Seated Dumbbell Curls

As far as exercises for your biceps are concerned, you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more effective and relatively simple to perform exercise than seated dumbbell curls.

Dumbbell curls in general are fantastic for working the biceps, as well as a little of the triceps and even the forearms as well, but one problem with dumbbell curls is that people tend to choose too heavy a weight in an attempt to show off, and as a result will rock their bodies back and forth and arch their backs in order to gain momentum to “curl” the dumbbell.

Seated dumbbell curls are great because they keep the back straight and force your biceps to do all of the work, isolating them perfectly.

How to correctly perform seated dumbbell curls

• Begin by taking a seat on a flat bench positioned between 45 and 60 degrees.
• Take a set of dumbbells which aren’t too heavy and aren’t too light and hold them down at your sides at arm’s length, with your palms facing your side.
• Next, keeping the upper part of your arm completely stationary, slowly curl the dumbbells and once your arms pass your thighs, slowly twist your wrist slightly so that your palms are now facing directly in front of you.
• Curl the dumbbells upwards until they’re roughly level with your chest, hold for a second and focus on squeezing the biceps before exhaling and slowly lowering the dumbbells down to the starting position.
• Repeat for as many reps as necessary.

Hammer Curl Variations

Though this exercise requires both dumbbells to be curled at once, you can also perform alternate dumbbell curls in which you will curl the right or left arm first, return to the starting position, and then do exactly the same with the opposite arm, and so on. Also it is good to do hammer curls after a set of regular curls.

You can also adjust the back support to different angles if you’d prefer.