Zottman Curl
Trains the Biceps, Brachialis and Brachioradialis.
- Equipment
- Dumbbells
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing forward, arms straight at your sides.
- Curl both dumbbells up as you would an ordinary curl, elbows tucked in.
- At the top, rotate your hands until the palms face the floor. The dumbbells stay where they are; only the forearms turn.
- Lower slowly in this overhand position, taking longer coming down than you took going up.
- At the bottom, rotate back to palms-up before the next repetition.
Common mistakes
- Rushing the lowering half. The overhand descent is the reason the exercise exists — it is where the brachioradialis and the wrist extensors are loaded — and dropping the weight skips the only part that is different from a normal curl.
- Rotating on the way up rather than at the top. Turning early means curling in the weaker position and lowering in the stronger one, which is the exercise backwards.
- Choosing the weight by what you can curl. The lowering half happens in the weaker grip, so the load is set by what you can control coming down, not by what you can lift going up.
- Turning the whole arm instead of the forearm. The rotation happens below the elbow; the upper arm stays where it is.