Exercise for biceps with a barbell while standing. Standing barbell curl: a complete review of the exercise

- This basic exercise, aimed at developing strength and increasing the mass of the biceps. This exercise is very popular among bodybuilders, and like most others strength exercises, requires proper execution technique. In addition to the load on the biceps, when bending the arms with a barbell, the brachialis muscle (brachialis) also “gets” it.

Improper exercise can lead to an overload of the elbow and shoulder joints, as well as the lower back, which is fraught with injury.

There are many options for performing bending of the arms, which makes it possible to change the main emphasis of the load on different components of the muscles of the forearm (external and internal head of the biceps and shoulder muscle, which is located under the biceps):

By doing barbell curls narrow grip , the load will go to the outer head (it is responsible for the height of the biceps);
Grabbing the neck wide grip , You make the main emphasis on the load on the inner head (it is responsible for the thickness of the biceps);
By doing bending the arms at the elbows reverse grip , a fairly large part of the load is shifted to the shoulder muscle;
By doing barbell curls on scott bench, overload on the elbow joints is excluded and isolated work on the biceps takes place, which makes it possible to achieve clarity of muscle contours. In this case, you can use any grip - medium, wide or narrow, respectively, you can choose an accent for maximum load as you wish;
When exercising with curved neck(EZ-bar), the grip will be neutral and the main emphasis of the load will be on the external head and brachialis (shoulder muscle);
By doing bending the arms with an emphasis on a fixed surface, the load becomes more isolated, since the possibility of helping oneself by swinging the torso is excluded. This implementation is rather difficult.

You can also perform the exercise in a block simulator.
Initial position:
grab the barbell bottom grip(grip width depends on which part of the biceps you want to give maximum load);
straighten your arms completely;
put your feet shoulder-width apart and bend them slightly in knee joints;
Straighten your back, keep your spine in a neutral position and straighten your shoulders.

! To avoid injury to the wrist joints, the position of the wrists should be fixed in a neutral position, i.e. keep your wrists and arms in a straight line.

Execution technique:
being in the starting position, smoothly, while exhaling, bend your elbows and lift the barbell;
perform bending due to the biceps, do not throw the bar with the efforts of the whole body;
at the top of the movement, tensing your biceps as much as possible, pause for a second;
then slowly, while inhaling, lower the bar along the same trajectory and return to the starting position.

Don't help yourself with your body. Inertia is useless. Movement should be smooth and controlled.
Perform the exercise in full amplitude.
Watch your elbows. They should be pressed to the sides of the body. Don't let them move back or sideways. And also, do not bring them much forward: a strong forward thrust of the elbows includes the deltoid muscles and makes the exercise ineffective and traumatic.
Don't let yourself rest at the top of the movement. To keep the bicep tension in the upper range, do not throw the barbell high on the chest.

Watch the video on the topic "bending the arms with a barbell":

Standing barbell curl is the main exercise for training the muscles of the biceps of the hands. The muscles of the forearm and the front deltas of the shoulders assist in the work. The barbell curl is considered an isolation movement, but it can be done as a basic exercise. When the elbows, due to the shoulders, rise slightly up.

The target muscles in the work are the biceps of the hands.

Blocked bicep curls.
Seated dumbbell raise.

Bending the arms with a barbell for standing biceps: video

Grab the barbell with a shoulder-width underhand grip. Stand straight. The legs are slightly bent. You can tilt the body forward a little. The back is straight. This will be the starting position.
Raise the barbell by bending your elbows to the highest possible position. Elbows are in place, pointing down. As you lift, exhale.
Lower the bar to the starting position while inhaling.
Repeat the movement for 3 sets of 15 reps. Rest between sets - 1-2 minutes.

Application of the exercise

For whom. Everyone from beginner to master.

Advice! For beginners, the exercise is more suitable - lifting dumbbells while standing on the biceps, since often the weight of the bar is beyond their strength.

When. Barbell curls are best done at the end of your workout. The exercise can be done on the day of the back or on the day when you train the whole body.

How many. Beginners should do 3 sets of 12-15 reps. Men, for the growth of muscle fibers, should do 4 approaches in an amount of 8-10 times.

Possible options for lifting the barbell for biceps

Bending the arms with a barbell bar with a grip from below is the main option. Read the full description of the exercise at the beginning of the article.
Lifting the barbell for biceps with an overhand grip (reverse grip).

It differs from the main version in the position of the grip. The bar must be taken from above. This approach allows you to remove the peak load from the biceps bundles, connecting the muscles of the forearm, brachial and brachioradialis more.

