The Best And Worst Biceps Exercises

The biceps get a lot of attention, and for good reason. Simply growing this one muscle can make a dramatic difference in how jacked you look in a t-shirt. So in this video, I'll be covering the best and worst biceps exercises based on the latest science. I'm going to rank them on a tier list, from S for super to F for fail. And at the end, I'll crown one exercise as the best of the best, and I'll pick one as the worst of the worst.

Here's my criteria for ranking exercises. To get into S tier, it needs to provide high tension, especially in the stretched position. It needs to feel good, which means it doesn't cause elbow pain, and it has a smooth resistance profile. And it should have a simple progression; that's ultimately what keeps your arms growing. If you can't add weight or reps over time, I'm knocking it down.

Now, the biceps have two heads, as the name biceps implies. There's a short head, which sits on the inside of your arm, and a long head, which sits on the back of your arm and contributes more to that elusive biceps peak. There's also another big muscle that sits underneath the biceps called the brachialis, and it's actually just as big as both heads of the biceps combined. And it can also help push the biceps up more, creating bigger peaks, so it's an important muscle. As we go, we'll consider which variations will target which head, and along the way, we'll see that there's some decent evidence that you most likely can target your biceps peak. And there's one exercise in particular that I think you should definitely include if you're trying to bring up your peaks.

Now, the biceps perform two main biomechanical functions: elbow flexion, which is when you bend your elbow like in a curl, and supination, which is when you turn your palm facing up. You can try this out for yourself. If you start with your palm facing down and then slowly turn it up, you'll notice that your biceps automatically contract. I cue for this supination by thinking about driving through my pinkies as I curl. Both heads of the biceps also cross the shoulder joint, which means the biceps will be more stretched when the arm is held back behind the torso.

Okay, let's start with the most popular biceps exercise of all time: the barbell curl. Right away, we can see that tension on the biceps isn't exactly optimal. The hardest part of the range is when the elbow is at 90° and above; that tension goes down, and below that, tension also goes down until it reaches zero tension at the very bottom. And the very bottom is also when the biceps are most stretched, so this most likely isn't ideal. But you'll still grow your biceps as long as you're pushing hard, and the barbell curl is very good for overload; you can easily add a little weight each week. The biggest issue is that the straight barbell puts some strain on my wrists. Plus, in gyms, hogging up a squat rack just to do curls is bad etiquette. That's because you can do curls so many different ways, but you really need a squat rack to do barbell squats. All things considered, I think the barbell curl belongs in C tier, plus, but I'll bump it up to B tier just because it's so accessible.

The easy bar curl is the same thing, except the handles curve in a way that eases up some torque on my wrists. I use the outer part of the easy bar because a shoulder-width grip feels more comfortable. This grip angle puts you in between a fully supinated grip like you'd use on barbell curls and a neutral grip like you'd use on hammer curls. However, if you use this in-between angled grip, you will take your biceps out of supination to some degree. This means it might shift some tension toward the brachialis and brachioradialis instead of the biceps per se. So to make sure my biceps are still firing, I simply think about driving through my pinkies as I curl—problem solved. I actually really like the easy bar curl, especially as a heavy free-weight bicep movement in the 6-to-8 rep range. From an optimization standpoint, it probably belongs in B tier, but I'm going to go ahead and bump it up to A tier because it's still an exercise I do quite often for the convenience, simplicity, and overload.

The standing dumbbell curl has zero tension in the full stretch, just like the barbell and easy bar curl. Honestly, I might have made a bigger stink about this if I made this video a few months ago before our new study came out on full range of motion versus length and persels in experienced trainees. Check out this video for more on that. So the dumbbell curl loses one point for the suboptimal tension curve, but it's still a very convenient exercise that'll still grow your arms. It's also nice that you get to work each side individually, which can help fix bicep size asymmetries. Doing alternating dumbbell curls might be slightly less optimal just because your biceps get this long rest in between each rep. The study from Goto and colleagues makes me think that doing those long pauses without any tension in between reps probably is a bit worse for muscle growth. As long as you're doing both arms at the same time, I think the dumbbell curl belongs in low A tier.

Doing your dumbbell curls as preacher curls immediately makes the exercise better. That's because by angling your upper arm, you actually pull more tension into your biceps in the stretched position. And even though your arm is out in front of you, you still get a pretty good stretch here, as long as you go all the way down. And more importantly, you have high tension in that stretched position. And having high tension in a stretched position seems to be more important than the total stretch that a muscle experiences. This was shown in a recent study that compared incline curls to preacher curls. The preacher curl caused significantly more distal biceps growth—growth closer to the elbow joint—that's most likely because with the preacher curl you get very high tension in a pretty good stretch, while with the incline curl you get basically no tension in a very big stretch. Preacher curls also lock your elbows in place, making it near impossible to cheat. There's basically nothing I can knock it for, so the preacher curl definitely belongs in S tier. And as for incline curls, since we now have that study showing that they are a bit worse than preacher curls, they have to go in a lower tier. I still do them from time to time since they're a solid lengthened-biased movement that's fast to set up and easy to do. I'm still putting them in low A tier.

