maratoolAlternating Bicep Curl with Dumbbell
How to do the alternating bicep curl with dumbbell
- Steps
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your knees slightly bent and your abs drawn in.
- Grasp a dumbbell in each hand so your palms are facing up.
- Extend your arms so they are at the sides of your body.
- Keeping your elbows locked lift your left arm to your chest so that your forearm touches your bicep.
- Lower your arm and repeat with your right arm.
- Note: Do not swing your body as you perform this exercise.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the biceps brachii, which bends the elbow and rotates the forearm palm-up.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the forearms hold the grip, which is often what gives out first.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the biceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Barbell Curlbarbell
- Bicep Curl Lunge with Bowling Motionmedicine ball
- Bicep Curl with Machinemachine
- Brachialis-SMRfoam roll
- Cable Hammer Curls - Rope Attachmentcable
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.