Wide Curl (Dumbbell)
The Wide Curl is a dumbbell bicep variation performed with elbows tucked and arms angled outward to target the inner 'short head' of the biceps. This exercise helps develop arm thickness and width while improving grip strength.
Since bicep isolation is often performed at the end of a workout when fatigue sets in, maintaining strict form is critical to avoid injury. The AI analyzes your rep performance and RPE to ensure you aren't using momentum to cheat the weight up, which shifts tension away from the target muscle. Additionally, by tracking your overall recovery and upper-body volume from previous sessions, the app ensures you don't overtrain the smaller bicep muscles, optimizing growth for the short head.
Form Cues
- Stand with feet hip-width apart and rotate your arms so palms face away from your body
- Keep your elbows pinned tightly against your ribs or slightly in front of them
- Curl the dumbbells upward and outward at a wide angle toward your shoulders
- Squeeze the biceps hard at the top of the movement
- Lower the weights slowly, fully extending the elbows at the bottom
- Don't let your elbows flare out away from your body
- Don't swing your torso backward to generate momentum
- Don't curl the weights straight forward; maintain the wide angle
- Don't drop the weight quickly during the lowering phase
- Don't shrug your shoulders up toward your ears
Common Mistakes
- Swinging the body
- Drifting elbows forward
- Curling straight instead of wide
- Shortening the range of motion
- Using excessive weight
Muscles Worked
This exercise primarily targets the short head (inner portion) of the biceps brachii, which is responsible for the width of the arm when viewed from the front. By externally rotating the shoulder and curling at a wide angle, you place the long head in a mechanically less advantageous position, forcing the short head and forearms to perform more of the work.
Primary
Secondary
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