Incline Dumbbell Curl
Trains the Biceps.
- Equipment
- Dumbbells and an adjustable bench
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set an adjustable bench to roughly forty-five to sixty degrees and sit back against it with a dumbbell in each hand.
- Let your arms hang straight down at your sides, behind the line of your torso, with your palms facing forward.
- Keep your upper arms still and your shoulders back against the pad.
- Curl one or both dumbbells up by bending the elbow, without letting the upper arm swing forward.
- Squeeze briefly at the top, then lower under control all the way back to a full stretch.
Common mistakes
- Letting the elbows drift forward as the set gets hard. That removes the stretched position at the shoulder, which is the entire reason to curl on an incline.
- Setting the bench too upright. The further back you lie, the further behind the body the arms hang and the more the long head is stretched — but too flat and the shoulder gets uncomfortable. Between forty-five and sixty degrees suits most people.
- Shrugging the shoulders forward off the pad to start the movement.
- Treating it as interchangeable with a preacher curl. They are opposite cases: incline lengthens the long head at the shoulder, preacher shortens it. Both are useful and neither replaces the other.