Hey, what's going on nation today?
I'm joined by Josh from Colossus fitness and we're going to go over with you
guys the five dumbest mistakes when performing the dumbbell bicep curl.
And if you guys missed the last video on the six dumbest mistakes for the
overhead press,
I'll post the link to that down in the info section below the dumbbell bicep
An excellent exercise you guys can utilize.
If you want to get some huge biceps, really work on that arm growth.
It's excellent because if it's done correctly,
you're going to be working both that short and long head.
But before we get started, guys, make sure you sign up and join Colossus fitness.
I'll put a link to their YouTube channel down in the info section below.
And if you haven't already, be sure to turn on notifications.
Click that bell so you never miss a new video upload from me. All right guys.
So before we get into the mistakes,
I think it's gonna be very important to clarify what proper form actually is when
performing this movement.
And also I've been doing cheat reps lately in some of my videos.
For those of you who just watched my back and bicep workout and I want to take a
little bit of time to explain the cheat rep as well. So first of all,
proper form for an alternating dumbbell curl. All right?
You're going to start off standing obviously with both abs palms facing forward
like this. One of the functions of the bicep is to help supinate the forearm.
So as soon as you supinate and you start in this position,
you already activating your biceps.
It's very important once in place guys,
you're going to keep your elbow in front of your hips and then while keeping
your elbow in one spot, you're going to curl all the way to the top.
Get a nice hard contraction. So squeeze your bicep as hard as you can,
and then you're going to control the negative on the way down. All right?
You don't want this and you don't want this.
You want to keep that elbow in one spot, control it on the way down.
Hard contraction on the way up. Control on the way down.
That's what perfect form looks like.
Now in my video when I was doing my cheat reps,
you guys might've seen that I was skipping the concentric part of the movement
in order to focus on a controlled negative.
That's how you can overload your muscles to help support more growth.
And what I mean by that is for those of you who didn't see the workout,
you might have noticed that I grabbed really heavy dumbbells and instead of
being super strict on the way up like this,
I was actually using a little momentum and kind of throw in the dumbbell to the
top position. But once I got to the top,
I was then controlling the dumbbell on the way down to overload the bicep for
like I said, to support more muscle growth.
Now that we've got that out of the way,
let's go over the first mistake of doing a dumbbell curl,
which is skipping half of the movement.
Now there is an exercise called a hammer curl and is an exercise called the
dumbbell curl, which we're doing today. A lot of people in the gym,
they grab weights that are too heavy and they end up hammer curling and then
bicep curling the other half of the way.
So they're skipping from here to here,
which is the hardest part of the movement.
And you're losing out on all that bicep engagement that could be adding to your
gains. Now why do people normally skip the first part of the movement?
Because it's way easier to hammer curl
and then do this as opposed to doing a strict dumbbell curl from the top
to the bottom. Remember,
you always want to be working within full range of motion.
Also guys, when you do a hammer curl, you're not really targeting the biceps.
The biceps are activated. But by doing this,
you placing a lot more emphasis on the brachialis and the brachioradialis
And if your goal is to build bigger biceps,
you don't want to be doing that. Now, a lot of people have asked me,
isn't it okay or aren't you supposed to twist the dumbbell during a dumbbell
curl for more activation? And the answer is yes, but it's not what you think.
If you want to focus on twisting the dumbbell for more activation,
you still have to train within that range of motion.
But then when you get to the top, that's when you twist your wrist in.
And just from doing this guys,
and you can even grab a light dumbbell like I have and twist your wrist in.
You're gonna feel a lot more activation right through here,
right on the short head of the biceps. So if you're gonna twist,
don't twist halfway up and then curl twist like this.
Come all the way up and then twist it in and then come all the way down.
Mistake number two guys is not earning your reps. I see
so many people coming in the gym hitting it like this.
They're swinging away. They're just trying to burn through that set.
That's not what you're going to want to do.
You want to utilize mind muscle connection, really work the muscle.
