Instructions

  1. Load a barbell and hold it with your palms facing away from you, a little wider than shoulder-width apart.
  2. Stand up straight, take a deep breath, and brace your core and glutes.
  3. Curl the bar toward your chest as far as you can until your forearms run into your biceps, allowing your elbows to move forward slightly as the bar rises, so the bar ends up right in front of your shoulders.
  4. Lower the bar and return to the starting position.

Expert Tips

  • Allow your elbows to move forward a few inches as the bar rises, but don’t force your elbows forward to increase the range of motion. While this helps you lift more weight, this is because your front delts assist, not because your biceps are working harder.
  • Keep your torso as still as possible throughout the entire set. Don’t heave your body back and forth or shrug your shoulders to make your reps easier. Brace your abs and glutes throughout each rep and keep your shoulders pressed down.
  • Use a full range of motion: lower the bar until it touches your thighs and lift it to the same height you did on your first rep.

Workout Programming

Generally, it’s best to do the barbell curl after your heavier, more technical exercises in a pull or upper-body workout. Or, if you’re specifically trying to develop your biceps, you can also do it as one of the first exercises in your workout, as in the arm workout below.

A good default is 3 sets of 6–8 reps. Take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure—the point where you can’t move the weight with good form despite giving your maximum effort—and rest 2–3 minutes between sets.

Mike’s Take

The barbell curl has been a staple of bodybuilding programs for generations because it’s effective at isolating the biceps, safe, simple, and easy to learn, and allows you to take your sets close or all of the way to failure. This is why I include it in both of my fitness programs for men and women, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger.

Research also shows that curls are particularly effective at building your biceps, even if you’re already doing compound exercises that train your upper arms.

For example, a 2021 study conducted by researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro had 10 untrained men train one arm with dumbbell curls and the other with dumbbell rows for 8 weeks.1

The thickness of their elbow flexors—the muscles that bend the elbow like your biceps—increased by about 11% in the curl-trained arm and 5% in the row-trained arm. In other words, the dumbbell curl was simply more effective at building the biceps than the dumbbell row.

This study was on dumbbell curls, of course, but the barbell curl is the same movement, so it’s fair to assume the same thing holds true.

One downside of the barbell curl is that it probably doesn’t stimulate the long head of the biceps as effectively as exercises that position your elbow behind your torso. I say probably because the evidence on this is still a bit murky and it’s debatable how much this really matters, especially if you’re training close to failure with proper form.

Of course, you can always do both regular curls and curls with your elbows behind your torso, which is what I do and recommend. Practically, this could mean doing barbell curls one day and Bayesian cable curls or incline dumbbell curls another.

Or, you could just focus on barbell curls for 6–8 weeks and then focus on Bayesian cable curls or incline dumbbell curls for 6–8 weeks—it just depends on how often you’re training your biceps and your personal preferences.

Personally, I like to program barbell curls after pulling exercises like the dumbbell row, lat pulldown, machine row, and so on. This way, you get the best of both worlds: your biceps, lats, traps, and mid-back all get trained by the rows, and your biceps get additional volume from the curls to maximize arm development.

What about dumbbell curls? During the barbell curl, your hands are fixed in a supinated (palms up) position during every rep, whereas in the dumbbell curl, your wrists can move more freely.

On the one hand, this means it takes a bit more coordination to do dumbbell curls, especially with heavy weights. On the other hand, it also means you can articulate your wrists in whatever position is most comfortable for you.

All in all, though, you can program both exercises interchangeably. If you find the dumbbell curl more comfortable, do that. If both exercises are comfortable, I typically recommend you focus on one for 6–8 weeks, then switch to the other for 6–8 weeks, and then rotate again or try another curl variation like the machine curl, EZ-bar preacher curl, or standing cable curl.

Barbell Curl Alternatives

  • EZ-Bar Curl. This is a good alternative if the regular barbell curl irritates your wrist, as it puts your hands in a more neutral position.
  • Cable Biceps Curl. The cable biceps curl lets you use a cable machine instead of a barbell. Try both and use whichever feels more comfortable.
  • Dumbbell Curl. Some people find this more comfortable, but it can also be more difficult to stabilize the weights and awkward to perform.
  • Incline Dumbbell Curl. The incline dumbbell curl trains your biceps while your upper arms are behind your torso, which helps emphasize the long head of your biceps.
  • Bayesian Cable Curl. The Bayesian curl is basically the same movement as an incline dumbbell curl, but performed standing, with a cable, and is almost always performed one arm at a time. It’s one of my favorite biceps exercises.
  • Dumbbell Preacher Curl. In the dumbbell preacher curl, you place your upper arms against a preacher curl bench. This makes it hard to use momentum to cheat so your biceps do most of the work.
  • Dumbbell Hammer Curl. The dumbbell hammer curl uses a neutral grip (palms facing each other), which many people find more comfortable than the traditional palms-up (supinated) grip and also helps emphasize the brachialis (the muscle beneath your biceps).

3 Barbell Curl Workouts

Here are three sample workouts that show how to program the barbell curl as part of an arm, pull, or upper-body workout.

Arm Workout with the Barbell Curl

Barbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Cable Overhead Triceps Extension: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Bayesian Cable Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
EZ-Bar Skullcrusher: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest

Pull Workout with the Barbell Curl

Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–4 min rest
Seated Cable Row: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–4 min rest
Chin-Up: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–4 min rest
Barbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest

Upper-Body Workout with the Barbell Curl

Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Machine Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Cable Lateral Raise: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest

To progress these workouts, use double progression: use a weight that allows you to work within the given rep range, take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure, and once you hit the top of the range for your first set, add weight.

Muscles Worked by the Barbell Curl

The long and short heads of the biceps

The barbell curl primarily trains your biceps (biceps brachii), which bend your elbows (elbow flexion).

Your brachialis (the muscle beneath your biceps) and brachioradialis (a muscle on the thumb side of your forearm) also help bend your elbows. Your forearm muscles keep a firm grip on the bar, and your core, glutes, and rotator cuff muscles stabilize your torso and shoulders.

More Biceps Exercises

Scientific References +