One unifying fact among strength athletes from different sports is that they all appreciate large arms. If you look up pictures of China's most dominant weightlifter Shi Zhiyong, elite powerlifter Taylor Atwood, and CrossFitter Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, you'll notice they all have pretty impressive muscles. The athletes mentioned train for different feats of strength, but stronger arms help them in their pursuits.
You are less likely to get injured when you have strong biceps because they can better handle the heavy deadlifts. The biceps help a person lift the bar from the floor during a clean and jerk movement. CrossFitters sometimes perform hundreds of pull-ups in competition, and the biceps are a vital muscle group in that exercise. The Hammer Curl is a variation of the traditional Dumbbell Curl, which allows you to lift heavier weights. This exercise is good for developing grip strength. Here’s how to do it. Although we cannot guarantee that you will become an elite level athlete after learning this move, we can almost guarantee that you will see some serious gains in your biceps.
How to Do the Hammer Curl
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to properly set up and perform the hammer curl. The purpose of this guide is to instruct on how to safely and effectively execute the two-arm dumbbell hammer curl – a variation that allows you to position the working arm in line with the resistance, creating more tension in the arms and reducing the likelihood of injury to the elbow and shoulder.
Many people who pick up dumbbells perform what is supposed to be a hammer curl. There are some simple techniques that can make this instinctive movement more effective.
Step 1 — Grab Dumbbells Correctly
Start by standing with a pair of dumbbells at your sides. Your palms should be facing your body and your thumbs should be pointing forward. Rather than gripping the barbell in the center of the handle, grip it slightly offset so your pinky is near the lower weight plate. This means that you will need to use more forearm and grip strength during the exercise. There is no right or wrong way to grip the handle of a kettlebell, but if you feel more comfortable, you can center your hand on the handle. Make sure your arm is straight and locked out in the starting position by flexing your triceps.
The offset grip places the dumbbell's center of gravity slightly forward, which requires you to use more force to maintain control of the weight during each repetition. If you grip the bar with your hands in the middle, it will require less strength to hold onto it. If you adjust your grip so that your thumb is touching the top weight, you won't have to use as much grip strength. Try out different small changes to see how it affects the difficulty of the workout.
Step 2 — Curl the Dumbbells to Your Shoulders
To have an upright posture, slightly bend your knees, pull your shoulder blades back, and flex your abs. Bend your elbow and curl the weight to your shoulder.
When performing a hammer curl, imagine that you are hammering a nail. To do this correctly, keep your wrists neutral, your palms facing each other, and your fingers in a vertical line. As you raise the weights towards your shoulders, allow your elbows to move slightly forward, letting the dumbbells touch the front of your shoulders.
To curl your hair most effectively, keep your elbows close to your sides. However, the hammer curl recruits the long head of the biceps more significantly, which also plays a role in moving the upper arm at the shoulder. Moving your elbows slightly forward by adjusting your shoulder allows the long head to contract more strongly. Don't let your shoulder swing too much. Use a controlled motion.
Step 3 — Lower to Full Extension
Once the weights touch your shoulders, reverse direction. Point your hands in the same direction, with your palms facing each other and your fingers stacked on top of each other. Bring the weights down slowly until your arms are fully extended in the starting position.
It is beneficial to reset at the bottom of each repetition and fully stretch the triceps by contracting them. This may seem like “resting” the biceps, but it allows for a greater range of motion which leads to overall growth. The fact that the weights are attached to the body also makes it more difficult to cheat by swinging the weights into a curled position.
Hammer Curl Mistakes to Avoid
Although the hammer curl looks like a very easy movement, there is no excuse to do it wrong and no room for error. Here are the most common technique errors.
Rotating Your Hands
If you curl your weights with your hands in any position other than thumbs-up, it is no longer considered a hammer curl. It's not wrong to change your hand and wrist position while working out, since this move will target different muscles.
This exercise is similar to a barbell flat bench press, but you grip the bar with your hands close together, instead of slightly outside shoulder-width. The barbell flat bench press emphasizes the chest, while the close-grip bench press emphasizes the triceps. Both are valid exercises, but the close-grip bench press is a more recent addition.
The same principle that applies to hammer curls applies to regular curls; they are meant to be done with your hands vertical and your palms facing each other. A different grip creates a different exercise.
Do not perform hammer curls with your palms down, as this is pronated curl. Instead, keep your palms up or at an angle to ensure proper form. Keep the “hammering a nail” visualization on your mind. You shouldn't hammer a nail with an angled swing, so be sure to keep your thumbs up.
Swinging Your Body
One of the most common mistakes people make when doing hammer curls is swinging their torso to bring the weights up from the bottom. This exercise puts extra strain on the lower back and reduces how much the biceps have to work since you start the exercise with momentum rather than using muscle strength.
If you're swinging your upper body while lifting weights, it might be because you're trying to lift something that's too heavy. But a lot of people do it instinctively, even when the weight is light, as if that's how the exercise is supposed to be done.
When people do hammer curls without deliberately trying, it shows that they don't treat the exercise with the same care that they do with other, more complicated exercises.
To avoid injury, start each repetition by standing up straight with your arms at your sides, tense abs, and pulled-back shoulders. To avoid upper body swinging while curling, brace your abs and contract them. Weightlifting at a slightly slower pace will prevent swinging.
Benefits of the Hammer Curl
The hammer curl is good for a lot of things because it requires more muscle activation and you can lift heavier weights.
Bigger Biceps
The biceps are directly activated during hammer curls because they are responsible for elbow flexion (curling and bending). They are key to adding size to your upper arms.
Bigger Forearms
While many people avoid direct forearm work, hammer curls are a easy and effective way to build the muscles not only above the elbow, but also below it. The muscles in the forearm are under more stress when the hand is in a neutral position during a curl than when the palms are up.
Increased Grip Strength
A stronger grip has been associated with not only improved performance in other exercises, but also overall better health. There are many benefits to adding hammer curls to your workout routine, including increased grip strength.
Muscles Worked by Hammer Curl
Just as you need coffee to wake you up in the morning, you need curls to build bigger biceps. However, the hammer curl not only works the biceps, but also other muscles.
The position of your hand when doing this exercise recruits different muscles in your upper and lower arm, making it a valuable part of an arm workout.
Biceps Brachii
The biceps muscle is located on the front of the upper arm. It has two heads, the long head on the outer part and the short head on the inner part.
The muscles on the palm-side of the forearm are called the wrist flexors, and the muscles on the top side of the forearm are called the wrist extensors. Both the biceps and the triceps are heavily involved in any grip-intensive exercise, like the hammer curl. The muscles in the wrist work together to hold the weight in place while the muscles in the wrist provide stability.
Who Should Do the Hammer Curl
The hammer curl isn't just a move to help build bigger biceps. There are benefits to this exercise beyond increasing arm size. The triceps certainly play a big role in arm training, but they also carry over to help other lifts, making them useful for strength-focused lifters as well as those prioritizing muscle size.
Lifters Training for More Muscle
The hammer curl is a great exercise for increasing the size of your arms, including your forearms. Some people who lift weights may not want to spend time doing exercises that focus on their arms, because they are concerned about how efficient it is. However, the hammer curl is a good exercise to do if you want to max out the size benefits you can get from one exercise.
Lifters Training for Strength
Arms that are stronger and have a grip that is stronger can be beneficial for any type of exercise that has weight in your hands. You can improve your bar control and stability by getting a better grip on the bar. A stronger grip will help you perform better in all types of pulling exercises, including deadlifts, pull-ups, and rows.
How to Program the Hammer Curl
even though it is categorized as an “arm curl,” the hammer curl should not be done with light weights and high reps Try integrating hammer curls into your workout routine for more successful results.
Heavy Weight, Low to Moderate Reps
If you use a neutral grip when doing hammer curls, your arms will be in a much stronger pulling position than if your palms were facing up. This lets you move heavier weights without sacrificing technique. Several sets of a moderate number of repetitions turns the hammer curl into an exercise that builds strength without needing to swing the weights around.
Moderate Weight, Moderate Reps
A classic bodybuilding approach to training hammer curls, using three to four sets of 8 to 12 reps, is a reliable way to build arm size with this fundamental exercise. The goal of this workout is to increase blood flow to the forearms and biceps, resulting in a “pump.”
Hammer Curl Variations
The hammer curl is a exercise that is unique because of the hand position during the curl. There are several ways to modify the basic hammer curl to get the results you want.
Single-Arm Hammer Curl
If you train one side of your body at a time, you can use a slightly heavier weight for each hand than if you lifted both sides together. Working out each side of the body separately allows you to focus on the discrepancies in strength between the two sides.
The single-arm hammer curl also has the benefit of stricter technique. You can ensure you don't use any upper-body momentum by bracing your non-working arm on the back of a bench, upright post, or stable object.
Cable Rope Hammer Curl
You will get stronger muscles by using a cable to curl because it provides constant tension. The rope attachment lets you use a grip that is not straight, which is different from the attachments that have a straight bar.
Both heads of the biceps are connected to the elbow. The short head attaches to the upper arm bone and the long head attaches to the shoulder blade just behind the shoulder joint. Because of this, both parts of the biceps are involved in flexing or bending the elbow, and the long head is also activated when raising the arm at the shoulder. Both heads of the muscle are activated when rotating the wrist palm up and down (supination and pronation).
Brachialis
The brachialis muscle is located near the elbow and is hidden beneath the biceps brachii muscle. The brachialis muscle can cause the biceps to appear larger by pushing it upwards, resulting in an overall larger arm size.
The biceps muscle's primary function is to flex and bend the elbow. It is not involved in supination or pronation. Because of this, a grip where your palms are facing each other is the strongest position for the brachialis. The reason you can typically use more weight with a neutral-grip, as opposed to a pronated or supinated grip, is because it is a more natural position for your hands. This allows you to have a better grip on the weight, and therefore be able to lift more.
Brachioradialis
The brachioradialis is a muscle located on the thumb-side of the forearm which is responsible for the majority of the muscle mass near the elbow. The biceps brachii muscle is responsible for stabilizing the forearm during arm movement and directly acts as an elbow flexor.
Forearms
This curl variation recruits both the upper arm and lower arm muscles, making it more effective than other variations.
Doing cable hammer curls makes it harder to cheat using your torso because the cable pulls the weight in different directions and keeps the stress on the target muscles.
Pinwheel Curl
A heavier weight can be used for this exercise compared to standard hammer curls because the weight is closer to your body’s center of gravity. You typically do pinwheel curls one arm at a time or alternate arms with each repetition.
The pinwheel curl is a variation of the standard curl that changes the range of motion by sliding the weight across the body rather than remaining extended in front. This change in range of motion puts different levels of stress on different muscles, which causes the brachialis and long head of the biceps to be used more than usual.
A heavier weight can be used for hammer curls when the weight is close to your body's center of gravity. To create pinwheel curls, you typically curl one arm at a time or alternate arms with each curl.
