Jesse. (BRO. Not going to make it in today )
What? Dude we re supposed to shoot a video this weekend.
(Also I told my cousin Jebby he could train in your gym today.)
He s got a cousin, J (Yes, Jebby )
Okay.
(BTW. Don t mention waiters curls) What s wrong with Waiter s Curls?
(He s a TOTAL f*cking idiot. Believes EVERYTHING he sees on TikTok)
Oh, that explains it. What s his probably with Waiter Curls?
Everyone knows, bro. There's no supination on that exercise.
Well, actually, there is supination on the exercise, and it starts with how you grab
the dumbbell. You want to make sure that you're getting your hands underneath the flat end of
the dumbbell rather than grabbing it from the side like Jeb and those that don't know how to
do the exercise do. If you do it properly, your forearms will be supinated, but you actually have
the opportunity to turn it into dynamic supination as well as you lift the dumbbell up.
You can see that if I focus the upward lift of the dumbbell during the curl right here in this
portion of my hand, I can continue to turn the form into more active supination. And remember,
guys, for any bicep exercise to be effective, you have to check three different boxes.
One is the flexion of the elbow, two is that supination, and three, a little bit of flexion
of the shoulder at the very end of the exercise, this exercise hits all three checkboxes. So, Jeb
kind of off to a bad start. Come on, bro. If there was
ever weird range of motion on a biceps exercise, it's from the Waiter Curl.
Well, actually, it's not that unnatural at all. As a matter of fact, the elbow joint is one that
naturally restricts unnatural motion. It's an anatomical hinge joint that opens and closes
predominantly just flexing and extending the elbow. If you compare it to something like a
simple rope curl, you'll see that it's actually by mechanically very similar. Now I get it,
maybe you're worried about the wrist, but don't worry about that. I've got you covered there,
too. So, for now, Jeb, I'm just not buying it. Come on, bro. The waiter curl grip is
way too narrow. Respectfully, I think
we might be 0 for 3 now, Jeb, because not only is the Waiter Curl grip not all that narrow,
but the narrower grip is one that's going to benefit you. And what I'm talking about is,
if you take the dumbbell, you look at the surface area there, you match it up with
a typical easy curl bar. You'll see that that grip isn't all that narrow or different from
what you might already be doing. But as I said, you get an advantage from this. The advantage is
better, long head activation. I'll go into more details in a minute, but the fact is the narrower
grip is something that's going to work to your benefit, not to your detriment. So, no.
Come on bro. There's no full range of motion on the Waiter Curl, so it sucks.
We'll see. Now, there you go, Jeb. Now, that's good thinking,
although maybe just not thinking all the way through. Because one of the biggest
mistakes you can make when trying to judge the effectiveness of the range of motion of
an exercise is to confuse it with the range of motion possible at that moving joint. So,
when we look at the elbow, if you thought that you need to take the elbow all the way
through its full range of motion to have an effective bicep exercise, you'd be wrong.
And very much the same way that you think that maybe a side lateral raise done like this
is incorrect because it's not taking the shoulder through its full range of motion,
you know, all the way across the body and all the way up over your head. Now, when it comes
to the Waiter Curl, yes, you are cutting off a little bit of that range of motion at the bottom.
But actually, it might be in this case, to your benefit. Because we know that those bottom 20
degrees or so are not really helping you to build bigger biceps. The external load placed on the
biceps is minimal in that range of motion. It's the same reason why you may have seen
people perform a Seated Barbell Curl. They're intentionally taking away those bottom 20
degrees because they know that the biceps aren t necessarily the most active there, but two other
muscles, the brachialis and brachioradialis are. So, if you could limit the range of motion to the
more effective range of motion for the biceps, well, you could do more growing from it. So once
again, not really a bad thing, but something that's actually working in your favor.
Good luck balancing that dumbbell bro. Guy doesn't even understand any kind of stability.
Actually, Jeb, I do understand stability. I very much value it in the exercises that we perform
and the Waiter Curl s no different. Because if you grip the dumbbell, like I said in the first place,
properly, then you're going to have a lot of surface area for both hands to be placed on the
flat under the dumbbell and securely lift it up as you perform the exercise. You might be thinking,
I got you because you use those round dumbbells. What about somebody that uses
a hex dumbbell? That doesn't change anything, as a matter of fact, it gives you another way
to create stability because maybe you don't have as much surface area for your palms, but you
do have the opportunity to grip with your back pinky's here to still allow you to perform the
exercise safely and securely. And again, remember, regardless of what dumbbell variation you pick,
with your elbows held tight to your body like you will with any bicep exercise creating additional
stability, this is a very stable exercise with not a lot of balance requirements.
Everyone knows that the Waiter Curl has a suboptimal line of pull for the biceps. Don't
know what suboptimal means? Pfff, look it up. No, see, I actually don't have to because I know
what's suboptimal is, and in this case, this is not. Because the Waiter Curl is actually
optimal for targeting more effectively the long head of the biceps, you know, the one responsible
more for that bicep peak. And the reason for this is based on anatomical reasons. And the people
that make this claim oftentimes just don't have a deep enough understanding of the anatomy to get
it right. When we take a more narrow grip during a curl, we're internally rotating the shoulder.
Along with that, you're putting the long head tendon in a better align of pull, actually a more
favorable direct line of pull to effectively increase its activation in the exercise. Now
listen, our biceps will contract all or none, but we also know that changes in joint alignment
can shift the focus from one head to the other. You can see on Raymond here that there's actually
two separate attachments to the biceps. Of course, there's the one that's more medial
connected to the coracoid process, which is the short head and the one that sits a little
bit more laterally attached to the top of the glenoid and that is the long head tendon.