The lying dumbbell curl is basically just the more extreme version of the incline curl. I first saw these in Dr. Mike's arm routine, so I tried them out for myself. While they do look a bit wonky, they actually felt pretty solid. You get this huge stretch, especially near the top of your bicep, close to your shoulder. This felt great to me, but if you have shoulder issues, you might want to skip this one. Also, unlike the incline curl, when I lie down, I can feel more tension in my biceps in that most stretched starting position. So while it's a bit too early for me to say if I like it better than the standard incline curl, I definitely think it's worth trying out, and I'm putting it in A tier.

Now, the Scott curl is basically just a preacher curl with a vertical arm. And while the man who it's named after had some of the most impressive biceps of all time, I don't think it's the best biceps exercise. That's because by placing your arm vertically, you remove all the tension in the stretched position. It's basically just a worse version of the 45° preacher curl, so I just don't see why you do it, and for that reason, it's going in C tier.

On the other hand, the flat bench curl is basically a preacher curl with the bench angle completely horizontal. Doing curls this way will cause the highest bicep tension in the most stretched position, and then tension drops off throughout the positive. I was doing these for a while as a high-rep finisher, but I found myself gravitating back toward the standard 45° preacher curl lately. I found you just hit a wall with your progression on these because you're limited to light weights and high reps. As a high-rep burnout with a really big stretch emphasis, I think they're good, but they got old for me quickly. I'm putting them in low B tier.

The machine preacher curl has the added benefit of being nice and locked in. I actually only do these in the bottom half of the range to emphasize the stretch a bit more, and I do these every single week. They're easily going in S tier, but they're still not my number one bicep builder. Before we get to that, let's knock out the waiter curl. This is probably the most gimmicky biceps exercise. I actually see people do it; it cranks your wrists, the plate feels awkward, and you're limited with overload. I just use dumbbells instead. And if you really want to hyperextend your wrists a bit to help take your swms out, you can still do that with dumbbells, but with more degrees of freedom. I'm putting waiter curls in F tier.

The drag curl does have potential because by moving your arm back as you curl, you do put the bicep under a greater degree of stretch. However, as you curl, you're shortening the bicep at the elbow joint while simultaneously lengthening it at the shoulder joint. This means that the total biceps muscle length doesn't actually change much throughout the range of motion. It's kind of similar to how the total hamstrings muscle length doesn't change much on a squat, and we know that squats don't grow the hamstrings very well. So even if there's no direct science on it, I still think the drag curl wouldn't grow the biceps as well as a more standard dumbbell curl. It's going in C tier.

The spider curl is the other overrated exercise. By shifting your arms forward in front of your body, you're putting your biceps in a very shortened position. So at no point in this range of motion will your biceps experience a high degree of stretch. The dumbbells can also annoyingly hit the bench and throw off your groove, so spider curls are going in C tier.

Okay, chin-ups. If you look at these from a side angle, you can see that there's actually a pretty solid range of motion at the elbow joint. And out of all the back exercises, I do think these will grow your biceps the most. However, because so much of your back musculature is also involved, it's unlikely that your biceps will be the limiting factor. And so while they clearly will grow your biceps, especially as a beginner, I don't think they're as good as most isolation exercises. That said, because they're so accessible—all you need is your own body weight—I'm still putting them in B tier.

Okay, let's have some fun. 21s are a sort of bro exercise where you do seven reps in the bottom half, then seven reps in the top half, and then you finish with seven full range of motion reps. This is a fun way to challenge your arms, but I just don't think it's in the right order. Traditional 21s has you hit the lengthened part first, which is probably the most anabolic; then you hit the shortened part, which is the least anabolic; and then the full range of motion last. So the order is long, short, full. I think it's a lot smarter to do these short, then full, then long. So I do seven seated curls first, which trains the shortened top half. Obviously, you could just do these standing, but I find doing them seated standardizes the range on each rep and keeps it more interesting. Then I stand up and do seven full ROM curls, and then I do seven bottom-half curls at the end. This way, the curls get a little easier as your biceps fatigue, and this way you get to end the set with a bunch of length and partials. I don't always stop at exactly seven reps at the end either; I just keep going until I can't get at least halfway up. So if you do 21s the old-school way, I think they belong in high C tier, but if you do them the modified way, I think they can get into low A tier.