Bending the arms while standing with an overhand grip: video

Lifting the barbell for biceps while standing with a narrow or wide grip

The load relative to the heads of the biceps can be adjusted by the width of the grip.

A narrow grip gives the peak load on the outer (long) head of the biceps.
A wide grip trains the inner (short) head more.

Ez bar helps to perform the exercise in a more correct way, if you delve into the anatomy. Wrist joints are in a better position. Suitable for those who find it difficult to perform the basic variant of lifting the bar due to discomfort in the wrist joints.

Lifting the barbell for biceps by bending the shoulder joint

When flexion occurs at the shoulder joint, the exercise moves from an isolated to a basic movement. More non-target muscles are connected - shoulders and back.

Pulling the elbows back shifts the load on the rear delt and upper back.
Bringing the elbows forward loads the muscles of the anterior bundles of the deltas more.

Advice! choose different variants barbell curls for biceps from workout to workout. This will increase the efficiency of working out all the muscle fibers of the biceps of the arms and the muscles of the assistants.

Common mistakes

Selection heavy weight. This brings the standing barbell curl from an isolation exercise to a basic exercise. All muscles are connected, which interferes with the development of the target biceps.
Flexion of the back and movement of the body back when lifting. Keep your back straight. To take the load off your lower back, keep your torso slightly tilted forward.
Forward and backward movement of the elbows (Does not count as a fault if you are targeting the basic flexion exercise. shoulder joint). Keep your elbows close to your body and pointing down.
Sharp and short movements. Do the exercise smoothly. Choose the full range of motion - comfortable for you personally.

On initial stage training, perform movements in a concentrated manner, do not try to take big weight. The task is to feel the biceps.
Breathe properly. When lifting, exhale, lowering - inhale. Proper breathing and concentration on the muscles give plus 20-30% efficiency.

The standing barbell curl is the main exercise for developing strength and volume in the arm flexors. In terms of effectiveness in terms of working out the hands, it can be compared with the bench press for the pectoral muscles.

About the volume of the biceps

Agree, pumped up biceps looks much better than its absence. The shape and size of the biceps is determined by many factors: genetics, physical activity, additional power loads.

With the help of training, we can remove fat from the surface of the arm, thereby exposing the muscle itself. We can also increase its volume through correctly performed exercises and create greater relief.

As their name implies, arm flexors provide movements aimed at bending the arm at the elbow. Another feature biceps- antagonistic to triceps. The triceps and biceps are in some kind of balance with each other, so that the arms do not twitch due to minor pushes back and forth.

In the formation of arm volume, the biceps does not play a primary role. For the most part, this is the merit of the triceps (it is he who creates 70% of the volume of the arm). Therefore, sufficient attention should be paid to both muscles. Pump biceps 1-2 times a week, and in no case do not forget about triceps (bench press, bench press, at an angle and other exercises for them). Forgetting about pumping the flexors and doing one bench press is also not an option.

And now let's find out how to pump up the biceps with a barbell.

Technique and exercise options

Barbell curls are usually performed while standing. And it's not even about efficiency. The fact is that lifting the barbell for biceps while sitting with a narrow or any other grip is not a very convenient solution. And preferably it is only for work on the Scott bench. This is not a bench press that is done from any positions.

Direct grip

Exercise for biceps with a barbell can be performed in several grip options: forward and reverse, wide and narrow.

The direct grip is aimed at developing not only the biceps, but also the muscles of the forearm (narrow grip is not used). If you've ever tried this grip, you'll probably remember that the weights on the bar were lighter than when using the reverse grip.

Bending the arms with a barbell while standing is correctly done like this:

You can install the neck on the racks for the bar, lowering them as far as possible down, you can put it on horizontal bench. It will be inconvenient to take it from the floor and lower it there between sets.
Theoretically, you can perform an EZ barbell curl for biceps, but in this case it is better to take a straight neck. In general, it is believed that a curved bar is less traumatic for arm flexors, but this is more true for a reverse narrow grip. So, take the bar and get ready for the warm-up approach.
It is very important to accept correct posture: feet shoulder-width apart, elbows pressed to the body, shoulders straightened, and the pelvis laid back. For better support and avoiding unnecessary movements, we recommend standing with your back to the wall, and even better - to the frame of the Smith machine.
If you stand up correctly, the supports will touch: the back of the head, shoulder blades and pelvis. Do not forget about the chest - it is arched forward.
We take the bar with a direct grip on the natural width of the shoulders (that is, the arms are parallel to each other).
Trying not to bend the wrists, we raise the bar with the strength of the biceps to the maximum possible height (towards the chest).
We do 10-15 warm-up repetitions. If you have taken a 20 kg Olympic bar, it may be too heavy for you. If you are a beginner - do not look at others, do not envy the number of pancakes on their barbell. Time and patience will lead you to a similar result.

