Have you ever wondered how Gideon’s biceps got so swole? Have you ever wanted to flex on a necro, but the skeletal meat clinging to your humerus looks like a flesh adepts half-assed science project? Are you a Ninth House Cavalier seeking to get uncomfortably buff and help your necro achieve Lyctor status? Well, if you’re a meatbag like Gideon, look no further—for this guide to getting galactic swole is sure to increase your swordsmanship, your swoonmanship, and result in absolutely upsetting biceps. If you’re a skeleton, I’m sorry; this guide to getting swole probably won’t work for you as your sarcolemma has long since decayed.
Massive, bulging, sack-of-lemons biceps are, in fact, the key to wielding a broadsword, helping your necro earn Lyctorship, and swooning even the most waifish and ill-fated of necromancers. One cannot simply expect to defeat epic bone constructs with stringy fascicles. Despite the fact that a certain bird-boned Ninth House necro (with all of her, like, three muscles) seems to believe that one can get by simply with bone magic in this myriadic year, the ten-thousandth year of our Lord—The King Undying!—it’s clear that magic alone is not enough to save the Nine Houses of Dominicus.
First and foremost—hit those biceps brachii from all the angles and with all the modalities. Curls for the girls, as they say. The absolute best, 100% most appropriate and totally excellent place to do bicep curls is in the squat rack. Grab that 45lb iron bar, slap some plates on the ends, and stand there, feet firmly planted, gazing into the mirror, and squeeze that skeletal meat for at least 10 solid reaps. Ignore all looks you may get from the limp-fibred mayonnaise-uncle lookalikes that may be glaring at you. Who gives a galactic fuck if they want to squat in the squat rack? You’re busy getting swole AF in the upper extremities. Leg day does not exist in the House of the Ninth, and if it did, we would still do bicep curls in the squat rack because apparently bird-like qualities are a Ninth House standard, so our goal is to look like a chicken-legged Hercules.
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Nona the Ninth
If the squat rack is unavailable for bicep curls, grab a set of the heaviest dumbbells you can reap and stand right in front of the dumbbell rack. Why? Because like I said, leg day does not exist in the House of the Ninth, and walking the dumbbells a decent and respectable distance away from the rack constitutes a leg workout, and we simply cannot spare any adenosine diphosphate on anything other than our biceps. Keep those elbows tucked, core tight, forearms at a 45-degree angle to your body, gaze into the mirror, and squeeze the living fuck out of those dumbbells—hold at the top!—and slowly lower the weights back down. Reap the benefits.
No dumbbells? No problem! Grab an EZ curl bar, find the most obnoxious spot to stand, and reap the fuck out of that iron. Disregard any negativity thrown your way for being “inappropriate”—you do you!
If you’re to be any respectable cavalier of the Ninth, being decently okay with a rapier is a must. The quick and sharp movements of the rapier require an enormous amount of anterior deltoid endurance, so grab the heaviest plate you can heave, and reap that sucker—reap it hard. Again, keep that core tight! You can’t fight bone constructs if you’ve thrown your back out trying to impress the ladies.
For your finisher, your smoked-meat special of blood-pumping vessels, chin-ups are an absolute must. The supinated grip of this ultimate compound movement targets not only our biceps brachii, but also our latissimus dorsi, teres major, posterior deltoid, and our deep internal core stabilizers. In short, all of the muscles required to slash a broad sword through the sinew of the beefiest bone construct.
Be sure to flex as much as possible during this workout to help with the muscle growth. Everyone knows a good dirty mirror gym flex pic helps with the gains. Chances are, other people will be using the dirty gym mirror to workout, but you, my swole cavalier-in-training, should just keep flexing away. Aww yeah.
As for how much weight should one use if they’re trying to get galatic-swole? How the fuck should I know? Gravity works a little differently in outer space, so reap as much as you possibly can. In order for muscle to grow, you need to create a lot of micro tears in the muscle fiber. This is achieved through performing moderate reaps (or reps as those not under the rule of our Lord Necro Prime—The Kindly Prince of Death!—like to call them) at 70-80% of your maximum capacity, and is called hypertrophy. Working in this reap range yields the most muscle growth, but be sure to replenish that muscle glycogen store with a good meal (or dessert, as our “worryingly fly” favorite cav prefers) within 30 minutes of finishing your workout!
So, unless you want to end up like Harrowhark Nonegesimus with her bird-boned brittleness and complete inability to lift anything heavier than her own skull, get yourself to the gym and start reaping!
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So here it is, cavaliers, a totally meat-headed workout to get your upper extremities swole as fuck. Complete the workout in a circuit, adding sets, reaps, or weight to increase that volume, maximize hypertrophy, and save Dominicus.
1. Barbell Biceps curls (3 sets, 10 reaps)
2. Dumbbell/EZ Curls (3 sets, 10 reaps)
3. Front Detoid Raises (3 sets, 10 reaps)
4. Chin ups (3 sets, As Many As Possible)
Originally published October 2019.
Kelcifer Rose is a bookseller by day and ninja by night. When she’s not Savoy Bookshop & Cafe in Westerly, RI, where she is a full time bookseller and manager, Kelcifer can be found at the dojo teaching jiu-jitsu to small children.
