Wide-Grip Standing Barbell Curl

How to do it

1. Stand holding a barbell with an underhand grip wider than your shoulders.
2. Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart and your elbows tucked against your sides.
3. Let the bar hang at arm's length in front of your thighs.
4. Curl the bar up, keeping the upper arms still.
5. Stop when the forearms are roughly vertical, then squeeze briefly.
6. Lower under control to straight arms.

Common mistakes

• Going wider than the wrists are comfortable with. A wide underhand grip on a straight bar rotates the forearms outward, and past a point the wrist rather than the biceps decides the set.
• Expecting the width to build the inner part of the biceps. Grip width changes where the arms sit and how the wrist is loaded; the biceps has two heads and neither is selected by hand spacing.
• Letting the elbows drift forward. Once the upper arms travel, the front deltoid raises the bar through the top half.
• Rocking the torso to start each repetition. A dead stop against the thighs is what keeps a light bar hard.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Biceps