Barbell Curls Lying Against An Incline
How to do the barbell curls lying against an incline
- Lie against an incline bench, with your arms holding a barbell and hanging down in a horizontal line. This will be your starting position.
- While keeping the upper arms stationary, curl the weight up as high as you can while squeezing the biceps. Breathe out as you perform this portion of the movement. Tip: Only the forearms should move. Do not swing the arms.
- After a second contraction, slowly go back to the starting position as you inhale. Tip: Make sure that you go all of the way down.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the biceps brachii, which bends the elbow and rotates the forearm palm-up.
Every exercise for:Biceps
How this movement works
One joint changes angle and the resistance travels toward you along a single arc. Nothing is positioned to help, so tension stays where you aimed it and the usable load drops sharply against a multi-joint pull for the same muscle. Protect the range of motion; buying weight by shortening the arc defeats the point.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
Every exercise using:Barbell
These train the biceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Bicep Curl Lunge with Bowling Motionmedicine ball
- Bicep Curl on Stability Ball with Leg Raiseddumbbell
- Bicep Curl with Machinemachine
- Brachialis-SMRfoam roll
- Cable Hammer Curls - Rope Attachmentcable
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 99 biceps exercises in this database, 38 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.