reckonerReverse EZ bar curl
A curl with your palms facing down on an EZ bar. Reckoner counts it for the forearms first, with the biceps helping. It asks for straight wrists and a lighter bar than you expect.
Palms down, curl with straight wrists.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Forearms, 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
- Very low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Elbow, wrist
Muscles worked
How to do it
Take an overhand grip
Hold the EZ bar palms down on the angled part of the handle, hands about shoulder width. The angled grip sets your wrists slightly turned, which most bars allow and a straight bar does not. Stand tall with the bar against your thighs.
Lock the wrists straight
Knuckles in line with your forearms, not bent back and not curled forward. That straight wrist is the position to keep for the whole set, because the forearms can only work through a wrist that holds.
Curl with the elbows at your sides
Bend at the elbows and bring the bar up toward your shoulders without moving the upper arms, so the work stays at the elbow.
Lower all the way
Take the bar back down under control until your arms are straight before the next rep. The lowering is half the set.
What goes wrong
Letting the wrists bend back
Tipping the knuckles back feels like it helps the bar up. The wrists take the strain instead. Keep them straight, and lighten the bar if they will not stay there.
Using your normal curl weight
It is the same bar, so it feels like it should be the same weight. Most lifters curl a lot less with their palms down, so start lighter than your normal curl. A reverse curl done heavy turns into a swing.
Swinging the hips
A hip drive starts the bar and feels like power. The forearms coast. Stand still and curl.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 20 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 20 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 20 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 20 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 20 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 20 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 20 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
What does the reverse curl work?
Mostly the forearms, with the biceps helping. Reckoner counts it for the forearms first and the biceps second.
EZ bar or straight bar?
Either works. The EZ bar's angled handles set your wrists at a slight angle, and a straight bar holds them flat. Use whichever lets you keep your wrists straight under load.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
Not by itself. It is forearm work, like the wrist curls, so the engine never chooses it for you. Choose it in the lift picker or as a swap for another curl. Elbow and wrist are 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.