So, we internally rotate that shoulder. Like I said, you're putting that long head into a
better line of pull. Now the easier way to think about this if you're not so anatomically inclined,
is to just think about what you see is what you're training. If we look in the mirror and you're
seeing more of the outside portion of your bicep when you're curling, you're likely working more
of that outside long head. If you see more of the inside portion of your bicep when you're curling,
you're working more of the short head. It's actually kind of a bicep cheat code that's
helpful for those that really don't care all that much about anatomy, like Jeb.
Bro Wait a minute, hold on. The Waiter Curl creates negative feedback of instability at
the shoulder and elbow joint, which is easy to mistake for increased tension on the biceps.
Gotcha, bro. Okay, now that's just plain fucking dumb.
All right, maybe that was a little harsh, and I apologize, but can you do me a favor, Jeb?
Can you just stay off of TikTok already? Because what was said there was actually just a bunch of
nonsense. You know, words strung together to try to sound impressive with no real meaning
behind it. Because the idea that you can create instability at the elbow and shoulder
and that causes increased tension, or at least the perception of increased tension in
the working muscle is ludicrous. By that thought process, the next time we want to build my quads,
I'm going to try to figure out ways I could destabilize my knee and my hip.
When I really want to build up that tension in my calves, I'm going to make sure I can figure out
how to be very unbalanced at my ankle and at my knee. It just doesn't make sense. And as a matter
of fact, it's directly oppositional to what really happens when you're trying to create increased
tension in the muscle. To do so, you need to do it in an environment of increased stability at the
joints that that muscle crosses, not instability. And to furthermore insinuate that that balled up
intense contraction you're feeling out here in the outer portion of your bicep
is actually just a figment of your imagination and not really real, but just a creation
of instability. Well, it just doesn't showcase a real understanding of the subject matter.
The Waiter Curl is trash for your wrists. Ahhhh! It s
broken. I broke my wrist. I broke my wrist. That bicep pushup will get you every single time.
Actually, the exercise is actually quite stable at the wrist. As a matter of fact, due to the
extension that you see during the exercise, did you know that when you reach for anything like a
plate or even a dumbbell in the gym here, that you naturally will do so out of a slightly extended
wrist? It's true. And the reason for it is because a slightly extended wrist provides more stability
to the joint and more strength. As a physical therapist treating a hemiplegia stroke patient,
one of the first things I want to try to restore is range of motion into extension. Because I know
by doing so I can increase the strength of the grasp and the stability of the wrist joint.
So why would he want to do it on this exercise? By doing so, you're not just increasing the safety
of the movement, you're also increasing the effectiveness of it because you're increasing
something called perpendicularity, and that is increasing the time that the downward force of
gravity is going to be acting directly down onto that surface of the dumbbell. Which is
going to increase the amount of tension felt by the biceps through a greater range of motion.
And by allowing the wrist to move into its naturally stronger and secure joint position,
we're killing two birds with one stone. So once again here, Jeb,
we're just not seeing eye to eye on this. Everyone knows, man,
alternating curls are better. Look, don't get me wrong, I actually love the
Alternating Dumbbell Curl. As a matter of fact, if you watch my bicep exercises ranked video,
you see that I placed it way up at the top of the list. But then again, who said you can only do
one exercise when you're trying to build bigger biceps? If you're trying to build your chest,
you wouldn t just do the bench press. You'd likely want to have some adduction move to compliment
it. Well, when it comes to the biceps, if you want to effectively build the long head up, you really
only have two choices. One, where you either get your arm further back behind your body like an
Incline Dumbbell Curl to increase the stretch at the beginning of every rep. Or one that once again
reveals more of the outer portion of the arm, like your one with a closer grip on a Waiter Curl
to do the job. And so just like you wouldn't use a hammer to screw a screw into a wall, you want to
want to use a screwdriver to hammer a nail into a board. You don't want to use one exercise to
try to accomplish all things. Remember, exercises are context specific and knowing the difference
is going to make all the difference in the results that you see. Right, Jeb?
Why do a Waiter Curl where you use less weight,
when you can do another curl and use more weight?
Why do a Pushup where you can do a Bench Press or a Dip when you can do a Tricep Push Down
or a Face Pull when you can do a Barbell Row. Don't forget your Face Pulls. Look, we are trying
to create muscle growth, the amount of weight on the bar is just one factor in creating overload.
Tension is the language that your muscles speak. And becoming fluent in your ability to increase
the ways that you can introduce tension is going to be the biggest thing you can do for yourself.
Remember, guys, your muscles don't know what the number is on the side of the dumbbell or barbell,
they just know what it feels like when you lift it. And the very fact alone that when you lift
a weight or curl, that you might be compromised a bit in terms of the strength that you can produce.
Understand this, the long head of the biceps is notoriously weaker anyway, about
15 to 20% when compared to the short head. So, it's probably an indicator you want to work
more on it anyway. And again, don't get wrapped up here in the numbers, but focus instead on the
end goal and that is to drive more muscle growth with an exercise extremely capable of doing it.
And so, if you've been watching too much TikTok and were concerned that the Waiter
Curl might belong in the iron graveyard buried right next to, let's say, the Upright Row,
rest assured it does not. Yes, Jesse. Hey man, sorry about Jeb.
Yeah, don t let him in here again. I told you he was dumb.
I know he is. He s a fucking moron.
A big one. All right man,
I appreciate it. I ll see you Monday. Okay. All right, see ya.
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