Barbell Wrist Curl
Trains the Forearm Flexors.
- Equipment
- A barbell and either a flat bench or an adjustable bench
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Sit on the end of a flat bench with a light barbell and your feet flat on the floor.
- Take an underhand grip, hands about shoulder-width apart, and rest your forearms along your thighs with your wrists just past your knees.
- Let the bar roll down toward your fingertips and your wrists extend back, so the forearm muscles are at full length.
- Curl the bar back into your palm and then flex your wrists upward as far as they will go.
- Squeeze briefly at the top, then lower under control back to the fingertips.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the roll to the fingertips. Letting the bar open into the fingers and then closing the hand adds the finger flexors to the movement, which is most of what grip actually is.
- Lifting the forearms off the thighs. If the elbows rise, the biceps have joined in and the wrists are doing less.
- Going heavy. The wrist has a short range and a light lever; a weight that looks small is normal here.
- Expecting wrist curls to fix grip strength. Grip failure in pulling is usually a failure of sustained finger flexion, which holds and carries train far more directly than wrist curls do.