Overhead Curl with Cable

🎯 Biceps🏋️ CableIntermediateIsolation

How to do the overhead curl with cable

  1. By using cable this exercise isolates and defines the biceps (arm) muscles.
  2. Attach a stirrup handle to each side of a high pulley on a cable machine.
  3. Grasp the handles with palms facing up and stand with your feet shoulder width apart.
  4. Extend your arms fully to each side.
  5. Keeping your elbows steady, curl your wrists towards the sides of your head.
  6. Contract your biceps and pause for a moment.
  7. Then return to the starting position.

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 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:

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 99 biceps exercises in this database, 14 are listed at intermediate level.

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.