What is a Seated Barbell Wrist Curl?

The Seated Barbell Wrist Curl is an effective exercise designed to strengthen the muscles of the forearms, particularly the wrist flexors. This exercise is typically performed while seated and involves curling a barbell with the hands to work on grip strength and forearm muscle development. Because we use our wrists in everything from simple daily activities like carrying bags to several sports, this is a great functional exercise to add to your workout routine.

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How-to Do Seated Barbell Wrist Curl

Sit on a bench and grasp a barbell with a shoulder-width underhand grip. Rest your forearms on your thighs. Your wrists should be slightly past your knees.
Move your hands downwards while rolling the barbell down your palms until just your fingers are holding on.
Slowly raise the barbell by gripping and moving your hands upward.

Muscle Worked

Primary Muscle Groups

Forearms

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

Pro Tips

Use Your Full Range of Motion Let your wrists extend all the way at the bottom of the movement and flex completely at the top. That way, your forearm muscles fully engage. This is a good way to help get more forearm recruitment so you grow and strengthen these muscles. Working within this range also helps improve your wrist flexibility.
Move With Control The wrist muscles are small and delicate, and often go neglected. As such, many of us suffer from weak wrists! The seated barbell wrist curl can feel humbling if you don’t have a lot of strength and it’s tempting to use momentum to lift your barbell. Instead, try to make your seated barbell wrist curls slow and deliberate. This emphasizes forearm muscle contraction on the “up” and a controlled release on the “down” to give you better muscle activation.
Start Light Use a light barbell to fine-tune your proper form and avoid straining your wrists. You can gradually increase your barbell weight as your forearms get stronger so you don’t get injured or tire out too quickly.

Equipments

Barbell

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

Bench

A weight bench is a piece of equipment that you sit on to weight train

Benefits

Forearm Strength Seated barbell wrist curls specifically target your forearm flexors to build up their strength and overall endurance. When we think about grip-intensive exercises like weightlifting, rock climbing, tennis or golf, strong forearms are essential. They’re a great way to boost your upper body’s functional performance in or outside of sports.
Gripping Power. The seated barbell wrist curl gives you a simple yet effective way to work your grip strength with barbells— a piece of equipment you’ll easily find in most commercial gyms. You won’t have to hunt down any fancy grip training equipment that could be costly. By strengthening muscles that help flex your wrists and fingers, seated barbell wrist curls are a great way to improve grip strength. Simple tasks like carrying heavy bags or using tools can become a whole lot easier if you’ve got a strong grip.
Aesthetic Arms Adding regular seated barbell wrist curls to your workout plan can make your forearm muscles look bigger and more defined. You may start to notice an evenly balanced and more muscular look once you start training your wrists, especially if you struggle with slim or asymmetrical arm musculature.

Warm Up & Cool Down

Warm Up

Wrist Twists: Stick your arms out in front of you and slowly rotate your wrists in circles. clockwise and counterclockwise, to loosen your wrist joints.
Finger Flex: Open and close your hands, switching back and forth from spread fingers to fists. Go as fast as you can. This activates and warms up the small muscles in your hands so they’re ready for a workout.
Light Dumbbell Wrist Curls: Use an even lighter weight (no more than a 2lb or 5lb weight per hand) to do a couple of slow wrist curls and reverse curls. This helps you get very gentle activation in your forearms and wrists without actually putting them under the strain of a heavy lift.

Cool Down

Wrist Stretch: Stick one arm out with your palm up, then pull your fingers down and toward you with the other hand. Hold the stretch for 15–30 seconds then switch arms.
Forearm Massage: Use your other hand or a massage tool to gently knead your forearm muscles gently. This helps get rid of any muscle knots and improves blood circulation after your workout.
Shake It Out: Shaking your hands and wrists lightly for 15–20 seconds to loosen up. Not only does this help you emotionally relax after a strenuous workout, it gets rid of any residual muscle tension you may be feeling in your wrists.

FAQ

There’s no perfect way to make sure you never get injured, but strengthening your forearms with seated wrist curls can make your wrists more stable. This makes you less likely to move your wrists out of alignment or in a way that doesn’t agree with your body. Therefore, it can reduce your injury risk. Stronger grip and better wrist control are both good ways to improve in exercises that place muscular stress (the kind you need for growth) on your wrists, like lifting, or climbing.

No. Use a light or moderate weight. That way, you have better control on your barbell and proper form. Too much weight can result in a bad technique that hurts your wrists. If you want to focus on endurance or higher reps and sets, go for a lighter weight. After you’re experienced in this exercise, start to increase the weight each time you lift for progressive overload as your forearms get stronger.

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