Best Dumbbell Exercises for Biceps — Top 10
Dumbbell training is fixing muscle imbalances with unilateral training. Here are the best dumbbell exercises for targeting your biceps, ranked by effectiveness. Dumbbells offer unilateral loading, greater range of motion, and more freedom of movement than barbells.
Ranked by biceps muscle activation percentage, range of motion quality with dumbbell, and progressive overload potential.
The concentration curl pins your upper arm against your inner thigh, eliminating all momentum. EMG studies show this exercise produces the highest bicep activation of any curl variation.
Key Form Cue
Sit on a bench with feet wide and lean forward slightly.
The preacher curl eliminates cheating by bracing your upper arms against a pad. This strict isolation forces the biceps to do all the work, especially targeting the short head.
Key Form Cue
Sit at the preacher bench with your upper arms flat against the pad.
Incline curls put the long head of the biceps on a deeper stretch than any other curl variation. This builds a taller bicep peak. Set an incline bench to 45-60 degrees and curl from a stretched position.
Key Form Cue
Set the bench to 45-60 degrees and sit back with your arms hanging straight down.
Spider curls are performed lying face down on an incline bench with your arms hanging straight down. This eliminates momentum and provides peak contraction at the top of the curl.
Key Form Cue
Lie face down on an incline bench (45-60 degrees).
The 21s curl method performs seven reps in the bottom half, seven in the top half, and seven full range — totaling twenty-one reps. This technique floods the biceps with metabolic stress for maximum hypertrophy.
Key Form Cue
Perform seven reps from full extension to the midpoint (elbows at 90 degrees).
Dumbbell curls allow each arm to work independently, fixing imbalances and allowing a greater range of motion with supination (wrist rotation) at the top.
Key Form Cue
Stand or sit with dumbbells at your sides, palms facing forward or in a neutral position.
The waiter curl holds a single dumbbell vertically on your palms like a serving tray, which forces the short head of the biceps to work harder. It is an excellent exercise for building the biceps peak.
Key Form Cue
Hold one end of a dumbbell vertically on both palms, pressing your palms into the underside of the top plate.
The Zottman curl combines a supinated curl on the way up with a pronated (reverse) curl on the way down, training both the biceps and forearms in a single exercise.
Key Form Cue
Curl dumbbells up with palms facing up (supinated).
The cross-body curl, also called the pinwheel curl, curls the dumbbell across the body toward the opposite shoulder. This angle targets the brachialis and long head of the biceps for added arm thickness.
Key Form Cue
Stand with dumbbells at your sides in a neutral (hammer) grip.
Hammer curls use a neutral grip (palms facing each other) that targets the brachialis and brachioradialis in addition to the biceps. This builds forearm thickness and overall arm size.
Key Form Cue
Hold dumbbells at your sides with palms facing each other (neutral grip).
Put these exercises into a real program
Revy's AI combines the best exercises for your goals into a personalized training program with progressive overload built in.