But in the social media era, it hasn’t necessarily been the sexiest lift. You’re more likely to see gym bros on Instagram hit one of the three main lifts—bench press, deadlifts, and squats—than an isolation move like the curl.
That’s changed recently thanks to popular YouTube vlogger and fitness news commentator Nick Miller of Nick’s Strength and Power. In July, he uploaded a video in which he talked about the heaviest strict curl ever, a 113kg (249 lbs.) curl held by Dennis Cyplenkov.
Like the three main lifts, powerlifters would compete to see who had the heaviest strict curl. Motivational expert and former strict curl world record holder C.T. Fletcher even has his own federation called the International Strict Curl Association, Miller explains. Miller himself has also competed in strict curl meets.
Shortly after Miller’s video, powerlifter Larry Wheels uploaded an Instagram clip of himself curling 198 pounds.
With the move gaining popularity, we thought it’d be a good idea to run down the benefits of the lift and how to properly execute it. To do that, we tapped celebrity trainer Don Saladino, who has some pretty impressive biceps peaks himself.
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Iulian Valentin
Why you should do it
One of the reasons why the curl may have fallen to the wayside in recent years is because it’s involved in every pulling and rowing motion you do in the gym.
“You hear all this functional training and how the bicep is the secondary mover,” Saladino says. “And it gets all this work when we do our pulling and our rowing and our pull-ups and our triceps get all this work when we’re pressing, you know, so you don’t need to work. You don’t need to isolate, which I think is true and false at the same time.”
Making the bicep stronger, he continues, will only help you with the bigger lifts that require that muscle.
“It’s like triceps,” Saladino explains. “You go to power lifters, and they work their triceps because that is going to really assist them in their pressing movement. I have seen that when my biceps are stronger, my forearms get stronger. My pull-up gets stronger.”
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BLACKDAY
The rules
Like any other competition lift, the strict curl has a few set rules.
Your upper-back and butt must stay in contact with the wall on the way up and on the way down. If either leaves the wall, the lift doesn’t count.
Heels must be 12 inches from the wall or less.
Your head, upper arms, and wrists can move as much as you want.
One tip to achieve this is to take a wide stance — think a little more than shoulder-width apart. “Taking a wider stance slightly decreases the chance of your butt moving up,” Saladino says.
But if you’re more comfortable with a narrow stance, feel free to do so. “I mean that’s more of a comfort level,” Saladino adds. “Taking a wider stance decreases it, but it doesn’t mean someone has to.”
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Jasminko Ibrakovic
Elbows down
Another important point is to make sure your elbows remain pinned to the side of your body at all times. “A pure isolation is elbow flexion, which is extending and not allowing that shoulder joint to move at all,” Saladino says.
The celebrity trainer admired Cyplenkov’s ability to control his elbows during his world-record curl. “His elbows are pointing down as much as his body probably allows him to,” he says while watching a video of Cyplenkov’s lift. “He’s putting himself into what I think should be like almost a perfect position, but he’s also giving himself much more of a disadvantage than the other guys because he’s not using his shoulders as much. That guy’s a monster.”
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Syda Productions
How to lift heavy
Odds are you wouldn’t go for your first bench by putting 315 pounds on the barbell— the same philosophy goes for the strict curl.
“I think the mistake is people coming in trying to curl at max effort every week,” Saladino says. “I’d probably put them on some type of periodization where it was like, if I was trying to develop the squat or if I was trying to develop, you know, the deadlift.”
He gave the following example: “Week one do 15 reps, week two 12 reps, week three 10 reps, week four, you know, and you go down, you know, all the way to doubles, doubles, and singles.”
Just as important, your strict curl training has to include other bicep exercises. “I think you need to be focused on strengthening the muscle,” Saladino says. “And I would probably do that from a day of like really of working on really strict isolated curls and maybe a day where I would even put in some cheat curls, like what Arnold used to talk about.”
