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Just wanted to know what your opinions were on the Power Curl.

Would it be wise to repalce all bicep isolation exercises with the Power Curl?

If you don't know what a power curl is, it's basically doing a Hang Clean with reverse grip, and instead of scooping the bar, you just curl like in a bicep curl.

I remember reading about this exercise somehwere online, but couldn't find much info on it.

Thanks

Are we talking palms up or palms down?

Arnold Schwartzenegger used to swear by Cheating Curls, which are a varioation of ordinarry barbell curls. Usually he would select a weight which allowed him to get a few reps in strict form, then upon reaching failure resort to using body English to get a few more reps.

A similar strategy would be to perform a set of strict Military Presses to failure followed immediately by a few Push Presses.

The way ive done it was to power curl it up (palms up), and do the negative portion to a count of 5. Set the bar down, and repeat. I didnt do it long enough to say how effective it is though.

A word of caution however ... doing any type of curl with a very heavy barbell can cause or aggrevate pain/discomfort in the wrist and/or forearm. This holds true, although to a somewhat lesser extent with an EZ-curl bar. If you find this to be the case, discontinue the exercise, and try something different.

The "Power curl" is NOT a biceps exercise. It's a curl grip power clean. Al Oerter (the 4 time O champion in the discus) ppularizd it. What you do, it to grab a bar off the rack, with a curl grip, lower it down past mid shin or on the floor, and whip the bar up to the shoulders. We did these back in High School, because they did not require the technique of a power clean, but used the same posterior chain movements. Look over at Dan Jo0hn's site. He has a couple of articles on this.

I think it can be utilized as a biceps exercise though if done like the way i mentioned. It allows you to take your max concentric curl weight or even a little more, use all the force to curl it up...then perform negatives with it.

Hi Jeff. Iwas trying to reply to the initial poster, Wolfsrain. Sounded like we were on the same page. Itotally agree with and and Matt as far as curling options go, but was reponding to the initial question, i.e. power curls.
Tim

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