Form Tip: Think about squeezing your shoulder blades together and keeping your chest up. Otherwise, you risk slouching forward and disengaging your biceps. Step 4 — Find the Contraction and Hold it Besides looking good — because a pair of meaty arms are aesthetic — bigger biceps serve some practical functions, too. The biceps muscle is a key player in most pulling exercises. Anytime your pull a heavy deadlift, your biceps are involved. The same is true for pull-ups, barbell rows, and more. Strengthening the biceps will carry over to those moves as well as help protect them from injury. General lifters will benefit from the two reasons mentioned above. Even if they don’t need the size of a bodybuilder or strength of a strongman, everyday gym-goers can still strive for more mass and strength. It’ll help with their general gym performance, confidence, and biceps mobility. Barbell Curl Sets, Reps, and Weight Recommendations Olympic Weightlifting: While weightlifters don’t want to pull with the arms during snatches and clean & jerks isn’t something we want in most lifts, stronger arms, in general, can increase pulling and grip strength. Having strong arms can also help during the pull under phase as well.

Strength and power athletes can use the barbell curl, primarily to improve arm and grip strength, enhance eccentric loading potentials (injury prevention from strains and tears) during heavy deadlift and pulling training. Here’s more about how stronger biceps can help in specific strength sports: The biceps are responsible for elbow flexion as well as supporting the grip muscles in pulls and loaded carries. Weak and underdeveloped biceps can cause grip issues, strain to the biceps, and in some cases muscle tears. A stronger biceps is a more resilient biceps. Hey, not every benefit has to do with filling out your shirt. 3. Increased Upper Body Mass Technically yes, but we don’t suggest that. All curls involve moving your lower arm up and down, so we can see why you think you only need one exercise. That said, there’s an advantage to using dumbbells, bands, and cables. Also, changing your hand position and arm angles are ways to keep your training fresh while changing the “feel” of an exercise. Curls are simple, so I can sip my workout right? If you don’t have a partner, use a mirror. If you don’t have a partner or a mirror, just make your best estimation of ‘halfway’. At the end of the day, you’re still going to be doing 21 reps. It’s going to burn. How you structure your volume (sets and reps) will determine whether you gain more strength or muscle. If you’re looking to increase the strength of your biceps, then we suggest performing more sets for fewer reps. That said, you don’t want to lift too heavy (less than four reps). The biceps are a small muscle, and if you try and lift too much you can risk injury.

Standing Barbell Curl Instructions

Here’s what you need to know about doing the barbell curl — a tried-and-true size and strength builder for the biceps: https://youtube.com/watch?v=X4qkHHlFouQ Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: 5 Mass Building Bicep Exercises | What's Your Favorite? (https://youtube.com/watch?v=X4qkHHlFouQ) Want bigger arms? Then you need to leave your ego at the door and focus on the contraction. This means lowering the weight on the bar and performing the barbell curl slowly and with intention. A goo rule of thumb is to use a weight that you can perform for two more reps than your target reps. Instead of dragging the bar up the body, think about keeping the elbows slightly in front of the body at all times. Imagine yourself curling from a side view — your elbows should travel slightly in front of your torso. Continue to curl up, focusing on not letting the shoulders come forwards. Your shoulders will slightly — slightly! — come into to play when your elbows drift forward. Remember to primarily curl with your biceps. The point of letting your elbows come forward a bit is to further isolate the biceps.

The standing barbell curl is the cornerstone of many bicep building routines. Grasp a barbell or Olympic bar at around shoulder width apart using an underhand grip (palms facing up). Form Tip: Think about having your hands finish slightly in front of the body like you are giving inconspicuous low hanging high fives. 4 Benefits of the Barbell CurlBelow are four benefits of the barbell curl that strength, power, and fitness athletes can benefit from. 1. Improved Grip Strength The barbell curl can be done to help improve grip and arm strength, both of which can impact pulling strength and performance. Your biceps are moving the weight, but your hands, wrists, and forearms are supporting it All those secondary muscles will be taxed and you’ll have a crushing grip as a result. 2. Injury Prevention (to the elbows/arms)