Curls For Girls, Tris For — Screw It, All Gender Identifications Need Better Arms Now.
Graduating from an all-women’s liberal arts college in 2013, I thought that gender issues would magically disappear back into the Western Massachusetts bubble if I gave up on academia for personal training.
(You can laugh now. I should have known I would be wrong from the start.)
Consider the bicep curl.
When people ask for, “arm exercises,” in the hopes of getting bigger or stronger upper body muscles, they’re usually thinking of just one part: the bicep.
Which, to be fair, is the showiest muscle. It’s the locked-and-loaded barrel at the gun show. Where would Popeye be without it?
The Biceps Brachii is composed of two differentiated parts, or “heads,” that pump up when you flex. It’s right there in the name: “bi” = two, and “ceps” = heads, derived from the Latin “caput.” (Or if you speak Spanish, think “cabeza.”) On the average body, that pump usually looks like a single head:
