Are barbell curls effective?

Barbell curls are effective for training your biceps. For other muscle groups, you might want to find more effective exercises.

What is your why

Before we go into the details of whether barbell curls are effective, let me ask you a couple of questions:

Why do you want to barbell curl?
Why do you want to get stronger?
Why do you want to build muscle?
What happens when you do?
What happens if you don’t?

You might think that these questions are trivial or beneath you. They will ultimately determine whether you fail or succeed. Taking the time to reflect on your underlying motivations will pay dividends. Life is hard and will get in the way of reaching your fitness goals. You better have good reasons to stay on track. Otherwise, you will drop the ball.

Most people go about their lives in this fashion:

What do I want
How do I get it
Why do I want it

With this thought pattern, you will always stay reactive. What you want is highly influenced by who is around you, what you see and hear and how your mood is. This changes hundreds of times a day. If you let your wants steer your direction in life you will only chase your own tail. The result will be unhappiness and an unfulfilling career.

If you flip the order of these questions on their head something interesting happens:

Why do you want something
How do you get it
What do you need to do to get it

By putting your innermost drive at the starting your thoughts and actions will connect. There will be one single point everything will gravitate towards. This will yield results. It will also be either for you to get help from others. If you want to know how this works on a psychological basis read Daniel Kahneman's book thinking fast and slow. Still not convinced? Watch Simon Sinek's TED talk on the golden circle. He makes a very compelling case telling the story of the Wright brothers.

The barbell curl

The barbell curl is a movement that mainly targets your biceps. While standing you grip the barbell around the middle. From the hip, you move the Barbell up by curling your arms. You can touch your chin at the top for a full rep.

Weightlifters will usually not do a lot of barbell curls. It is not that relevant to their sport to have a big biceps. It will be done at times but. It that often.

Powerlifters will use the barbell curl as an accessory movement to bench press more. The biceps is involved in the bench press, even though the triceps and the pecs play a bigger role.

Bodybuilders will is the barbell curl to pump up their biceps. Curls are one of the most effective exercises to make your biceps grow.

Limitations to the barbell curl

The usual limitations to the barbell curl are

Strength
Mobility
Technique

Lack of strength is the biggest limiting factor to the barbell curl as the basic movement is not complex. It also does not involve a lot of muscle groups.

Mobility is often not the main limiting factor to the barbell curl. Unless you have an injury around the elbow area most people are able to bend their arms enough to do a curl.

The technique is also often not an issue with curls. That is why they are so popular. Easy to do and effective for the biceps.

Pros of the barbell curl

The barbell curl is very easy to do and effective. The biceps also usually responds quite well to stimulation. This is why it is a good and popular exercise to grow your muscles.

Cons of the barbell curl

Barbell curls only involve a very limited amount of muscles. If you do not train the other muscle groups you will create imbalances. You can get more muscles stimulated in less time with movements like the deadlift, squat or bench press.

Alternatives to the barbell curl

Alternatives to the barbell curl are:

Hammer curls
Dumbbell curls
Reverse curls
Kettlebell curls
Cable curls
EZ bar curls

I highly recommend that you swap the barbell for an EZ barbell for curls. This puts less strain on your wrists.