maratoolBiceps Curls with Barbell
How to do the biceps curls with barbell
- This is a basic exercise for the biceps (arms).
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your knees slightly bent and your abs drawn in.
- Grasp a barbell with palms facing up, approximately shoulder width apart.
- Lower your arms fully to above your thighs and bending only your elbows, raise the bar to your upper chest.
- Pause for a moment and then return to the starting position.
- Note: Do not swing your hips or back during 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 deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range; 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
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:
- Biceps Hammer Curl with Dumbbelldumbbell
- Brachialis-SMRfoam roll
- Cable Hammer Curls - Rope Attachmentcable
- Close-Grip EZ-Bar Curl with Bande-z curl bar
- Machine Preacher Curlsmachine
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.