EZ Barbell Standing Wrist Curl

How to do the EZ Barbell Standing Wrist Curl

1. 1Stand tall holding an EZ barbell behind your thighs with an underhand (palms-back) grip, hands roughly shoulder-width on the angled sections of the bar.
2. 2Keep your arms straight and close to your body, with your wrists just below your glutes so the bar hangs at the back of your thighs.
3. 3Let the bar roll down toward your fingertips, allowing your wrists to extend fully and feel a stretch through the forearm flexors.
4. 4Curl the bar back up by flexing your wrists, closing your hands and raising the bar as high as your range of motion allows.
5. 5Squeeze the forearms briefly at the top while keeping your arms and elbows still.
6. 6Lower the bar under control back to the stretched, fingertip position.
7. 7Complete your reps, then set the bar down on a rack or the floor with a flat back.

Form tips

• Move only at the wrists — keep your elbows, arms, and shoulders locked in place so the forearms do the work.
• Use the angled grips of the EZ bar to keep your wrists in a more comfortable, neutral-leaning position than a straight bar allows.
• Use a slow, controlled tempo and a full range of motion, letting the bar roll to your fingertips and curling all the way up.
• Keep the weight light to moderate; the forearms respond well to higher reps rather than heavy, sloppy loads.

Common mistakes

• Using too much weight, which forces the elbows and arms to swing and shifts work off the forearms.
• Cutting the range of motion short by not letting the bar roll down to the fingertips, which loses the stretch and tension on the wrist flexors.
• Bending the elbows or moving the shoulders to heave the bar up, turning the isolation movement into a cheat.
• Gripping so tightly the whole set that the wrists can't extend, which limits the working range and reduces the stretch.

Frequently asked questions