Close-Grip Barbell Curl
Standing barbell curl with the hands set inside shoulder width, shifting emphasis toward the outer biceps.
How to do it
- Load a straight barbell and stand with your feet about hip width apart.
- Take an underhand grip with your hands inside shoulder width.
- Stand tall with the bar at arms length and your elbows at your sides.
- Brace your abs and curl the bar toward your shoulders.
- Squeeze the biceps at the top without letting the elbows travel forward.
- Lower under control, stopping just short of a locked elbow, then repeat.
Key technique cue
Keep the grip no narrower than comfortable and hips still — only the arms lift the bar.
Common mistakes
- ✕ Swinging the hips to start the bar moving, which takes load off the biceps.
- ✕ Letting the elbows drift back behind the torso, which shortens the working range.
- ✕ Gripping so narrow that the wrists ache, which limits load before the biceps are trained.
- ✕ Dropping the bar quickly, which skips the eccentric where much of the stimulus sits.
Benefits
- ✓ Trains elbow flexion with a fixed grip width that is easy to repeat session to session.
- ✓ The narrow grip shifts emphasis toward the outer part of the biceps.
- ✓ A bar allows small load jumps, so progression is simple to track.
Progression: from easier to harder
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Step 1 You are here - Step 2
About the exercise
The close-grip barbell curl loads a straight bar with the hands narrower than shoulder width and the palms facing up. Narrowing the grip rotates the upper arms slightly outward, and the standard coaching claim is that it biases the outer or long head of the biceps compared with a wide grip. Both heads still work, so treat the difference as a shift in emphasis rather than a separate exercise. Keep the elbows pinned at your sides, stop the chest and hips helping, and hold a small bend at the bottom so tension never fully leaves the arm.
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