Curl It

Originally posted 5/24/21

Curls for healthy elbows, not just big biceps.

I can quantify my development as a coach by how many things I change my mind on. The field is constantly evolving, and there are so many things that work, it's easy to get stuck in your ways and forget to question your own assumptions.

One of those assumptions I've recently flipped on was that curls were a waste of time.

I figured our time in the gym is precious and therefore, we shouldn't spend any time on single-joint isolation movements when we could instead use that time to do functional, multi-joint compound movements.

But for the past 18 months, we've been adding in more and more curls to our programming repertoire.

Why?

We realized we were missing some big gains in terms of building tissue tolerance, perfusing tendons and ligaments, and doing more targeted muscle building.

In other words, some occasional curls will help keep your elbows and forearms healthy, which is our main reason for giving them some love. Secondly, there's a nice side effect of getting more jacked.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain