Zottman Curl
What you'll gain
Trains the biceps and the forearm elbow flexors inside a single repetition.
The slow palms-down lowering builds grip and wrist strength.
Needs only a pair of dumbbells, so it fits home and travel setups.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- 1
Stand upright with a dumbbell in each hand and your feet shoulder-width apart.
- 2
Let your arms hang at your sides with your palms facing forward.
- 3
Curl both dumbbells to your shoulders with your elbows pinned to your ribs.
- 4
Rotate your wrists at the top until your palms face the floor.
- 5
Lower the dumbbells slowly with the palms-down grip, taking three or four seconds.
- 6
Rotate back to palms up at the bottom and repeat.
Common Mistakes
Rotating halfway down instead of at the top, which loads the wrist rather than the forearm.
Racing the descent, which skips the pronated eccentric that defines the exercise.
Letting the elbows slide behind the body on the way down, which shortens the range.
Using standard curl weights, which makes the palms-down lowering impossible to control.
About This Exercise
The Zottman curl fuses two curls into a single rep. You lift with a supinated grip so the biceps handle the way up, rotate the hands to palms down at the top, then lower slowly with the pronated grip, which puts the forearm elbow flexors in charge of the descent. It is an intermediate level curl with the forearms as the secondary target. The rotation has to happen deliberately at the top rather than partway down, or the wrist rather than the forearm takes the load. For a catalog this clip earns its place because the rotation is the whole exercise and a still image cannot show it. It suits arm and grip blocks, dumbbell-only home programs, forearm development content, and any library that wants a single movement covering both elbow flexor groups.
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A dumbbell curl that lifts with the palms up and lowers with the palms down, training biceps and forearms in one rep.
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Specifications
Built for
- Arm and grip blocks in a strength training app.
- Dumbbell-only filter entry covering both elbow flexor groups.
- Forearm development content for coaches and creators.
- Time-efficient arm templates that pair biceps and forearm work.
Muscles Worked
Details
License Includes
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