So to do that, you have to come up, get a nice big contraction,
utilize that negative,
and you're gonna want to make sure that every rep is being earned.
You're not doing a couple right and a couple wrong. Every rep,
even when you're tired,
you want to make sure that you're aiming for muscle breakdown.
You don't want to just be swinging away. You want to make sure, once again,
big contraction, you're forcing blood into the muscle with a nice,
slow negative.
Mistake.
Number three is having a deflated core while you're doing the lift and leaning
back too far once the weight starts to get a little too heavy.
And what I mean by that is whenever you do any exercise in the gym,
the stronger and the more solid your core is,
the more power you're going to have to do the exercise.
So if you're doing heavy dumbbell curls and you're lifting the weight in front
of you like this, obviously that weight is pulling you forward.
So if you're not taking in a breath and keeping that core tight,
you're going to deflate and fall forward and you're going to lose a lot of power
that you could be putting into focusing on just doing the curl.
So it's really important to make sure that you're resetting your breath when you
need to and you're keeping that core as solid as possible as you do your curls.
Now there's also another thing, you can keep your core kind of solid,
but you can also then start leaning back too far.
And that also happens because you're lifting too much weight.
Even when you're doing a cheat curl,
you should still be staying upright like this.
If you start really leaning back and throwing your back and whole body into a
curl like that,
you're taking a lot of tension out of your bicep and you're transferring it to
your lower back,
which can obviously cause injury cause you're going into like a massive spinal
extension and you don't want to do that. So guys,
whenever you're doing a dumbbell curl,
if you want to get the most power to lift the most amount of weight,
take in a breath, keep that core nice and tight,
and then perform your curls. And then as soon as you run out of air,
obviously reset your breath, take in another breath,
and then do some more curls. Just like this. It's all about core control.
Mistake number four guys is hooking on the bicep curl.
I'm going to switch to the side so you guys can see what I mean.
So they're going to start with the weight back here and they're going to come up
and they're actually going to keep that bend in their shoulder the entire time.
They're really gonna take out the full range of motion in the rep as opposed to
a normal rep where you're keeping your elbows tight to your body.
Really straightening the bicep and not overextending so it hurts your elbow.
But getting it to where it's fully stretched and fully contracted.
You guys can see the difference between this,
which is a proper rep and a completely wrong rep.
where you're just upper cutting the air. In a sense,
you're just coming up boxing the air and like a pendulum motion as opposed to
once again in front, controlled tight to your body,
getting a good contraction and really it's almost like a preacher curl because
you're ensuring that your arm is kept in one motion.
You're not using that deltoid to compensate for a weak bicep. All right guys,
so the fifth and final mistake is that when you're doing the bicep curl,
you're not keeping tension in your wrist and your hand throughout the movement.
And what I mean by this is especially at the top and on the negative,
instead of relaxing your wrist and kind of just dropping and not really having
control over the dumbbell
try squeezing the dumbbell as hard as you can and a little added tip.
Instead of keeping your wrist straight,
try turning it in slightly towards your body. What you're going to notice,
and this works on dumbbells and barbells, when you start to come down,
if you keep your wrist slightly turned towards you,
you're going to feel a lot more activation throughout your bicep.
Especially the bottom half right here and doesn't even take a lot of weight
to feel that reaction or that difference. The next time you guys go to the gym,
grab like a 10 pound dumbbell or a 15 pound dumbbell and get to the top like
this and practice turning your wrist in towards you and controlling the negative
on the way down like this and you'll start to see exactly what I mean as you
feel a lot more activation through the entire bicep on both the short head and
the long head. All right guys,
thank you so much to Scott for having me on this channel and thanks for
listening to my tips.
Hopefully this can really help you guys do the dumbbell bicep curl correctly.
Don't be a hero and do it wrong. Exactly. Guys,
if you want to see the playlist to all my dumbest mistakes videos,
I'll post that down in the info section below.
Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and as always more good stuff coming soon.