This is a GREAT exercise for
working the brachialis muscles that is limited only by the
height of your ceiling! If your gym has high ceilings, you
should be all set! If it's got drop ceilings, be careful
- you may end up with ceiling tiles on your head...
First, you'll nee one Olympic
barbell (start with just the bar the first time you do these
- you can add weight later).
Pick up the bar and stand
it up on end. In the pics, I'm using a bar loaded with 25's
on both ends (make sure your collars are solid when you
start adding weight on).
Grip the barbell with both
hands, just like you were gripping a baseball bat (one right
above the other). You should grip at a point on the bar
where your elbows are almost fully extended. The bar will
be only a few inches in front of you.
Now, using arm power, try
to push the barbell end up into the ceiling. If you don't
have low ceilings, your range of motion will be greater
that what I'm able to manage in my gym. When I do this exercise,
I hit the ceiling before I get full flexion of the elbows.
But it's still a GREAT exercise for the arms, believe me!
Hold at the top for a second
then lower the bar and rest it on the ground again. I found
I got best results by momentarily releasing tension in the
arms before the next rep, so setting the bar end on the
ground worked perfectly.
Repeat this upward push/curl
for as many reps as you can!
When you start getting fatigued,
you can easily adjust your range of motion. Just grip higher
up on the bar to start the exercise! At the beginning of
this rep, my elbows are bent 90 degrees (with the bar resting
on the floor).
So as I push/curl the bar
up, I hit that top range of motion I was missing with the
low ceiling before. But it makes a great continuation of
the set after full-range reps, too.
When you've maxed out with
that, we can even go one step further. Squat down a bit
then grip on the bar with your elbows at 90 degrees:
Now stand up, using leg power
to help get the movement started. This hurts like a bugger
at this point and you can really toast your brachilias with
this. Using your legs to spot an arm exercise and make it
MUCH tougher is a really powerful way to train.
Give this a try on your next
workout and if anybody comes up and tells you you're doing
curls wrong, make them do 10 reps of it.