Barbell Wrist Curl

How to do the Barbell Wrist Curl

1. 1Sit on a bench with your feet flat on the ground and your knees bent.
2. 2Hold a barbell with an underhand grip, palms facing up, and your hands shoulder-width apart.
3. 3Rest your forearms on your thighs, allowing your wrists to hang off the edge.
4. 4Slowly curl your wrists upward, bringing the barbell towards your forearms.
5. 5Pause for a moment at the top, then slowly lower the barbell back down to the starting position.
6. 6Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

Tip: Use higher reps, 15 to 25, and lower the weight through a full three-second descent.

Muscles worked

Common mistakes

• Using the whole arm — the forearms should rest on a bench or your thighs with only the hands moving; if the elbows lift, you are cheating.
• Gripping hard on the descent — let the bar roll down to the fingertips at the bottom of a wrist curl for the full range before curling back up.
• Reverse curls too heavy — the wrist extensors are small, so use about half of what you use for regular wrist curls.
• Fast, short reps — go slowly through the full range and feel the stretch at the bottom, since jerky reps with a heavy weight are how wrists get irritated.

Where it fits in a workout

Wrist curls go last in a session after all the pulling and gripping work is done. Superset regular and reverse wrist curls back to back.

How many sets, how heavy and how hard: see what the ACSM position stands support.

Variations and alternatives

When to talk to someone

• Chest discomfort, feeling faint or lightheaded, or trouble breathing during or after exercise can be signs of a heart attack. In the US, call 911 right away; elsewhere, call your local emergency number.
• Heart, metabolic or kidney disease, or symptoms like these when you are active: talk to your doctor before you start or step up training.
• Pregnant: ask your obstetric care provider which exercise suits you.

More exercises

• All arms exercises
• All forearms exercises
• All barbell exercises
• Barbell forearms exercises
• Banded Reverse Wrist Curl
• Resistance Band Wrist Curl
• Cable Reverse Wrist Curl
• Single Arm Dumbbell Reverse Wrist Curl
• Single Arm Bench Dumbbell Reverse Wrist Curl
• Dumbbell Wrist Curl

Sources

1. ACSM position stand on exercise quantity and quality (Garber et al., 2011)
2. ACSM preparticipation health screening (Riebe et al., 2015)
3. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 804 on exercise in pregnancy (2020)
4. CDC: About Heart Attack Symptoms, Risk, and Recovery (2024)

Sources checked on October 17, 2026. Full citations are in the exercise library.