5 Best Bicep Curl Variations to Build Muscle

To grow your biceps, you should add bicep curl variations to your routine. That will ensure that your muscles do not get too used to one movement and hit a plateau, and that all muscle fibers get activated as much as possible.

Before learning about bicep curl variations, you need to know how your biceps grow and which muscles are worked upon. The bicep muscles have two parts - a long head and a short head.

During each exercise, both heads are activated, but the impact varies. You can do exercises that work on one head more than the other, but you can’t isolate the long head from the short.

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How to build biceps?

There's no shortcut to building biceps. Even if you incoporate all bicep curl variations, you still have to follow the basic rules of bodybuilding to grow the muscle group:

1. You need to focus on resistance training. Unless you add stress to your fibers, it’s not going to tear and grow back thicker.
2. You need to focus on hypertrophy. That means you have to do at least 8-15 reps of an exercise and feel your muscles burn.
3. You don’t need to train to failure all the time, but it’s good to train to failure with a set or two.
4. Begin with the basics; correct your form, and add variation.
5. Focus on progressive overload.
6. Add different types of sets, such as supersets, drop sets, straight sets, etc. to your workout.

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Bicep curl variations to build biceps

As mentioned, you should consciously add bicep curl variations to your workout routine.

It allows you to create a new stimulus for the muscles and enables further progress, especially when your muscles almost hit a plateau with the same exercise. The following are five bicep curl variations you can add to your routine:

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1) Preacher curl

To do it:

• Use a pair of dumbbells or an ez-bar for the exercise. Set it up on the preacher curl rack.
• Hold one dumbbell in each hand (can be done one arm at a time too), or grab the bar with both.
• Place your triceps on the preacher rack pad, and extend your arms towards the floor.
• Curl the weight towards you without moving your upper arms or elbows off the pad.
• Squeeze your biceps at the top of the motion, and steadily bring it back down, extending your arms all the way downwards.
• Complete 10-12 reps.

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2) Zottman curl

To do it:

• Take a dumbbell in each hand, and stand straight.
• Curl the dumbbell, and bring it towards yourself while keeping your upper arms and elbow stable.
• At the top of the motion, rotate your forearms (not your wrist) so that your palms face outwards.
• Steadily bring the dumbbells back down.
• Rotate your forearms again to have your palms face outwards before starting the second rep.

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3) Cable curl

To do cable curls:

• Set up the cable pulley machine with a straight bar and the anchor at the bottom. Set to a moderate weight.
• Hold the bar with both hands so that your palms are facing outwards (supinated grip).
• Curl the bar towards you using your biceps while your elbows remain stable.
• Squeeze the biceps for a second at the top of the motion for maximum contraction.
• Bring the bar back down while controlling the negative for maximum muscle activation.
• Repeat.

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4) Hammer curl

To do it:

• Hold a dumbbell in each hand using a neutral grip (palms should be facing your sides)
• Tuck your elbows towards your torso to keep them stable.
• Curl the dumbbells towards you so that the top part of the dumbbell is closest to you.
• Hold the weight for a second before steadily lowering the dumbbells to the starting position.
• You can do cross-body hammer curls as well.

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5) Spider curl

To do it:

• Set the incline bench to 35-degrees or a height that allows you to reach the weights on the floor.
• Lie on the incline bench with your chest while your feet remain on the floor for support.
• Lock your underarms on the side of the top of the incline bench.
• Grab the dumbbell or /barbell from the floor.
• Keeping your elbows and upper arm as stable as possible, curl the weight towards the incline bench.
• Keep a strong muscle-mind connection to avoid using your forearms during the exercise.
• Lower the weight steadily to avoid injuries. Repeat.

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Bottom Line

Bicep curl variations can only be effective if you do them correctly. Unless you know how to engage your biceps, you won’t be able to benefit from any exercise or bicep curl variations.