Okay, let's rank some cable exercises. The standard cable curl is good, but not great. By having your arms at your sides, you don't get a big pre-stretch in your biceps. I do still include these periodically though because you do get this nice even tension throughout the range of motion, and I do think they're just good enough to get into low A tier. However, by flipping around and facing away from the cable, you immediately improve the tension profile. By placing your arms back behind your torso, you get maximum stretch on the biceps, and you still get that nice even tension throughout the range. I recommend setting up the cable at around hand height, taking one or two steps forward, and curling with both arms at the same time. Now, if you don't have a dual-stack cable machine, you can always do one arm at a time. And if you're trying to bring up your biceps peak, this is an exercise I definitely wouldn't skip because the long head will experience a very high degree of stretch and tension. It's probably not my number one exercise for the peak; I'll get to that in a second. The face-away behind-the-back cable curl is going in S tier, of course it is; it's amazing.

All right, this is a freaky-looking variation on the behind-the-back cable curl that I've been playing around with lately. I don't have a name for it yet, so I'll open it up to suggestions in the comments. The cool thing about this variation is that you actually get this 90° angle between the cable and your forearm while the bicep is most stretched. This means you're getting maximum tension on the biceps while they're in their most stretched position. They were a little awkward the first time I tried them, but once I figured out the right cable height, they felt fantastic. I'm honestly feeling S tier, but since I've only had them in my rotation for about a month, I don't want to overhype them too early, so I'm going to tentatively drop them back to A tier for now.

You may be surprised to learn that there actually aren't any studies on whether or not cheating or strict form causes more muscle growth. I'm planning to help run that study soon, but for now, I can't see the theoretical merits of both. As long as the cheating isn't too extreme, by using a little momentum to help get the weight moving, you can curl up a bit more load and then resist and control that load on the very anabolic negative phase. This might surprise some of you, but I actually think a properly executed cheat curl can be great for biceps growth and can also teach some people who might be more uptight and rigid with their form how to push themselves hard. I definitely don't think I'd recommend them for beginners, but as an experienced trainee, as long as you can control the negative and keep the cheating under control, I'd put them in the bottom of A tier.

The strict curl is at the opposite end of the spectrum here. You maintain very strict technique by bracing against a wall with three points of contact: your glutes, your upper back, and your head. The theoretical upside here is that you direct all the tension coming from the bar into your biceps. Unlike with the cheat curl, there's no tension being lost to your hips or your low back. With strict curls, if you're lifting more weight or doing more reps, your biceps are getting stronger, and they're most likely getting bigger too. I suspect strict curls would be a bit better than cheat curls, but without that study, it's hard to know for sure, and honestly, I could see it going either way. So I'm going to leave strict curls in A tier for now as well.

Now, hammer curls are really interesting. By taking a neutral grip and pointing your thumb up, you take your biceps out of supination. This means the biceps probably will be less active on hammer curls than on standard curls. However, remember there's this other big muscle that sits directly underneath the biceps called the brachialis, and the brachialis will be very active on hammer curls. That's because all it does is bend the elbow; it can't contribute to supination at all. So by performing hammer curls, you might shift some tension away from the biceps and toward the brachialis. And since the brachialis can push the biceps up more, that should enhance the appearance of bicep peak. And because of their ability to smash the brachialis, I think I would consider them my number one movement for biceps peak. Now, obviously, you can't change the genetic structure of your biceps, and there's honestly no hard science on this, but it does make sense to me that as you grow your brachialis bigger, the shape of your bicep should become more peaked, even if just a little. Of course, dumbbell hammer curls have the same tension issue as all the free-weight standing curls, so they're not quite good enough to get into S tier, but they definitely do belong in A tier. That said, if you do your hammer curls while braced against a preacher bench, you instantly improve the resistance profile, and so hammer grip preacher curls are going in S tier.

Inverse Zman curls are where you do a hammer curl on the positive and then a standard supinated curl on the negative. This means you get the advantage of hammer curls on the positive for the brachialis and the advantage of supinated curls on the negative for the biceps. These also can help overload the biceps on the negative with a bit more load since you're generally able to curl more weight up with a hammer grip, and since your biceps are stronger on the negative, I think that's a smart pairing. Inverse Zman curls are going in high A tier.

And if I had to pick just one exercise as the best of the best, it'd have to be the face-away behind-the-back cable curl. I think the 45° preacher curl would be a very close second, and I think they should both be in your biceps routine. And the worst of the worst would have to be the waiter curl.

Also, I want to give you guys a quick update on my new book. I'm going to send everyone who pre-orders the Muscle Ladder a free ebook called The Ultimate Exercise Guide, which covers my best exercise for every muscle. It covers the muscles that I haven't covered in this series, like the forearms, glutes, and calves. It also includes more depth than I'm able to give in these videos. To get the free ebook, all you need to do is pre-order the Muscle Ladder on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you buy your books, and then show me your order number. To do that, just go to jeffnippard.me. You'll get the free ebook to your email as well; all you have to do is go to jeffnippard.me. Versus cheating technique, I'll definitely do a video on that once the study is up and running. Um, don't forget to leave me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you guys all here in the next one.