Hammer Curl

How to Perform the Hammer Curl

Stand upright holding a dumbbell in each hand with a neutral grip (palms facing your body), arms hanging at your sides.
Set your feet shoulder-width apart, brace your core, and pull your shoulders back and down.
Keep your elbows pinned to your sides and your upper arms completely stationary.
Curl both dumbbells upward by flexing at the elbow, maintaining the neutral (palms-in) grip throughout.
Continue curling until your forearms are just past parallel and you feel a strong contraction in your biceps and forearms.
Pause briefly at the top, squeezing your arms hard.
Lower the dumbbells under control back to the starting position without letting them swing.

Rotating the wrists into a supinated position

Maintain a strict neutral (palms facing each other) grip throughout the entire movement to target the brachialis.

Flaring the elbows outward

Keep your elbows tight against your torso. Flaring reduces brachialis engagement and uses shoulder muscles.

Using excessive weight and swinging

Choose a weight you can curl with strict form. The hammer curl is most effective with controlled, deliberate reps.

●Try a cross-body variation (curling toward the opposite shoulder) to emphasise the brachialis even more.
●Perform these after standard curls to finish off the arms with a forearm-dominant movement.
●Use a rope attachment on a cable machine for a constant-tension hammer curl variation.

Strength

4 sets of 6-8 reps

Hypertrophy

3-4 sets of 10-12 reps

Endurance

2-3 sets of 15-20 reps

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