The Best Way to Do the Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Instructions

  1. Stand up straight holding a dumbbell in each hand, with your palms facing each other and your arms hanging straight at your sides.
  2. Keeping your left arm at your side, curl the right dumbbell toward your shoulder while keeping your thumb pointed toward the ceiling.
  3. Keep raising the dumbbell until you can’t lift it any higher without moving your elbow forward.
  4. Lower the dumbbell to the starting position and repeat with your left arm.

Expert Tips

  • Keep your upper arms fixed beside your torso as you curl the dumbbells. Don’t push your elbow forward to raise the dumbbell even higher or help you finish each rep.
  • Keep your torso as still as possible throughout the entire set. Don’t heave your body back and forth to make your reps easier.
  • Brace your abs and glutes throughout each rep. This helps keep your torso stable.
  • Lower the dumbbell under control, taking about a second.
  • Use a weight that allows you to maintain good form. It’s better to perform the exercise correctly with lighter weights than to perform the exercise poorly with heavier ones. The goal is to maximize tension within your muscles, not use the maximum weight possible.

Workout Programming

Program hammer curls as part of a pull, upper-body, or full-body workout, after your rows, chin-ups, or pulldowns.

Or, if you’re specifically focused on developing your biceps and brachialis (upper arms), you can also do hammer curls as one of your first exercises.

A good default is 3 sets of 8–10 reps per arm. Take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure—the point where you can’t complete another rep with good form—and rest 1–2 minutes between sets.

If you’re alternating arms, which is what I typically recommend, 8 reps means 8 with each arm, not 8 in total.

Mike’s Take

The dumbbell hammer curl is a classic arm exercise that can be useful in certain situations, but you don’t need it to build big, strong, proportional arms.

You’ll often hear that you should do hammer curls to help develop your brachialis, a small muscle on your upper arm that lies underneath the biceps brachii and connects your upper arm bone (humerus) to your forearm bone (ulna).

While hammer curls probably train your brachialis a bit more effectively than standard, palms-up dumbbell curls, many other exercises also train this muscle. That’s why you generally don’t need hammer curls in a well-rounded strength training routine.

For example, your brachialis is also trained by the following exercises:

If your routine doesn’t already include exercises that train your brachialis, hammer curls make more sense.

Even then, I’d generally recommend adding a few compound pulling exercises with a neutral grip instead. Hammer curls aren’t a go-to exercise for me, and I rarely recommend them.

That said, hammer curls aren’t a bad exercise. They train your biceps effectively, they’re safe and comfortable for most people, and they let you add weight in small increments if your gym’s dumbbell selection allows it.

Like regular dumbbell curls, they also let you train each arm individually, which can help you identify and fix any strength and muscle imbalances you might have.

One downside of hammer curls is that they do tend to limit your range of motion more than other curl variations, but not to a degree that’s likely to meaningfully hinder your gains. So if you’re bored with regular curls and want to give them a whirl, that’s fine, too.

All in all, hammer curls are a decent exercise but with limited utility if you’re already following a well-designed resistance training program.

Dumbbell Hammer Curl Alternatives

  • Incline Dumbbell Hammer Curl. The incline hammer curl involves performing hammer curls while lying on an incline bench, with your elbows slightly behind your torso. This position better trains the long head of your biceps, but I typically prefer to do this with the regular dumbbell curl (supinated grip) rather than the hammer curl (neutral grip).
  • Dumbbell Preacher Hammer Curl. The preacher hammer curl makes it hard to use momentum to cheat, but you’ll need a preacher bench to do it.
  • Cable Hammer Curl. Since you’re using a cable, this keeps consistent tension on the biceps and brachialis throughout each rep. It’s a fine exercise, but some people find the rope attachment uncomfortable and some cable machines also force you to add weight in large increments.
  • Alternating Dumbbell Curl. This is just like a hammer curl, but performed with your palm facing up instead of inward, and emphasizes the biceps a bit more and the brachialis a bit less.
  • Incline Dumbbell Curl. The incline dumbbell curl trains your biceps while your upper arms are behind your torso, which helps emphasize the long head of your biceps.
  • Barbell Curl. The barbell curl allows you to add weight in small increments, is safe and comfortable for most people, and you can do it in nearly any gym in the world. If a straight bar bothers your wrists or elbows, use an EZ-bar.
  • Bayesian Cable Curl. The Bayesian curl is basically the same movement as an incline dumbbell curl, but performed standing, with a cable, and is almost always performed one arm at a time. It’s one of my favorite biceps exercises.
  • Seated Cable Row. Most people think of this more as a back exercise, but it also trains your upper arms in much the same way as a hammer curl.
  • Close-Grip (V-Grip) Lat Pulldown. This trains the upper arms in almost the same way as the hammer curl, but also trains your lats, traps, and rear delts.
  • Neutral Grip Pull-ups. Like the seated cable row, this also trains your biceps and brachialis in a very similar way as hammer curls.
  • Zottman Curl. The Zottman curl combines a regular biceps curl and a reverse biceps curl. You curl the dumbbells up with your palms facing the ceiling and lower the weights with your palms facing the floor. Personally, I don’t bother with it as it doesn’t have any meaningful advantage over other curl variations, which is usually the case when trying to shoehorn two exercises into one.

3 Dumbbell Hammer Curl Workouts

Here are three sample workouts that show how to program the dumbbell hammer curl in a biceps-focused session, pull day, or upper-body day.

Biceps Workout with the Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Incline Dumbbell Curl: 2 sets | 6–8 reps | 1–2 min rest
Dumbbell Hammer Curl: 2 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest
Seated Cable Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest

Pull Day Workout with the Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Machine Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Close-Grip Lat Pulldown: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Dumbbell Hammer Curl: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest

Upper-Body Workout with the Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Machine Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Lat Pulldown: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Dumbbell Hammer Curl: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest

To progress these workouts, use double progression: use a weight that allows you to work within the given rep range, take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure, and once you hit the top of the range for your first set, add weight.

Muscles Worked by the Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Hammer curls primarily train your biceps—both the short and long heads—and brachialis, the muscle beneath them. Your brachioradialis, a muscle on the thumb side of your forearm, also helps bend your elbow.

More Biceps Exercises

The post The Best Way to Do the Dumbbell Hammer Curl appeared first on Legion Athletics.

https://ift.tt/GblFVsJ October 5, 2026 at 10:47PM Legion Athletics

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