reckonerCable rope hammer curl
A hammer curl on a low pulley with a rope. Thumbs up, palms facing each other, elbows at your sides. The cable keeps the pull on through the whole rep, and Reckoner counts it for the biceps and the forearms together.
Thumbs up, elbows pinned.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Biceps, forearms
- Kit
- Cable
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2.5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Very low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Elbow
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set a rope on a low pulley
Clip a rope to the bottom pulley and take an end in each hand, thumbs up. Step back a little so the weight lifts off the stack, which keeps tension on at the bottom of every rep.
Pin the elbows
Stand tall with your arms straight and your elbows against your sides. They stay there the whole set, so the elbow is the only joint that bends.
Curl the rope up, thumbs leading
Bend at the elbows and bring your hands toward your shoulders, keeping the palms facing each other. Stop when your forearms are close to vertical.
Lower all the way
Take the rope back down slowly until your arms are straight again before the next rep. The bottom is where the cable still pulls and a dumbbell would not.
What goes wrong
Swinging the body
A rock back at the start gets the weight moving and the curl goes easier. Stand still, and if you cannot, take weight off.
Elbows creeping forward
Lifting the elbows near the top feels like squeezing out the last inch. The shoulders join in instead. Keep the elbows pinned at your sides.
Half reps at the bottom
Stopping with the arms bent keeps the stack moving and the reps quick. It skips the stretched part of the curl. Straighten fully every rep.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 15 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 at 15 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 15 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 15 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 15 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 15 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 at 15 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Cable rope or dumbbell hammer curl?
Same grip and same job. The cable keeps a steady pull at the bottom of the rep, and the dumbbells need no machine. Reckoner already places the dumbbell version, so this one is there when you want the cable instead.
What does the hammer grip change?
Your thumbs stay up and your palms face each other the whole rep, the same grip as the dumbbell hammer curl. Reckoner counts this lift for the biceps and the forearms together.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
Not by itself. The dumbbell hammer curl already covers it, so the engine never chooses this one for you. Choose it in the lift picker or as a swap for another curl, and it is loaded on the cable stack's own steps. Elbow is recorded against it.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.