Lying Cable Curl
Curling a low-pulley bar while flat on your back with your feet braced against the machine frame. The floor takes body English out of the movement entirely — no hip swing, no backward lean — and the cable keeps pulling at the top of the rep, where a barbell has already gone slack.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Clip a straight or EZ bar to the low pulley and set the weight lighter than your standing curl — expect to need 30-40% less.
- Lie flat on your back on a mat, head away from the stack, feet flat against the machine frame with your legs straight.
- Take an underhand grip at shoulder width and let the arms extend fully toward your feet.
- Press your lower back into the floor and pull your shoulder blades down so the upper arms have a fixed base.
- Shuffle back until the plates lift a centimetre off the stack before the first rep, so tension is on from the start.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale as you curl, inhale as you lower. One second up, a one-second hold at the chest, three seconds down. This variation is built for tempo, not for load.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start around 15-20 kg on the stack, or roughly 60% of what you use for a standing barbell curl — the lost body English is worth about that much. Good looks like 12 reps with a one-second squeeze and no hip lift. Add the next plate only once you hit the top of your rep range on every set with a three-second lowering phase.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Tuck the upper arms against your ribs and pin them there for the whole set. If they still slide, take a plate off — elbow drift is the body quietly borrowing the front delts.
Set your body far enough from the machine that the plates stay a centimetre clear at full extension. Continuous tension is the only real advantage this variation has over a barbell curl.
Start at roughly 60% of your standing curl weight and add only when 15 controlled reps with a one-second hold feel easy. There is no hip drive here to bail you out of a bad guess.
Count three seconds down on every rep. The lowering is where most of the growth stimulus of a curl sits, and it is the first thing people give away when they are chasing reps.
Why bother
The reason to lie down is subtraction. A standing barbell curl lets you rock the hips, lean back and use the front delts to break the bar off the bottom. Pinned to the floor with the cable pulling toward your feet, none of that is available: whatever the biceps cannot lift simply does not move.
The cable runs roughly parallel to your body, so the torque at the elbow is near zero with the arms straight, peaks when the forearms reach vertical, and eases off again as the bar nears your chest. It is a mid-range movement. Pair it with something that loads a stretched position rather than treating it as a complete biceps session.
Where it fits
Late on a pulling day, after rows and chin-ups, in the 10-15 rep range. It rewards control rather than load, which makes it a poor choice for a heavy top set and a good choice for the last two sets of arm work. Once or twice a week alongside back training is plenty.
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 this better than a standing barbell curl?
Not better, different. The standing curl lets you handle more weight and trains the whole body to stay rigid; this one removes every route to a cheat rep and keeps the cable pulling at the top. Use the barbell for your heavy sets and this for strict, higher-rep work at the end of a session.
Why do my shoulders ache in this position?
Usually you are set up too far from the stack, so the arms get pulled into shoulder flexion at the bottom and the front of the shoulder takes the stretch instead of the elbow. Shuffle closer until your upper arms sit alongside your ribs at full extension, and keep the shoulder blades pressed into the floor.
Can I do this on a bench instead of the floor?
You can, and a flat bench pushed in front of the stack works — but the floor is the point. A bench raises your shoulders above the line of pull and reintroduces a little shoulder flexion, which is exactly the assistance the variation exists to remove. If you use a bench, use the lowest one you have.
Straight bar or EZ bar?
EZ bar if your wrists complain, straight bar if they do not. A fully supinated grip puts marginally more work on the biceps and marginally more strain on the wrist; the EZ bar's angle relieves the wrist at the cost of a few degrees of supination. Neither difference will decide whether your arms grow.