Hammer Curls with Rope and Cable

🎯 Biceps🏋️ CableIsolation

How to do the hammer curls with rope and cable

  1. Using the rope with the cable machine allows you isolate the biceps with this version of the Hammer Curl. This is a good exercise for beginners.
  2. Attach a rope to a cable pulley to the bottom of the weight stack. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your knees slightly bent and your abs drawn in. Grasp the rope with a close underhand grip (palms facing up). Lower your arms fully to above your thighs and bending only your elbows, raise the rope to your upper chest. Pause for a moment and then return to the starting position.
  3. Note: Keep your elbows at your side throughout this exercise. 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.

Every exercise for:Biceps

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 cable holds tension for the whole range, including the point where a free weight would go slack. Moving the pulley changes the angle the resistance arrives from without changing the movement.

Every exercise using:Cable

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.