Dumbbell Zottman Curl

How to Perform the Dumbbell Zottman Curl

1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, holding a dumbbell in each hand at your sides with palms facing forward (supinated grip).
2. Brace your core and keep your upper arms pinned to your sides throughout the movement.
3. Curl the dumbbells upward by flexing your elbows, squeezing your biceps at the top of the movement.
4. At the top of the curl, pause briefly and then rotate your wrists 180 degrees so your palms face downward (pronated grip).
5. Slowly lower the dumbbells back down with the pronated grip, controlling the descent to work the brachioradialis.
6. At the bottom, rotate your wrists back to the supinated position (palms forward) to prepare for the next rep.
7. Keep the tempo slow and controlled, especially during the pronated lowering phase.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Muscles Worked

Benefits

• ✓Trains both the biceps and forearms in a single exercise for time-efficient arm training.
• ✓The pronated lowering phase targets the brachioradialis, a muscle often neglected in standard curls.
• ✓Improves grip strength and forearm endurance through the wrist rotation component.

Pro Tips

• ●Use a lighter weight than your standard bicep curl, as the pronated lowering phase is significantly harder.
• ●Focus on a very slow eccentric (lowering) phase to maximise forearm engagement.
• ●This exercise works great as a finisher at the end of an arm workout.

Variations

Recommended Sets & Reps