reckonerEZ bar curl
The zigzag bar exists for one reason: it lets your forearms sit part way between palms up and palms in, which is a position a lot of wrists tolerate far better. That comfort is not free, and it is usually worth paying for anyway.
Elbows pinned, curl without swinging.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Biceps
- Kit
- Ez bar
- 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
- Bar
- 10 kg
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Elbow
Muscles worked
How to do it
Take the inner angles
Grip the first pair of bends, palms facing up and slightly inward. The outer bends turn it into a near neutral grip, which is a different exercise, so choose one and keep it.
Set the stance and pin the elbows
Feet hip width, bar hanging at arms length, elbows tucked against your ribs. Elbows pinned, which is the cue on your wrist, and they do not move until the set is over.
Curl without letting the elbows rise
Bring the bar up to just past vertical forearms. The moment the elbows start travelling forward, the shoulders have joined in and the biceps have stopped being the limit.
Lower slowly to straight arms
Three seconds down, elbows fully open at the bottom. Pooled comparisons favor the full range on every outcome measured2, and the bottom of a curl is the first thing anybody gives up.
What goes wrong
Assuming the angled grip is strictly better
It is more comfortable and it gives up a little. A fully palms-up grip produced measurably higher biceps brachii excitation than a neutral one at the same load1, and the EZ bar sits between the two. If your wrists are fine, a straight bar is the stronger stimulus for the biceps.
Cheating it because the bar is lighter
The bar weighs less than a straight one, so the total on the floor looks modest and the temptation to swing arrives early. The bar being light is not a reason for the rep to be.
Switching between the inner and outer bends mid block
They are two different grips and they will not give you the same numbers. Changing hand position halfway through a block makes the log say something is going backwards when nothing is.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 25 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 25 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 25 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 25 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 25 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 25 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 25 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with 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
Is an EZ bar better than a straight bar?
Better for wrists and elbows that complain, slightly worse for the biceps. The palms-up grip a straight bar forces produced the highest biceps brachii excitation of the three grips tested1. Pick the one you can train hard on without pain, because a curl you avoid trains nothing.
Why is my working weight lower than on a straight bar?
Partly the bar itself weighs less, and partly the grip. Compare EZ bar numbers with EZ bar numbers. Reckoner treats the curls as one lane, so switching keeps your history together, but the load will step down when you move.
Can I use this if my elbows hurt?
Elbow is the one restriction recorded against it, so if you declare an elbow problem in setup it comes out of your plan. If your elbows are merely grumpy rather than injured, the angled grip is the reason this bar exists.
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.
Sources
- Coratella and colleagues, Sports, 2023. Biceps brachii and brachioradialis excitation in biceps curl exercise: different handgrips, different synergy ten competitive male bodybuilders curling a cable at an eight repetition maximum with supinated, neutral and pronated grips, with biceps brachii excitation in the lifting phase greater with the supinated grip than the neutral by twelve per cent and than the pronated by nineteen, and brachioradialis excitation also greater with the supinated grip than either of the others, and no significant grip differences in the lowering phase
- Wolf and colleagues, International Journal of Strength and Conditioning, 2023. Partial vs full range of motion resistance training: a systematic review and meta-analysis a meta-analysis reporting a trivial standardized mean difference of 0.12 in favor of full range training, with every outcome favoring full range but all effects between trivial and small, and a subgroup suggesting partials held at long muscle lengths may match or beat full range for size