or back double biceps shot, always supinating his wrists to get a more prominent peak in the biceps.
He mouths to the camera,” THIS IS JUST MY WARM-UP.”
EZ Bar Curls On Preacher Bench
Heath jumps back onto the preacher bench to bludgeon his biceps with supersets of wide and narrow grip curls. He jumps back and forth between sets from wide to narrow, then on the following set starts with a narrow then wide grip. He does this to change up the cadence and add some variety to his arm day, to have some fun with it.
Seated Dumbbell Curls
Starting with double arm curls while his biceps are pumped before switching it up to single-arm seated curls. He advises using this biceps workout as a guideline and that you as the viewer should play with the tempo, sets, and rep ranges. He’s using dumbbells in the 30-40 lb range for this portion of his workout.
Seated Hammer Curls
Heath really hammers his biceps with this last exercise as he passes the dumbbell back and forth between his hands as he moves into the next set. He continues at this high intensity until he is completely drained. It seems like he used a 30lb dumbbell for these last brutal sets.
Heath’s Biceps Workout Wrapped Up
In the video below on his Youtube channel, you’ll get to see the highlights of his biceps workout. He mentions towards the end of the video that this particular workout took about 40 minutes. Although he doesn’t give an exact number of sets and reps completed, we can guess by the look of it most sets were in the hypertrophy range of 8-12 reps, with supersets being around 20 reps.
We didn't want to leave you hanging without a sample biceps workout to follow.
So, here's a Phil Heath inspired biceps workout brought to you by SETFORSET.
Warm up:
- High Cable Biceps Curls: 2 sets x 12-15 reps
- Concentration Curls: 2 sets x 10 reps
Note: 10-15 Second rest between sets
Working Sets & Reps:
- Superset Narrow x Wide Grip Preacher Curls: 3 sets x 10 reps (each exercise- total 20 reps)
- Seated Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets x 10-12 reps (1st set both arms 2nd & 3rd set single arm curls)
- Seated Hammer Curls: 4 sets x 10 reps (each side - no rests)
Note: Keep rests between sets 45-90 seconds.
Courtesy of Phil Heath’s YouTube channel, here’s clips of his biceps workout:
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Kiel DiGiovanni
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