Reverse Barbell Curl
Also works: Forearms
A standing curl with the palms turned down. Flipping the grip puts the brachioradialis and the wrist extensors in charge, cuts the weight you can handle by roughly a third, and trains the top of the forearm that a normal curl barely touches.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Load a bar with far less than your normal curl weight; the empty 20 kg bar is a hard first set for many people.
- Take a shoulder-width grip with the palms facing down and the thumbs wrapped over the bar.
- Stand tall with the elbows tucked against your ribs and the bar resting against your thighs.
- Set your knuckles slightly higher than your wrists and hold that angle before the first rep.
- Squeeze your glutes and set the ribs down so your torso cannot rock back.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale as you curl, inhale as you lower. One second up, a one-second hold at the top, two to three seconds down with no bar drop onto the thighs.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Begin with an empty barbell or a light EZ bar and expect around half of your palms-up curl load. Good looks like the knuckles staying above the wrists for every rep with the elbows glued to your ribs. Add 2.5 kg total only after two sessions where you hit the top of the rep range with the wrists holding position.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Start at roughly half. If you curl 40 kg palms-up, begin at 20 kg palms-down and adjust from there. The gap is a fact of leverage, not a weakness to train out.
Cue the knuckles to stay above the wrist all set and stop when they can no longer hold that line. Reducing the load by 2.5 kg buys you three more honest reps.
Stand with your back against a wall for one set. If the bar will not move without your hips leaving the wall, the weight is wrong.
Put it last. Wrist extensors and grip are needed for every pulling movement you own, so fry them at the end rather than the start.
Why bother
With the forearm pronated, the biceps loses most of its leverage as an elbow flexor and the brachioradialis — the thick muscle running from the outside of the elbow down the forearm — has to do the job. That is why the load drops so sharply and why the burn sits in your forearm rather than your upper arm.
The wrist extensors also work isometrically the entire set just to stop the bar from rolling down out of your knuckles. For anyone whose grip fails before their back on rows, or whose elbows nag from heavy pulling, that unglamorous forearm work is the point of doing it.
Where it fits
At the end of a pull session, two or three sets of 10-15. Never at the start — cooked wrist extensors ruin your grip on everything else. Once a week is enough, twice if you specifically want forearm size, and use an EZ bar if a straight bar hurts your wrists.
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
Why is my reverse curl so much weaker than my normal curl?
Pronating the forearm shortens the biceps' effective leverage at the elbow and moves the job to the brachioradialis, a smaller muscle. Half of your palms-up load is normal. If you find yourself using more than about 70% of it, check that your wrists are not folding and your hips are not driving the bar.
Straight bar or EZ bar?
EZ bar if a straight bar makes your wrists ache, which it does for plenty of people in a pronated grip. The angled grips let the wrists sit in a slightly less extreme position. The straight bar is marginally better at isolating the brachioradialis; that margin is not worth a sore wrist.
Will this make my forearms bigger?
It contributes, in combination with heavy holds and carries. The brachioradialis responds well to direct work in the 10-15 range and it is the muscle that gives the upper forearm its width. Do not expect forearm size to change quickly, though — it is one of the slowest areas on the body to build.
Is this better than a hammer curl?
They are close cousins and both hit the brachioradialis, but the reverse curl adds a real demand on the wrist extensors that the hammer curl does not. Hammer curls let you handle more weight and stress the elbow less. Do hammer curls for load and reverse curls for the forearm and grip work.