How to Do Strict Curls With Perfect Form to Build Big Biceps | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle
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00:00The classic biceps curl will forever be one of the best ways for you to pack muscle onto your arms.
00:04It will also forever be one of the most butchered moves in the gym. Trust me, we have seen it all
00:09here at Men's Health. From biceps curls that look like power cleans to curls that look like rows,
00:13the truth is that some of these moves actually do have a place in advanced routines. But if you're
00:18just starting out, the thing you really want to do is learn the strict biceps curl. A curl that's
00:23going to have you moving only at the elbow joint because that's going to really let you learn how
00:26to properly contract your biceps. Long term, that is going to be a key in helping you to grow your
00:32arm muscle. So let's break it all down right now. We're going to show you two versions of the so
00:36called strict curl today. But first, let's think about what's going into this curl. In both versions
00:41of this curl, you're obviously going to challenge the heck out of your biceps and your forearms.
00:44And we're also going to hit our brachialis muscle, which lies under the bicep and essentially gives
00:49us that deep 3D look that we want for our arms. In addition to that, we're going to work two other
00:54muscle groups isometrically and they're going to play a key role in doing the curl right. So think
00:58about this. You want to make sure that you're isometrically contracting your abs so that we're
01:02not arching our back and we're going to get a little less hip involved. And we're going to
01:05isometrically contract our rhomboids as well. Those are the muscles between our shoulder blades.
01:09Primarily, we're attracting our arms though. So it's all about our biceps, our forearms and our
01:13brachialis. To understand the strict curl in addition, we also have to understand the two
01:18most common issues that prevent people from properly doing biceps curls. First off, very
01:23often when people go too heavy, they're going to start to hinge at their hips and they're going to
01:27capture lower body power. We're not here for lower body. We're really here to attack our biceps.
01:31The other thing that happens, and it's for a similar reason because we're lifting too heavy
01:35and we can't really focus on our biceps, is we start to shift our elbow backwards behind our
01:40torso. And in doing so, we start to incorporate our mid-back muscles to help get the weight up.
01:44Both of these ideas are something that we want to take out with the strict curl. So we're going to
01:48eliminate all hip movement and we're going to eliminate all chances of moving our elbows behind
01:52our torso. That way we can really attack our biceps. So we have Brett here to help us demo our
01:57two strict curl variations. And again, with the strict curl, the thing that we're trying to avoid
02:02is we want to get our hips out of the motion and we want to place our elbows in a fixed position.
02:06That way they're not going to be shifting back and forth and we can't get our back involved in
02:10this. One of the best ways to do this and the easiest way to do this with dumbbells is going
02:14to be, we're going to use a wall. We're going to call this our wall strict curl. What Brett's going
02:18to do, he's going to grab his dumbbells. You're going to want to take this lighter too. If you
02:22thought you could curl the 50s, it's not going to happen. Even for really strong guys, it's not
02:25going to happen. So we're going to go with 20s here. And what Brett's going to do, he's essentially
02:30going to lean. And I don't care. You can bend your legs a little bit. You want to have your feet a
02:34little bit away from the wall. He's going to maintain three points of contact with the wall.
02:38So what he's going to do, he's going to press his butt into the wall. He's going to think about
02:42driving his shoulders into the wall, and then he's going to squeeze his shoulder blades. That's going
02:46to be a starting point. Once we're in this position, we've done a couple of things. His shoulder blades
02:50wind up being squeezed. His rhomboids are on. And then he's going to think about flexing his abs,
02:54because the only thing I don't want him to do is arch his back and let his rib cage expand.
02:59From here, the curl winds up being nice and simple. All Brett's going to do while maintaining
03:04those contact points with the wall, he's going to curl up as high as he can. And then we get that
03:10really, really good contraction at the top. And we're going to lower it with control.
03:14Because we have these points of contact with the wall, he's not going to be able to cheat through
03:18his hips. So we've eliminated that. He's not going to cheat through his shoulders. We've eliminated
03:22that. And we've got the elbows driven directly against the wall. That's a really, really good
03:26starting position. He winds up getting a nice, tight contraction. On top of that, in part because
03:31Brett is also a pretty big guy, he's going to have his elbows shifted ever so slightly backwards.
03:36And because of that, because we're maintaining that position, our back muscles can't get involved.
03:40But at the same time, he's got ever so slight stretch on the biceps tendon at the shoulder
03:45joint. So that is good. It winds up being a nice full range of motion curl. When you get to the top,
03:49think about holding for one second, getting a really, really good squeeze on your biceps.
03:54That way, again, what we're doing, we're trying to drive my muscle connection with these strict
03:57curls. And Brett does a really, really nice job of it when we're on the wall. And if we're in a gym,
04:02if we're in the full gym, and we can't get away from using dumbbells or an easy bar or something
04:06like that, we can go to a lying cable curl. And this is another exercise that again, essentially
04:12all we're doing, we're going to translate exactly what we were doing on the wall, we're going to
04:16translate that to the ground. So Brett is going to bend his knees ever so slightly. Think about
04:21getting yourself in the start of a sit up position. So I want his feet flat on the floor.
04:27And what he's doing, what he's thinking about in this position, he's going to keep his head
04:32in contact with the floor, he's going to think about shoulder blades driving into the ground
04:36and shoulders are going to be in contact with the floor. And then his butt is in contact with
04:40the floor. So those same contact points that we were dealing with when we were dealing with the
04:44ground and curl, the only thing Brett's legs are long, so he gets a little high in that position.
04:48So he's going to extend those feet out a little bit. That way we can get a pretty good range of
04:52motion. And this winds up being our starting position for this curl. Now you'll notice one
04:57thing immediately different about this than the wall curl. And that is Brett's elbows are not in
05:03contact with the ground. That is fine. It's okay in general to roll a little bit forward with your
05:09elbows. Our biceps winds up responsible for two things when we're curling. One is going to be
05:13flexing at the elbow. Two is shoulder flexion. That's a little bit of that rise. We get that
05:17with this cable curl. From here, all Brett's going to do is he's going to curl upwards.
05:23Again, when he gets to the top of this curl, he wants to get a really, really good squeeze on his
05:27biceps. Think of actively flexing your biceps and trying to explode them out of your skin.
05:31Hold for a split second there and then come back with control on every single rep. This winds up
05:37being another really, really great curl variation that you can go to that's going to emphasize
05:42you moving with strict form and moving only in elbow flexion with a little bit of shoulder
05:48flexion here. It's a really, really great way to get a good squeeze on your biceps.
05:51So that is our strict curl. And again, this is a great curl and the curl that everybody,
05:56if you want to grow your biceps, you simply have to learn this is the best beginner curl out there.
06:01This is not an exercise that you're meant to do heavy. You want to think about doing three sets
06:04of eight to ten reps and really focus on contracting your biceps. Focus on that squeeze
06:09and start to learn that squeeze. If you're new to the gym, think of making this your sole biceps
06:14exercise. You can do this at the end of a pull workout or a total body day, or you can lead off
06:19an arm day. If you've been around the gym, though, even if you're super strong, don't ditch this move
06:24because you're going to go heavy and at times your form is going to break down and you can always use
06:28the strict curl to get back to basics and make sure you're really, really attacking your biceps.
06:32So this is an indispensable move in anybody's training repertoire.