maratoolSeated Biceps
How to do the seated biceps
- Sit on the floor with your knees bent and your partner standing behind you. Extend your arms straight behind you with your palms facing each other. Your partner will hold your wrists for you. This will be the starting position.
- Attempt to flex your elbows, while your partner prevents any actual movement.
- After 10-20 seconds, relax your arms while your partner gently pulls your wrists up to stretch your biceps. Be sure to let your partner know when the stretch is appropriate to prevent injury or overstretching.
Muscles worked
The muscle under tension is the biceps brachii, which bends the elbow and rotates the forearm palm-up.
A stretch loads it at the far end of the range it normally works in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Nothing travels, but holding the position is not the target muscle’s job alone: the chest adds pushing force at the shoulder; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
How this movement works
You get into position and hold. One joint sets the angle and one muscle group takes the tension, so the load stays exactly where you put it. Hold for time, breathe normally, and come out the moment the position drifts: a shape that has quietly shifted is no longer training what you set it up to train.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the biceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Seated Close Grip Concentration Curls with Barbellbarbell
- Seated Dumbbell Curldumbbell
- Spider Curle-z curl bar
- Standing Biceps Curl with Cablecable
- Bicep Curl Lunge with Bowling Motionmedicine ball
Difficulty
Listed at expert level. It asks for range, stability or speed that takes time to build, and it punishes a rushed set-up much harder than an easier movement would.
Of the 99 biceps exercises in this database, 1 are listed at expert level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.