Incline Dumbbell Curls For Rock Hard Biceps

Benefits of Incline Curls

  • Greater range of motion
  • Strong Stretch on the Biceps
  • Greater Contraction of the Biceps compared to regular curls
  • Incline Dumbbell Curls Great for the inner biceps (the part that you see when you flex your arm

How to Perform the Incline Dumbbell Curl

  • Set your bench to a 45 degree angle
  • Lie down on the bench gripping your dumbbells
  • Keep your palms facing forward and your arms turned outward away from your body
  • Curl one arm up, squeeze at the top, slowly lower the weight and then repeat with your other arm
  • Use a weight that allows you to perform 4-8 repetitions per arm

How to Perform the Incline Dumbbell Hammer Curl

  • Same as incline dumbbell curl except your going to use a neutral (parallel) grip
  • Your arms are also not going to be facing outward.

What to watch out for

  • Avoid swinging the weight and using momentum.
  • Avoid bringing the dumbbell all the way up to your arm. Stop a few inches before the dumbbell hits your shoulder.
  • Avoid jerking the weight up
  • Avoid lifting one weight as you lower the other one. You want to focus all of your attention to the working biceps and you can’t do this when your doing two things at once

How to Incorporate exercises into your workout routine?

The biceps respond very nicely to lower reps. This is because the biceps are pre-dominantly fast-twitch muscle fibers. Whereas the triceps have more slow-twitch muscle fibers so its better to use higher reps for triceps. One way you can tell that your biceps are fast twitch is if you curl a weight that seems fairly light and then only after a few reps your struggling. On the other hand when I’m performing triceps exercises I will feel like I have no more strength then I’ll bust out another three reps. Therefore I recommend performing 3-5 sets of 4-8 reps (per arm) for each biceps exercise.

I like to perform anywhere from 2-3 exercises per muscle group. So you can perform 3-5 sets of 4-8 reps of incline dumbbell curls and incline hammer curls and then finish off with a few more sets of another biceps exercise such as cable curls.

Make sure to Leave your Comments and Questions Below.

 

6 Comments

  1. Julian on August 22, 2013 at 5:12 am

    I think with pronation, with or without fat gripz, it would be a killer bicep and forearm exercise.

  2. Guillermo on October 16, 2012 at 9:38 am

    I do not understand this point:
    -Avoid swinging the weight and using momentum. what you mean with momentum??
    I am on phase 3 (density and strengh) of visual impact, you think these ones are better than alternate dumbbel curls??

    Also i got 1 and a half month with phase 3 i noticed i progress very quickly in my weights with triceps, chest and back (I am shocked by the way), but somehow shoulders and biceps are very slow, and somedays i think i do not progress at all here my workout:

    biceps:
    standing barbell curl 5-6 Sets of 2-4 Reps
    Alternate Dumbbell Curls: 5-6 Sets of 2-4 Reps (this one I prime the nervous
    system with the first 2-3 sets…by lifting the light weights and pretending like
    they are heavy, Rusty’s technique)

    shoulders
    Military Press: 5-6 Sets of 2-4 Reps (this one I prime the nervous
    system with the first 2-3 sets…by lifting the light weights and pretending like
    they are heavy, Rusty’s technique)

    Seated Dumbbell Presses: 5-6 Sets of 2-4 Reps

    Any tips

    regards

    • Greg on October 16, 2012 at 11:45 am

      That just means don’t swing the weight. Lift and lower the weight with complete control.

  3. Habib on May 9, 2012 at 7:35 am

    thanks man. An awesome video!

  4. Mike on June 7, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    Awesome post Greg- very useful stuff! I was just curious- how heavy do you usually go for these exercises? Do you find you go heavier on one and lighter on another, or do you keep your weight the same on both the dumbbell curls and hammer curls? How often would you recommend jumping up in weight to avoid a plateau and continue growing?

    Thanks man!

    • admin on June 8, 2011 at 8:45 am

      Hey Mike!

      I use about 40-45lbs for these movements. I feel I am a little bit stronger in the hammer curl variation.

      You want to increase the weight as soon as it becomes too easy. One easy way to do this is once you can do all 3 sets with the same weight for 6 reps than next workout make a note to increase the weight. Then you will build you way up to 6 reps for all 3 reps with the heavier weight. Don’t rush the process though. Make-sure you are using really good form.

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