The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (101 page)

Keep your head level, and your eyes pointing straight ahead.

TECHNIQUE AND FORM

Once you are in proper postural alignment stand against a wall. Make sure to focus all of your attention on the biceps and forearm muscles. It is very easy to get distracted during exercise, but the rewards of staying focused throughout your training sessions will be well worth your efforts.

Begin curling the dumbbells up with palms and dumbbells facing each other.

Focus on driving the thumbs to your front shoulders, concentrating on feeling the biceps and forearm muscles working.

Once you’ve reached the top position of the exercise, contract the biceps and forearm muscles as hard as you possibly can and hold that contraction for a count of 1-2 seconds.

From the top position, slowly and smoothly begin to lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.

As you reach the bottom of the exercise, the palms of your hands and dumbbells should remain facing each other and held to the sides of your body.

Make sure that there is a smooth transition when switching directions from both the top position going into the lowering of the dumbbells, and also from the bottom position going into the curling or raising of the dumbbells. Both scenarios must be done with no rest in between either of the direction changes, unless you are so fatigued by the end of the set that you need a few seconds rest in order to get a couple more repetitions.

VARIATION

FAQ:

I don’t feel this in my biceps
.

ANSWER:

That’s fine. You should instead feel it in your forearm extensor muscles (the backs of your forearms). The secondary muscles here are the brachiallis muscles of the upper arm (the outer biceps).

Reverse Curl

This exercise is best performed with an E-Z bar and it targets the outer area of the biceps muscles known as the brachialis, along with the upper forearm muscles. The exercise alignment and execution is much the same as that of the E-Z curls except that the hands are holding the bar with the palms facing the thighs and positioned on the inner handles of the bar.

PROPER ALIGNMENT

To prepare for the exercise, you will align your body similar to the way you did with the standing dumbbell biceps curl.