If you decide to do the exercise without support, firmly fix your body, press your elbows to it. During the lift, you should not make any oscillatory movements. Only the arms work, everything else, including “tossing” the barbell to the chest with the help of a pelvic swing, is cheating and an unjustified risk of injury to the lower back.

At the same time, the elbows should not be pulled back. They are positioned so that the shoulder is oriented straight down to the floor.

Reverse grip

Bending the arms with a barbell while standing is most often done precisely with a reverse grip. This is explained by the fact that with inside forearm muscles stronger than with outside. This means that with such a grip you can lift more weight, plus it can be lifted even higher than with a direct grip.

You can take the barbell with a narrow grip, or you can use a medium one, placing your hands shoulder-width apart so that they are parallel to each other. Lifting the barbell for biceps with a reverse grip to the chest will, accordingly, better develop the biceps.

Bending the arms with a barbell while standing with a reverse grip is performed as follows:

Find support. In this case, it is advisable to stand leaning against a power rack, Smith, a wall or a wide post.
Grab a straight or curved bar with an overhand grip. When you press the weight into your legs, your palms will be facing your legs with the back side.
The grip is medium for a straight bar, or narrow for an EZ bar.
With the strength of the biceps, without moving the elbows back and forth, we lift the weight to the chest. Then you can use the muscles of the shoulders to lift the bar even higher to the neck. Many trainers say that lifting the bar is enough not only to the chest, but to an acute angle at the elbow. That is, the forearms are not brought to a vertical position.
Hold the barbell in the up position for 1 second.
We lower the weight to the starting position, repeat the warm-up 10–15 times if this is the first biceps exercise for today (by the way, it’s correct if it comes first).
We set the working weight and do 3 sets of 8 times to failure or 10-12 times to maintain muscle tone with light weight.

Basic Mistakes

Speed

You can regularly see how beginners do a barbell curl with a reverse grip (or any barbell curl while standing) at a fast pace. This is inefficient and dangerous. In this style, you distort the technique, the speed prevents you from doing the exercise correctly.

You can damage the biceps tendon. You can also break your back, because with a fast execution, the load will imperceptibly pass to your lower back (for example, to extinguish inertia when lowering the weight).

Do a barbell curl with a reverse grip or any curl for the biceps smoothly and correctly. For greater certainty, we present optimal frequency performance: 2 repetitions in 3-4 seconds.

cheating

When a person takes too much weight, whether with a narrow or wide grip, he throws it up with the help of movements of the legs, pelvis, body. Then, at the top point, it intercepts it with the muscles of the hands and lowers it back. As a rule, the weight simply falls back to the starting position, as the practitioner does not have enough strength to make the movement smoothly.

At the moment when you catch the bar with your biceps, you can damage them. When you throw up the weight with body movements every time, you risk tearing your lower back. Instead of wasting energy on a specific exercise, the body is sprayed on everything except the biceps workout itself.

Therefore, cheating will not lead to a result in terms of muscle growth. Perhaps a one-time lift will be performed with impressive weight. But do you have another purpose for visiting the gym? Your actions must be in line with your goals. Let's do the exercise in strict accordance with his technique.

Grip problems

When the biceps have enough strength to work with the weight you have chosen, but the wrist does not, problems begin. The wrists cannot keep a straight line between the elbow and the fist. The arm begins to bend, and the bar hangs.

Lifting the bar to the biceps with a reverse grip solves this problem, but with a direct grip it is more difficult. If this happens, stop direct grip, try curling your arms with a barbell while standing with a reverse grip.

In addition, practice exercises that develop grip strength.

Breath

Both the bench press and lifting the weight are almost always done with the same breath - an effort (lift) to exhale, to inhale - return the weight to the starting point.

One of the most popular exercises for developing powerful arm muscles is the standing barbell curl. It is great for both beginners who have just come to Gym, and experienced athletes with impressive muscle volumes. The main advantage of this exercise is that it can be performed in different variations. These can be classic bicep curls, and bending the arms with a barbell while standing with a reverse grip, and others. effective ways implementation, which we will discuss in more detail below.

What muscles will be involved?

When you do this exercise, the following parts of the body are included in the work:

biceps;
forearm;
shoulder joints;
shoulder blades.

