5 Things You Need to Know About Leaning Biceps Curls

1. Bicep Curls for the Biceps

If you walk into any gym in any city around the world, the one sure thing you'll see as you scan the room is someone doing a very painful looking bicep curl. Most of the time, this involves the amateur lifter swinging back and forth as he or she tries to help the too-heavy bar up. This poor form uses the back and even the legs in the bicep curl so they can lift the heavier weight. Unsurprisingly, a bicep curl is designed to isolate and work the biceps (primarily), so poor form and too much weight completely subvert the exercise.

2. Get Mean and Start to Lean

Doing the bicep curl as you lean against a wall is one very effective way to stabilize your swaying body and take your back and legs out of the equation. To do the exercise, all you need to do is stand between 8 and 10 inches away from a wall. Lean back so your back is flush against the wall but your feet still away from it. Make adjustments to get comfortable. Then, keeping your back against the wall, do a rep of your leaning bicep curl.

3. Stop Right Where You Are

As the leaning bicep curl becomes more comfortable, you need to begin tweaking the exercise to get the most out of it. Your aim is twofold-- first, you need to make sure you get proper range of motion (called ROM by the pros) from the exercise. Second, you must make sure that your biceps stay engaged at all times. This means that on your first rep you should stop the movement when your forearms are perpendicular to the ground (or, in other words, parallel to your torso). Going past this point to where your hands almost touch your chest deactivates the bicep. On the down motion, stop just before a full elbow extension.

4. Know Your Goals

The effectiveness of the leaning bicep curl, or any weightlifting exercise for that matter, depends on your ability to attack the exercise in a custom-tailored way. If, for example, you're a runner who's trying to improve endurance so your arms don't turn to spaghetti on mile 10, then high repetition, low weight curls are the way to go. If you want some huge "guns" or if just want to achieve maximum mechanical loading then load the bar heavily (but keep strict form in the exercise) so the load causes you to fail around rep number four.

5. Put the Bicep Curl Away

The leaning bicep curl, or any curl variation, needs to be a part of a well-designed workout program. Consider that many other common exercises, such as pull-ups and rows, work the biceps. So, doing bicep curls every day, every other day or even every three days will result in muscle fatigue. In the best case (in which your biceps manage to survive the exercise onslaught), you will develop oversized biceps that are out of proportion to other parts of your body, creating a perfect recipe for eventual injury.