Instructions
- Sit back on a bench set to about 45 degrees. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and let your arms hang straight down with your palms facing forward.
- Curl the dumbbell in your right hand up as close to your shoulder as you can without letting your elbows move forward.
- Pause for a brief moment and then lower the dumbbell and return to the starting position.
- Repeat with your left hand, and continue alternating like this until you’ve completed your desired number of reps for each arm.
Expert Tips
- Keep your elbows behind your torso—avoid the temptation to push your elbows forward at the top of each rep to eke out a bit more range of motion. This does increase the range of motion, but it’s mostly your shoulders doing the extra work, not your biceps.
- Keep your torso still and pressed against the backrest as you lift the dumbbells. Don’t lean from side to side or twist your torso in the bench to make the exercise easier and lift more weight.
- If a 45-degree bench angle feels uncomfortable for your shoulders, try a more upright angle. The exact angle isn’t that important—you just want your elbows to be behind your torso.
- You can also curl both arms at the same time. This is more time efficient, but can feel a little more awkward for some. Try both approaches and see which you prefer.
- The videos show a rotating-grip variation: start with your palms facing each other and turn them toward your shoulders as you curl.
Workout Programming
Generally, it’s best to do the incline dumbbell curl after your heavier, more technical exercises in a pull or upper-body workout. Or, if you’re specifically trying to develop your biceps, you can also do it as one of the first exercises in your workout, as in the arm workout below.
A good default is 3 sets of 6–8 reps. Take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure—the point where you can’t move the weight with good form despite giving your maximum effort—and rest 2–3 minutes between sets.
Mike’s Take
The incline dumbbell curl is an excellent biceps exercise for a few reasons:
- It allows you to isolate your biceps and isn’t limited by the strength of any other supporting muscle groups.
- It allows you to use a long range of motion, which is generally good for muscle growth.
- It’s easy to learn, safe, and can be done in any gym that has dumbbells and an adjustable bench (almost all of them).
- It emphasizes the long head of your biceps, which isn’t always fully stimulated by other biceps exercises.
The biceps brachii is a Y-shaped muscle that connects your scapula (shoulder blade) to the radius (one of your forearm bones). There are two sections or “heads” of your biceps, with each attaching to different parts of your shoulder blade.
The short head attaches to the coracoid process, a bony projection at the front of your shoulder blade. The long head tendon passes through the shoulder joint and attaches to a deeper part of the shoulder blade called the supraglenoid tubercle and to the cartilage around the upper portion of the shoulder joint (the glenoid labrum).
Both heads of the biceps are trained by any kind of biceps curl movement, although the long head is probably better activated during exercises performed with your elbows behind your torso. I say “probably” because this is a hypothesis based on biomechanics rather than a proven fact.
This position puts the long head of the biceps in a more stretched position, which generally is better for muscle growth.
As of this writing, no studies have measured how incline dumbbell curls affect biceps long-head growth specifically. A few studies have compared muscle growth after incline curls (elbows behind your torso) and preacher curls (elbows in front of your torso), and the results are mixed.
- A 2026 study conducted by researchers at Ritsumeikan University had 21 untrained adults train one arm with incline curls and the other with preacher curls for 12 weeks. They found that incline curls caused slightly more growth in the biceps brachii, but a bit less growth in the brachialis and brachioradialis (two other muscles that bend your elbow).
-
A 2025 study conducted by scientists at the State University of Londrina had 63 women train twice per week for 8 weeks in two groups: one performed incline curls and the other performed preacher curls.
They measured the combined thickness of the biceps and brachialis. Incline curls produced slightly more growth nearer the shoulder, while preacher curls produced slightly more growth nearer the elbow. These results don’t tell us how much each muscle grew separately.
In other words, performing curls behind the torso seemed to emphasize the upper portion of your biceps closer to your shoulder, and performing curls with your elbows in front of your torso seemed to emphasize the lower portion of your biceps closer to your elbow.
Several other recent studies from the University of the Basque Country and Paulista University have found roughly comparable overall biceps growth with incline and preacher curls.
Neither study directly measured biceps long-head growth, and the Paulista University study was only a few weeks long and involved blood flow restriction training and very light weights, so the results may not apply to ordinary biceps training.
All in all, I think there’s a strong biomechanical argument for doing incline dumbbell curls (or a similar exercise like Bayesian curls). And, even if they aren’t any more effective than regular dumbbell curls for training the long head of your biceps, they’re still a great exercise for training your biceps generally for the other three reasons I listed above.
Incline Dumbbell Curl Alternatives
- Bayesian Cable Curl. This also positions your elbows behind your torso, but you use a cable machine while standing and almost always train one arm at a time, whereas in the incline curl, you use dumbbells while seated and can train one arm at a time or both arms simultaneously.
- Machine Biceps Curl. The machine curl makes it almost impossible to cheat and requires almost no coordination or setup time, so you can focus on contracting your biceps as hard as possible and taking each set close or all of the way to failure. Depending on the machine, you can also get your arms close to the same position as the incline dumbbell curl if you scoot your butt forward on the seat.
- Preacher Curl. The preacher curl makes it hard to use momentum to cheat so your biceps do most of the work. Not particularly good at emphasizing the long head of your biceps, though.
- Barbell Curl. The barbell curl allows you to add weight in small increments, is safe and comfortable for most people, and you can do it in nearly any gym in the world.
- EZ-Bar Curl. If a straight bar bothers your wrists or elbows, use an EZ-bar. The angled grip often feels more comfortable, and it works just as well as a straight bar.
- Alternating Dumbbell Curl. Basically the same exercise, just performed with a more upright posture, and doesn’t target the biceps long head as effectively.
- Dumbbell Hammer Curl. The dumbbell hammer curl uses a neutral grip (palms facing each other), which many people find more comfortable than the traditional palms-up (supinated) grip and also helps emphasize the brachialis.
3 Incline Dumbbell Curl Workouts
Here are three sample workouts that show how to program the incline dumbbell curl into an arm, pull, or upper-body workout.
Arm Workout with the Incline Dumbbell Curl
Incline Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 1–2 min rest*
Cable Triceps Overhead Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 1–2 min rest*Machine Biceps Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 1–2 min rest*
Seated Dip Machine: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 1–2 min rest*
*Alternate between the exercises in each pair: Do a set of incline dumbbell curls, rest 60 seconds, do a set of cable triceps overhead presses, rest 60 seconds, and repeat twice more for each exercise. This is a fantastic way to save time in the gym.
Then, you’d alternate between the machine biceps curl and seated dip machine in the same manner.
Note: I don’t typically recommend dedicating an entire day just to training your arms, but if you prefer to train this way, this workout is a time-efficient and effective way to do it.
Pull Day Workout with the Incline Dumbbell Curl
Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–3 min rest
One-Arm Dumbbell Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
V-Grip Lat Pulldown: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Incline Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Upper-Body Workout with the Incline Dumbbell Curl
Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Cable Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Cable Shrug-Back (immediately after the last set of seated cable rows): 1 set of as many reps as possible, until failure
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Incline Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Cable Side Raise: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest
To progress these workouts, use double progression: use a weight that allows you to work within the given rep range, take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure, and once you hit the top of the range for your first set, add weight.
The shrug-back finisher is the exception: take that set to failure.
Muscles Worked by the Incline Dumbbell Curl
The main muscles worked by the incline dumbbell curl are the biceps brachii (or “biceps”), brachioradialis, and your brachialis, which is a smaller muscle under the biceps that connects your upper arm to your ulna (your other forearm bone).
More Biceps Exercises
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