Suspension Hammer Curl

How to do the Suspension Hammer Curl

1. 1Adjust the suspension straps so the handles hang at roughly hip height when you are standing at the anchor point.
2. 2Face the anchor, grip both handles with a neutral grip — palms facing each other — and extend your arms fully in front of you.
3. 3Walk your feet forward until your body forms a straight line from heels to shoulders at a comfortable lean angle. The more you lean back, the harder the exercise.
4. 4Brace your core, squeeze your glutes, and keep your body rigid like a plank throughout the movement.
5. 5With elbows close to your sides, curl both handles toward your shoulders in a smooth arc, keeping your palms facing each other the entire way.
6. 6Pause briefly at the top when your knuckles are near your shoulders, feeling the contraction in your forearms and upper arms.
7. 7Slowly extend your arms back to the starting position under control, resisting the pull of gravity the whole way down.
8. 8Complete your reps, then step back toward the anchor to reduce tension before letting go of the handles.

Form tips

• Keep your elbows anchored close to your sides throughout the curl — letting them drift forward turns the movement into a row and takes tension off the target muscles.
• Maintain a perfectly rigid body line from heels to head; any sagging at the hips reduces the load on your arms and stresses your lower back.
• Adjust your lean angle to control difficulty: feet further forward increases resistance, feet further back makes it easier — use this to hit the right intensity for each set.
• Pause and squeeze at the top of each rep to maximize brachioradialis and brachialis activation before lowering.
• Lower the handles slowly — a 2–3 second eccentric builds more strength than dropping to the bottom quickly.

Common mistakes

• Letting the hips sag during the curl, which shifts tension away from the arms and puts strain on the lumbar spine.
• Allowing the elbows to flare forward or outward as you pull, which recruits the shoulders and reduces the curl's effectiveness on the brachioradialis.
• Using a supinated (palms-up) grip instead of neutral, which changes the exercise to a standard biceps curl and removes the hammer-curl stimulus on the brachioradialis.
• Swinging the body or using momentum to complete reps instead of controlled muscle contraction, which reduces stimulus and increases injury risk.
• Setting the straps too long or standing too upright so there is little bodyweight load — not enough resistance to create a meaningful training stimulus.

Frequently asked questions