EZ-Bar Curl
The cambered bar sets your hands in a half-supinated grip, roughly 20-30 degrees off palm-up, which takes the strain off the wrists and inner elbows that a straight bar imposes. You lose a little biceps supination and gain the ability to keep curling heavy without the joint pain that ends most straight-bar programmes.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Grip the outer angled sections with palms turned up and slightly inward, hands about shoulder-width apart.
- Stand with the bar resting against your thighs, elbows tucked to your ribs.
- Brace your abs and set your ribs down so the lower back cannot arch to help the bar up.
- Squeeze the shoulder blades back and down; the traps should stay out of it entirely.
- Start with the bare bar plus 5 kg per side, and expect the wide outer grip to feel stronger than the inner one.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale at the bottom, exhale as you curl, no breath-holding across reps. Two seconds up, one second squeezed at chest height, three seconds down with the arms finishing dead straight.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
EZ bars run 8-12 kg depending on the model, unlike the fixed 20 kg of an Olympic barbell — weigh yours or read the stamp and log the real figure, or your curl numbers will look inflated next to a straight-bar session. Start at the bare bar plus 5 kg per side. Eight strict reps with 40% of your bodyweight on the bar is a solid intermediate marker. Add 2.5 kg total once you hit the top of your rep range in every set with the torso still.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Set your heels 5 cm from a wall and keep your glutes and shoulders touching it. Any rep that pulls you off the wall is too heavy — take 5 kg off the bar.
Keep the upper arms glued to the ribs and end the rep at chest height. The top few centimetres are a front-delt rep, not a biceps rep.
Grip harder and keep the knuckles pointing at the ceiling. If the wrists still collapse, move to the inner angled section, which sits closer to neutral.
Count three seconds down on every rep. The eccentric is where most of the growth stimulus in a curl sits, and it is the half people give away first.
Why bother
A straight bar forces both forearms into full supination and holds them there, with the hands fixed the same distance apart for the whole rep. Anyone with less than perfect forearm rotation ends up loading the wrist and the medial elbow instead of the muscle. The angled sections of an EZ bar let the forearms sit where they naturally want to.
The trade is real but small: a semi-supinated grip puts the biceps in a slightly weaker line of pull than full palm-up, so activation is marginally lower rep for rep. In practice most people load the EZ bar heavier and train it more consistently because nothing hurts, which more than covers the difference.
Where it fits
The main biceps lift of an arm or pull day, three or four sets of 8-12, once or twice a week. Run it first while you are fresh, then follow with a dumbbell or cable movement for the supination and single-arm work the bar cannot give you.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Is the EZ bar worse than a straight bar for the biceps?
Marginally, on paper — a semi-supinated grip is a slightly weaker line of pull for the biceps than full supination. In practice the difference is small enough that comfort should decide. If a straight bar leaves your wrists or inner elbows sore, the EZ bar is the better bar because it is the one you will keep using.
Should I use the inner or outer angles?
The outer, wider grip is the default and is closer to supinated, which biases the biceps. The inner, narrower grip sits closer to neutral and shifts a little work to the brachialis while feeling easier on the wrists. Rotate between them across training blocks rather than picking one forever.
My inner elbows still hurt on the EZ bar. Now what?
Move your hands to the inner angled section, which sits closer to neutral and asks less rotation of the forearm. If that does not settle it in two weeks, drop the bar entirely for a block and run hammer or cross-body curls, where the forearm is free to find its own position. Medial elbow pain in curls is usually a load and volume problem wearing a technique costume — cut the weight by a third and the sets by half before you decide the bar is the culprit.
Do I need both EZ bar curls and dumbbell curls?
One bar movement and one dumbbell movement covers everything. The bar gives you the heaviest load and the simplest progression; dumbbells give you supination through the rep and expose left-right differences the bar hides. Three sets of each, once or twice a week, is a complete biceps programme for almost everyone.