Stop Swinging Your Bicep Curls

The most common bicep curl mistake I see is people using a weight that’s too heavy and swinging it up. If you’re swinging, you’re not really working your biceps. So use a lighter weight, use strict form, and curl with your bicep only.

Why swinging doesn’t work your biceps

When the weight is too heavy, you can’t curl it with your bicep. So you rock your body and you use momentum to get it up. And when you do that, your body is doing the lifting instead of your bicep.

That’s why this is the first thing I’d fix. You can do the rest of your arm workout right, but if you’re swinging on your curls, momentum and your body are doing the work, not your biceps.

How to curl with strict form

1. Pick a weight you can curl without swinging. If you can’t curl it without swinging, it’s too heavy. Go lighter.
2. Stand straight up and down. And stay that way the whole set.
3. Curl with the bicep only. The rest of your body stays where it is.
4. Go right back down, under control. Don’t just let the weight drop.
5. No swinging, no rocking, no momentum. If you feel your body start to rock, the weight’s too heavy.

Here’s how I think about every rep: bicep only, and then I go right back. That’s it.

A lighter weight that you curl strict is going to work your biceps more than a heavy weight that you swing. The problem is ego lifting. People want to curl the big dumbbells, so they swing them, and their biceps don’t get the work. Put your ego aside and go lighter.

You can do this with one arm at a time or both arms at once. Both ways work. One arm at a time gives you more range of motion, and both arms is faster and keeps your sides even. I break down the difference in how to do bicep curls, one arm or both arms.

And if you want to put this into a workout, curls are the first exercise in my home arm workout with just dumbbells, 30 seconds at a time. Do it with me and keep every rep strict.

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This is general fitness information, not medical advice.