Classic barbell curl while standing on the biceps. Execution rules

For standing barbell curls to give you maximum effect, you need to do the exercise in the following technique:

Take a standing position, put your feet at shoulder level. Socks slightly turn to the sides.
Take the projectile in such a grip that the palms "look" up, and the distance between them was slightly wider than the pelvis. If this position of the hands causes you discomfort and interferes with the normal performance of the exercise, then the grip can be made a little wider or narrower (depending on your personal preferences).
Start doing barbell curl while standing. As you exhale, lift the projectile to your chest, and then, holding it a little in this position, gently lower it down.
Repeat the movement several times.

Common mistakes

Even though standing barbell curls seem simple exercise, during its implementation, you can make many mistakes that can adversely affect both the results of the athlete and his health. The most common errors are as follows:

Incorrect bar weight. Quite often you can meet beginners who, because of their big ego, take exorbitant weight and, as a result, cannot lift it. At best, such a careless exercise can lead to a lack of expected results, at worst, to serious injury. To avoid this, you need to select a barbell weight that is heavy, but at the same time does not cause discomfort during execution. You need to focus on 8-12 clean repetitions without jerking.
Incorrect position of the elbows. If you do not keep your elbows in a fixed position, spread them in different sides and dodge in every possible way to throw the barbell, then the biceps will receive a minimal load, which will significantly reduce the effectiveness of the exercise.
Cheating. Another problem that many novice athletes suffer from. Trying to lift more weight, many beginners begin to go for various tricks: they strongly bend their legs at the knee joints, help themselves with the whole body, throw back the projectile, and so on. As in the previous situation, there is no point in such an implementation. If you perform standing barbell curls with pull-ups and throw-ups, then you can forget about beautiful and spectacular biceps forever.

To avoid injury and get the maximum result from the exercise, you should adhere to the following recommendations:

Keep your knees slightly bent during the exercise so as not to overload the psoas muscles.
The lower back should be slightly arched to reduce the risk of injury or congestion in this area.
Do not raise the bar above shoulder level so that other muscle groups do not “eat up” most of the load.
Always prioritize correct technique rather than a lot of weight.
Smoothly, gradually, without violating the technique, progress in the loads. Remember that the stronger you get, the bigger your muscles become.
Not too often. Many beginners, due to their inexperience, are guided by this logic: "If I train my arms several times a week, they will grow much faster." In fact, such training is a direct path to overtraining and stagnation, which often leads to the fact that athletes simply abandon iron training. Do not forget that the biceps receive an indirect load during the training of others. muscle groups(for example, backs), so you should train them no more than 1-2 times a week.

Reverse grip

The exercise of bending the arms with a barbell while standing with a reverse grip (you can see a photo of this variation just below) is in many ways similar to the classic bicep curls, but has some differences. If you bend your arms with a barbell in this position, you can work out the brachioradialis and forearm muscles well, as well as make your arms more massive.

The execution technique differs from the previous version only in that in this case the palms should look down, not up. It is also highly recommended to use a lighter barbell or a curved bar instead of a regular bar. This is done due to the fact that the main load will go to the shoulder muscle, which is much weaker than the biceps, working with the lower grip.

Bench Curls by Larry Scott

As mentioned earlier, standing barbell curls involve not only the biceps, but also other muscle groups. To accentuate and work out only the biceps without cheating, the Larry Scott bench is used.

The technique for lifting the barbell on this device is as follows:

Grab a curved barbell and place your hands on the bench. The armpits should fit snugly against the music rest, and the elbows should not come off it.
While inhaling, make a rise, holding for a few seconds at the top point, while exhaling - a smooth lowering.
As with the other variations, repeat this movement 8-12 times.

Outcome

The standing barbell curl is an exercise that can help you get well-developed biceps. Performing it in combination with other exercises, you can achieve great success in building large and developed muscles hands

But do not forget that the biceps are far from the only muscles in our body. To build a beautiful and aesthetic body, you need to train everything. To achieve the maximum result, it is necessary to subject the chest, triceps, legs, as well as other muscles to the load. Biceps training should be combined with training of other muscle groups. Also, they should not be too frequent.

In no case should you forget about proper nutrition. If you eat only buns, sweets, fried foods and other junk foods, then you should not be surprised at the lack of results. The athlete's diet should consist of natural proteins and carbohydrates that would "build" his muscles and charge the body with the necessary energy.

Train technically, eat right, have a good rest, and then your biceps will be big and massive!

The Reverse Curl is an exercise commonly used to increase muscle mass in the arms. It gives a very good visual effect, thanks to it the muscles of the hands look voluminous, more embossed and more massive. Anatomically, the movement is similar to doing “hammers” with dumbbells, but for many athletes it is much more convenient, since it reduces the load on the elbow joints in lowest point amplitude. Due to its effectiveness and anatomical convenience, this exercise has gained well-deserved popularity in crossfit, bodybuilding and fitness.

