Bateman: An ode to bulging biceps

By Oliver Bateman

Hey dude, are you using that preacher bench? How many sets of curls do you have left? Three,… Hey dude, are you using that preacher bench? How many sets of curls do you have left? Three, huh?

Well, why don’t we call it one, and then you can go join that girl who has been reading Glamour magazine on the elliptical trainer for the last six hours? How does that sound?

Look, we’re sorry to interrupt, but curls are serious business to us. Ever see Duane “The Rock” Johnson in “The Tooth Fairy”? That guy could crush your concave bird chest between his forearm and his enormous biceps. That’s what we’re talking about, bro.

Here’s the thing: We’ve got guns. Always have had them, always will. If you want to make it on a campus like this one, you need to get swoll. Load those arm cannons with a few sets of bad-form curls and pretty soon you too will be busting out of your too-tight Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt.

Thing is, it’s our turn on the preacher bench. You’ve been hogging that thing for the last two minutes. These grapefruits won’t squeeze themselves, hoss.

We’re hitting the bars tonight and we want to be popping. Our tan is already tight and our hair is going to set records for the highest clubspike, but these curls complete us, if you know what we mean.

See, the biceps brachii is a totally worthless muscle group, with one major exception: It impresses lots of guys and maybe some girls. What we need it to do is scare the other guys away from the girls, even if those girls don’t care about biceps, The Rock or “The Tooth Fairy.” And what about those guys who aren’t scared? We want them to come up and give our biceps a squeeze.

So what we’re saying is that you must curl as if your life depended on it. Doesn’t matter if the form on those curls is good, bad or indifferent. Put the whole back into it if that’s what it takes. See those lightweights and tenderfeet looking at you?

They’re amazed by your awesomeness. You’re the heavy curling king of the weight room.

What, you’re telling us that we’re underdeveloped in other areas? That we don’t have any quads or hamstrings or calves? Kid, can you see that stuff in the dim lighting of a smoke-filled campus hotspot? Right, we thought so. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Puffy? You’re saying we look puffy? This is all natural, youngblood. No body fat here. Those pizzas and burgers we eat are just ways of packing on the protein. Same with the booze. That’s called carbo-loading — maybe you’ve heard about it?

Trust us: We’ve been at this hard-gaining game for years. We’ve broken hearts and set records. Our curling excellence is sure to go unexcelled, in all the gyms on campus, until someone with even worse form shows up and throws two plates on that barbell.

Step aside, please. We want to do our set.

Oliver Bateman is the head honcho of the Biceps Club of America, which is dedicated to heart-stopping, muscle-pumping tales of gymnasium glory. You can visit the club at moustacheclub.wordpress.com. If you’re interested in developing all those insignificant muscles that aren’t biceps, you should check out panthercrossfit.blogspot.com.