Why do people add incline DB curls to their routine, but perform them like this?
Lean back, lift your chest.
For the same reason people claim to overhead press but slouch and turn it into an incline press. They want to lift as much weight as possible as the sacrifice of targeting the desired muscle. They just don’t know better.
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As long as you’re still stretching the biceps to the max extent possible with this positioning, I don’t see an issue tbh.
are you stretching maximal though if the shoulder girdle is rotated like the pic? Wouldn’t you stretch the biceps more by laying back and lifting the chest?
This is basically arguing the whole “pinkey’s up during Lateral Delt Raises” thing, and it probably doesn’t matter at all.
Sure, some movement potential could be lost - but I would go out on a limb and say that no one with >20" arms is saying “it’s because they kept their shoulders back and chest up during Inclind DB Curls”.
Biceps do not benefit from the extreme full ROM many people do on inclines and preacher curls.
Chris Beardsley has a good article on a study that was done. I believe the same was found for triceps.
Cause Reg said so!
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Just my 2 cents, but many focus too much on form, and many too little. It needs to be decent, but I think many keep themselves from progressing because they have to have this perfect form, and many others progress weight, but the lift they are doing isn’t even close to what it’s supposed to be.
Example BB rows. I’ve seen guys with perfect form, but they never get past 185 lbs. I’ve also seen guys almost standing straight up and touching below their belly buttons, using a ton of weight (it looks like a weird shrug with leg drive). I think there is an in between on these.
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They do it just to fuck with you man!
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Well, as long as the arm is curled and the person progresses year after year, the biceps is stimulated. Its not like doing it in a correct way would give you noticeably more gains.
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People seem to argue about this kind of stuff all the time but I think it’s just getting caught up in the minutiae for most. Maybe he’s sacrificing a little range of motion and we all know that range of motion can be a key driver, but that extra few percent in the grand scheme of things is chasing perfection, and chasing perfection over the other pillars of strength and progressive overload could be a pretty trivial endeavor.
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It’s a trick question: incline curls are dumb
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Highly Controversial Take!
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I have a buddy that has pretty bad form on curls (but it’s still a curl), but he uses like 60 lbs an arm for sets of 10, and has very good biceps development.
Reg taught Arnold to use cheat curls too.
Haters will say it’s photoshopped
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