Drag Curl with Barbell

🎯 Biceps🏋️ BarbellIsolationForearms (2°)

How to do the drag curl with barbell

  1. This exercise is credited to the late Vince Gironda, the “Iron Guru”. It not only blasts the biceps and works the forearms as well.
  2. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your knees slightly bent, and your abs drawn in.
  3. Grasp the bar with palms down, shoulder width apart.
  4. Extend your arms fully so they are against your thighs.
  5. Slowly raise your arms, palms down, to touch your chest.
  6. Note: Do not move your elbows or shoulders 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 forearms hold the grip, which is often what gives out first.

Every exercise for:BicepsForearms

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:

Related exercises

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.