What is a Barbell Spider Curl?

A barbell spider curl is an isolation exercise targeting your biceps and the brachialis— a smaller muscle that sits underneath your biceps. Unlike a traditional bicep curl, you do this exercise lying face-down on an incline bench at a 45-degree angle with your chest supported. From here, you curl a loaded barbell upward, moving toward your bench, focusing on the contraction of your biceps at the top. If you tend to swing of “kip” your bicep curls, a bicep spider curls reduces the momentum you use compared to a traditional curl. This isolates more of the muscular emphasis to just your biceps since less of your core stabilizer muscles have to kick in. This makes a spider curl with a barbell a highly effective way to build arm strength and size.

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How-to

Lie face-down on an incline bench with a barbell resting on the floor in front of you.
Hold the barbell with an underhand grip, keeping your hands shoulder-width apart.
Slowly curl the weight up as far as possible. Squeeze your biceps and hold briefly.
Slowly lower the bar back to the starting position.

Muscle Worked

Primary Muscle Groups

Biceps

The biceps are muscles that sit at the front or your upper arms between your elbows and shoulders

Secondary Muscle Groups

Forearms

The forearms help you grip objects and move your hands, wrists and fingers

Pro Tips

Control the Tempo: Lift your bar slowly and lower it even slower. This will help to maximize your bicep engagement and cut out momentum during your spider curl with the barbell.
Keep Elbows Stable: Your elbows shouldn’t move forward or backward. Keep them stable so you’re maintaining constant tension on the biceps.
Focus on the Squeeze: At the top of your curl, briefly pause to squeeze your biceps. This is about making this a conscious action and sensation. Not only does this help build mind-muscle connection, it will get your muscle fibers firing more efficiently, increasing muscular activation.

Equipments

Barbell

A barbell is a long metal bar with space for weight plates on each end used for weightlifting

Benefits

Bicep Isolation: Using an inclined bench to tilt your body position and hold you at an angle vs. standing straight up minimizes shoulder involvement or compensation from your other muscles. Because your torso can’t go anywhere, this forces your body to focus the effort on your biceps.
Muscle Definition: Because you keep more constant time under tension on the biceps in this exercise vs. a compound exercise for the biceps builds muscle shape and definition in the upper arms.
Less Momentum: In an exercise like a bicep curl, swinging, your arms and using momentum to get your weights up defeats the purpose of the exercise. After all, if your muscles aren’t under stress, they won’t grow! If you have trouble executing a bicep curl without swinging your weights, spider curls encourage stricter form and keep your arms quieter. Less momentum means more resistance is applied directly to your biceps to get more effective muscle engagement.

What is a Barbell Spider Curl?

How-to