As an athlete, you’re always looking for new and innovative to get bigger, stronger, and healthier. Variation in your training routine is one way to help you overcome training adaptation and continue building lean muscle mass and strength. The spider curl is one of the most effective bicep movements that you can add to your arm day training split, to help extend range of motion and build more muscle and strength. We’re going to talk about the spider curl and how this bicep exercise can help you build bigger stronger arms. 

What Are Spider Curls

Spider curls are an isolated strength training movement that contracts and stimulates your biceps. Spider curls are performed using a pair of dumbbells or an EZ bar with your arms hanging over a 45-degree bench. This allows for a greater range of motion which will help increase lean muscle mass and strength.  

Similar to a concentration curl, the spider curl requires a slow controlled movement. With full isolation of both biceps, the spider curl is one of the best bicep exercises to build bigger, stronger arms.

Spider Curl Benefits

One of the greatest benefits of the spider curl is that it effectively isolates your biceps from start to finish. The positive portion of the movement stimulates the short and long head of the bicep also known as the (biceps brachii and brachialis).

Spider curls allow for a greater range of motion. Positioned chest down and your arms hanging behind you, you can achieve a greater range of motion, which is required to build lean muscle mass.

Spider curls also keep your biceps under constant tension and activated. More time under tension will help increase strength and muscle hypertrophy.

How To Do Spider Curls 

• Adjust a flat bench to a 45-degree angle.
• Place your chest against the bench and rest your feet on the floor. Your legs should be long with a slight bend in your knees. Your weight should be on the balls of your feet.
• Grab the dumbbells with your palms facing away from your body and arms hanging towards the floor.
• With your arms fully extended and neutral, contract your biceps, and bend your elbows until your lower arms fully curl the weight straight up as high as possible.
• At the top of the rep squeeze your biceps hard, pause at the top of the movement.
• Slowly deload and contract weight on the eccentric phase of the lift lowering your elbows with control. Come to a complete stop at the bottom before beginning another repetition.

Spider Curls: Takeaway

Spider curls are an excellent variation to the traditional bicep curl. Instead of a preacher, or concentration curl, the spider curl achieves full range of motion, which is vital to build more muscle and strength. With full contraction and constant time under tension, this isolate bicep movement should be in your training program. 

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