What muscles are working?

Despite the fact that the well-known name of lifting the barbell for biceps with a reverse grip has firmly entrenched in the exercise, in contrast to the classic lifting of the barbell for biceps, the load on this muscle is much less here. Of course, the biceps work when lifting the bar in this way, but the lion's share of the work falls on the brachialis, brachiradialis and forearm muscles. Front beams act as stabilizers deltoid muscles and wrist flexors.

Benefits of doing the exercise

To make it easier for you to decide. it’s worth including this exercise in your training process, here are a few main arguments in which the benefits of performing a barbell lift for biceps with a reverse grip are most visible.

Performing this exercise technically correctly, you will significantly increase muscle mass hands As we already mentioned, the load on the biceps is much less here, and the lion's share of the load falls on the brachialis and muscles of the forearms. A well-developed brachialis visually "pushes" the biceps outward, making the arm larger and increasing the peak of the biceps.
Trained forearms improve grip and help us hold the barbell in a static, stationary position, such as when doing deadlifts or bent over rows.
You should also take into account the fact that the muscles of the hands are very fond of variety in training process. If you don't change your training program, then, most likely, very soon you will stop noticing progress in increasing mass and strength. With a similar stagnation, lifting the bar for biceps with a reverse grip helps well. Accustomed to monotonous work in one plane, the biceps and forearms will get a lot of stress, and in the long run this can lead to serious progress. Of course, provided that you correctly distribute the load, eat right and recover.

We recommend doing a barbell curl with a reverse grip on every 2-3 workouts in order to regularly “shock” the muscles. It is better to do this at the end of the arm workout - this way you can “finish off” already tired biceps and a positive result will not keep you waiting.

Contraindications for athletes

However, not all athletes can benefit from lifting the bar for biceps while standing with a reverse grip. And there are reasons for that. There are a number of contraindications to this exercise. First of all, these are lateral and medial epicondylitis and degenerative injuries of the elbow joints, ligaments and tendons. If you are experiencing these or similar problems, performing a barbell curl with a reverse grip will be accompanied by severe pain, even no warming and analgesic ointments will help. "Hammers" with dumbbells for such ailments are also not recommended.

You don’t have to endure this pain, it’s better to replace this exercise with something else, for example, lifting the biceps on the lower block with a rope handle. These exercises are similar in biomechanics, but moderately intense work with a rope handle should relieve you of pain in your elbows and forearms during the exercise.

Exercise technique

Grab the bar from the floor or from the racks. The weight of the bar should be moderate. The main thing in this exercise is not the lifted kilograms, but the concentration on the working muscles and the constant feeling of their tension. Any neck can be used: straight, EZ-shaped or W-shaped.
Grip the bar firmly at about shoulder width using a closed grip. Press your elbows to the body. The hand should be slightly bent upwards, while the knuckles should be turned towards you.
Gently lift the bar to your chest, concentrating on the contracting muscles and without changing the position of the elbows - they remain pressed to the body. Spreading your elbows to the sides or bringing them forward is traumatic. The rise must be accompanied by exhalation. At the top, the angle elbow joint should be slightly above 90 degrees.
Gently lower the bar down, inhaling and feeling our biceps and forearms stretch. It is not necessary to lower the bar all the way down and make a complete stop. It is better to work without pauses so that the load in the muscles is constant. So the blood supply will be much stronger, and you can achieve a good pump, even working with small weights.

Below is a video of lifting the barbell for biceps with a reverse grip, which demonstrates the technique of performing the exercise in a very accessible way.

Technical subtleties of the exercise

Do not forget about warming up and increasing working weights according to the pyramid principle. Perform the first set with an empty bar to get used to the movement and "catch" the contraction of the muscle groups we need. And only then begin to gradually increase the weight of the projectile.
Work in a high rep range of 10 or more. Biceps and forearms respond best to medium weights and long time under load, we are not interested in strength records here.
Use a closed grip. Many athletes use an open grip, leaving thumb above the neck. This variation does exist, but it should be understood that with it you will have to concentrate more on not dropping the barbell from your hands, and not on working out the muscles.
If you experience discomfort in your hands when lifting, then your grip strength is not yet sufficiently developed. Reduce the weight of the bar in this exercise and be sure to do static exercises on grip strength (various holds, hanging on the bar, hanging on the towel) to increase the strength of your wrists.
The negative phase in arm training is extremely important. Lower the barbell slowly and smoothly, do not make any sudden movements.

Use on every new workout neck of a different shape. So you can work out everything muscle fibers avoiding the state of overtraining.