What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So do me a favor, check out this clip of me doing a concentration curl and see if you
can spot what I'm doing wrong.
Now guys, if you're somebody that has watched my 24 second fixed video, you might be thinking
"He's going too fast on the eccentric portion of the lift."
I'm going to tell you right now, that's actually not what it is.
Some people might say "I've been following this channel long enough.
I know Jeff doesn't even like the concentration curl."
We're going to get to that in a minute.
I'm talking about the curl itself.
Can you spot what I'm doing wrong?
So, if you can't, I'm going to show what you need to do when you're doing concentration
curls.
If you're going to do them.
Again, we're going to address that in a second.
When we talk about the concertation curl people will do exactly what I was showing you here.
They'll curl here, and then down, and they'll come up here, and then down.
Now, the purpose of doing the concentration curl is what?
People argue that it's to get a complete contraction of the biceps.
To feel the biceps contracting.
To give you better mind-muscle connection, if you have a problem with your biceps in
that way.
And a lot of people do, actually.
So if that's the argument I'm going to show you where some of the major flaws are with
that.
First of all, if they're doing them like this – which I see a lot of people do – that's
a major mistake because the position of the elbow is the first thing you want to concentrate
on.
You can't be resting your elbow here, on your thigh, and going down like this.
You're literally creating a see-saw effect.
When the weight comes down on this side it almost brings the weight back up again.
The see-saw effect, back and forth, over the thigh.
So whatever weight you think you're lifting here, you're actually lifting a lot less because
of that mechanical advantage.
Speaking of 'mechanical advantage', if you're going to do it the proper way, you think you're
going to take your elbow and you're going to put it on the inside of your leg.
You know better.
You're not going to rest it on top.
So you know better.
You put it right here, and now you start curling.
I'm going to raise my arm up here you can see something very important.
They're going to do this.
Now, the reason why that's a problem, firstly, is because they're now taking that elbow and
they're using it for leverage.
The elbow is actually pushing into the thigh, and by pushing into the thigh, it's giving
me leverage to lift this weight.
Now, if you don’t believe that's actually happening, all you have to do is look at the
involvement here of the side, and front delt when I get to the hardest part in the range
of motion here.
Which is the midpoint.
Why does that happen?
Because when it's most difficult – which is right here – then my delt has to kick
in to help me push this up.
The delts are becoming active because I'm pushing my arm into an immoveable object – which
is my leg – and that's helping to get some leverage in the opposite direction.
The same concept as when we're doing a lat pulldown, and you're pulling down, but pulling
up with your legs.
Pull your legs up, into the seat, and pull down.
That's good because you're using your legs for a muscle group in your upper body, but
when we're using leverage here of a muscle that's right here, and often times too involved
in a curl, that becomes a problem.
They're right next to each other.
So it's a different scenario than that lat pulldown.
So then what you would say is "Well, then I can't do that.
I've got to get my elbow off my thigh, put the back of my arm – the tricep – up here
against the inside of the thigh, and then curl from there.
Now I'm doing the right thing."
But we've got to go back to what we said in the beginning.
What was the purpose?
To get a complete bicep contraction and to have the most tension in that contracted state.
Well, if you get the elbow flexion, and you get the supination here, and you come to the
top, look.
The dumbbell is actually this line here, this forearm, is almost parallel with the downward
force of gravity that's acting on this dumbbell.
Meaning, I could get it – if I got completely parallel – I could stay here for a very
long period of time.
So even though I'm in a more contracted state of the biceps I don’t have as much tension
here because, again, the forces are parallel to each other.
The forearm here, and the force of gravity coming straight down.
So what we want to do is, we want to have it to where we're in this fully contracted
state, and we have gravity acting as much down on our perpendicular forearm as possible.
We can do that by changing where we put our arm.
So instead of having it down in the thigh here – I'll tell you right out – you've
got to take your junk, move it a little bit this way, guys, so you can clear some room
right down in the middle.
Really, in this really high up, inner groin area.
So again, whatever you've got to do to do it.
Jesse just blows and it all goes over that way.
Some guys have to forcefully move a little bit more.
Whatever you have to do, take care of it, and then put your arm right here, deep inside
your groin.
So now, when I curl up and I go to complete contraction here – Jesse, come around this
side, actually.
You can see that the angle is a lot less vertical, and more horizontal, which is more toward
allowing the dumbbell to be acted upon by gravity.
But I can do better than that because if I take it from here, and I know I've got to
get a little bit more parallel to the ground, I just lean forward a little bit more.
Now I have complete elbow flexion and complete supination here, and I can really, really
feel this thing a lot more than I could, and I've even minimized the contribution of that
delt, even though it's always going to pop out because I'm, again, using the back of
my arm here.
Not the point of my elbow to drive in.
Now, let's go to the people that say "Jeff, I remember you said you didn't like the concertation
curl.
That it wasn't the best thing to do."
No.
For a few reasons.
Number one: I like more athletic exercises at any opportunity I can.
We train athletes here, so I try to get more athletic.
Which means, if I can be on my feet I like that better.
But more importantly, if you're going to go for complete contraction of the biceps, where
was the flexion of the shoulder?
Because we know by virtue of the connection of the longhead of the biceps, past the shoulder
joint, to the upper portion of our glenohumeral joint here, we have room for shoulder flexion
here.
It has to be part of the complete contraction.
So I want my arms up.
If we're down here we're not getting that.
So what I opt for – whether you do it with the cable machine, or you do it with bands
– it's something that gets your arms up in this position, allows for the supination,
and allows for the elbow flexion.
So we do this.
We come here, and we curl up, and in this way.
I've demonstrated variations of this before, which you can see now I've got all three components.
I've got the flexion, the supination, and then the shoulder flexion as well.
So I can really get a complete bicep contraction.
I can feel this thing balling up on me.
You want to make this cooler?
You do this.
You come up here.
Why is it athletic?
The only thing holding me in this position is the strength of my posterior chain.
My glutes and my low back.
Because if I let go my whole body wants to fold that way.
So all the muscles on the posterior chain have to contract here to allow me to be in
this position here.
If you want to overload it, from here you step back, and you step back, you come in,
and you come in, and down.
Pull it up, back, back, nice and tight on the lower half, and in.
Up, back, back, in, and in one more time.
Up, back.
Again, you've got this isometric component in the middle by prolonging it with the stepping.
Guys, it's important to put the science into what you do in the weight room because it
matters.
If you're going for that intended purpose of trying to get the full contraction, and
that's what you're going to use to activate your biceps – whatever the reason why – that
could be a good, valid reason.
But if you're not backing it up with the true science it's not going to matter.
Here, we just did that.
Again, if you want to make the tweak over there you can do it there, too.
The position of your arm matters, just like everything else, guys.
We put out a step by step program where I pay close attention to detail on everything
we do, in every workout, in every exercise.
I think that's what gives us the advantage and makes our programs as effective as they
are.
They're all available over at ATHLEANX.com.
You can get yours today.
In the meantime, if you've found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what you want me to cover in a future video and I'll do that for you.
No doubt about it, guys.
I'm always glad to read your comments and suggestions below.
All right, see you soon.