All about the Hammer Curl
(Biceps)
BENEFITS & MUSCLES WORKED: Strengthens Elbows and Wrists and helps build bigger Biceps.
Watch: my Hammer Curl video
START POSITION: Stand up holding a dumbbell in each hand. Rest the dumbbells at arm’s length down by your sides, next to your hips, with the palms facing outwards (using a Neutral grip). Lean back on your heels to counter the weights in the future, and bend your knees slightly for stability.
NOTES: Difficulty Rating: 45%
For the Hammer Curl, it is essential to ensure that nothing moves! Except for the forearms. Keep your elbows firmly planted against the sides of your abdomen.
You can keep looking forward directly and don’t move your head or neck.
Alternate each dumbbell lift, breathing out on the way up and in on the way down. Pause for a split second at the bottom of each arm movement before starting to raise the other arm. This tiny pause helps prevent the body from rocking back and forth, which is cheating, and is often seen when people are working out with too much weight.
The Hammer Curl is a medium-sized muscle exercise and relatively safe, so the amount of weight and the number of reps you choose are dependent on your training objectives. As always, beginners should use light weights and build up slowly over weeks or months.
As with most Gym exercises (and due to my background in athletics), I have a preference for the ‘alternating’ form instead of working two muscles simultaneously. You can perform Hammer Curls by lifting both dumbbells simultaneously, or stagger the lifts. The alternating form is explicitly used to isolate one muscle at a time, and this lends itself naturally to the related technique of Drop Setting, because while one arm is resting, the other arm is working for the burn.