The Best Bicep Workouts With Hammer Curls

Flick through the pages of any fitness or bodybuilding magazine and it won't be long until you come across a program prescribing hammer curls. Hammer curls are a little different than regular curls: They still hit your biceps, but are performed with your palms facing inward. To build bigger biceps, make hammer curls a cornerstone of your arm workout.

  1. Why Hammer Curls?

    • Regular dumbbell and barbell curls performed with a supinated, or palms forward, grip focus on the peak of your biceps, but hammer curls are a little different. They still work the peak, known as the biceps brachii, but also target your brachialis -- the muscles on the side of your arm, notes eight-time Mr. Olympia champion Ronnie Coleman. If your brachialis is lagging, perform hammer curls first in your routine, advises Coleman.

    Variations of the Hammer Curl

    • Hammer curls can be performed standing up or sitting on a bench. You can also use either dumbbells or a cable station to perform them. The dumbbell version is performed in the same way as regular dumbbell curls, but with your palms facing in the whole time. For the cable variation, you'll need to use a rope attachment, as this forces your hands into the hammer -- or neutral -- position. Whatever variation you choose, arch your chest, keep your shoulders back and control the lowering phase, advises trainer Greg Zulak of "Iron Man Magazine."

    Best of the Rest

    • Don't limit your biceps workouts to just hammer curls, even if your brachialis is your weak point. Add in other biceps isolation exercises, such as barbell, cable or machine curls, as well as compound moves. These include any pulling exercises, such as dumbbell or barbell rows and pullups or pulldowns. You may prefer, however, to keep these compounds to your back workouts and perform purely isolation movements in your biceps session.

    Biceps Blitz

    • While you won't find any absolute best biceps workout, you can put together a highly effective one using just a few exercises performed well. Start your workout with incline hammer curls, performed sitting on an incline bench. Flex your triceps hard at the bottom of every rep and complete four sets of eight reps, using a four-second negative on every rep, advises personal trainer Nick Mitchell. After these, move on to cable hammer curls for three sets of 10 to 12 repetitions. Finish your workout with three sets of 15 to 20 reps of standing curls using an EZ bar or cambered bar.