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Preacher Curl Bench
The Best Way to Train Biceps - 2005
I first started lifting weights in 1972 (yeah, I have been in the iron game awhile) and I saw the above picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a muscle magazine during the summer of 1973. No one knew who Arnold was yet outside of a few hardcore bodybuilding fans but I sure did. As a 17 year old kid, I was so awed and inspired by this picture that I had to cut it out of the magazine, hang it on my basement wall, and immediately start doing Preacher Curls (confident of course that I would one day become Mr. Olympia too!). Back in those days, bodybuilding equipment made for a home gym hardly existed and I had to improvise by doing my curls over the back of an incline bench with a single dumbbell at a time. While that version of the exercise was crude and very uncomfortable, I immediately realized that this was the strictest and most productive version of a curl that I could ever do. To this day, I train my biceps exclusively on a Preacher Curl Bench in my own gym. Because my front delts became so strong from bench pressing, I have trouble isolating my biceps with almost any other type of curl. Doing standing dumbbell or barbell curls, or even incline dumbbell curls, my front delts want to take over and swing the weight forward, robbing my biceps of any productive exercise. Only this bench eliminates this problem for me and allows me to lift meaningful weights at the same time. As a result I feel the exercise directly in my biceps and not in my front delts.
Larry Scott, the very first Mr. Olympia,(1965 - 66), is credited with having invented the Preacher Bench, hence it is often referred to as the Scott Curl Bench. Larry Scott had incredible biceps, even by today's standards - they were as big as softballs and ran full length from his shoulder well down into his elbow. If one could mold a perfect biceps any way they wanted to - huge, thick, and perfectly shaped - they would mold an exact replica of Larry Scott's biceps. Larry credited his amazing biceps development to the use of the Preacher Curl Bench and he trained his biceps exclusively on this apparatus. Larry did three different types of curls on the Preacher bench - barbell curls, dumbbell curls, and reverse barbell curls - and one can hardly argue with the results that he obtained. Larry, at his peak, would use a PAIR of 80 lbs. dumbbells on the Preacher Bench for a strict set of several repetitions! If you have never done this exercise before, try taking half that weight, an 80 lb. barbell, and doing a strict set of ten on the Preacher Bench and you will appreciate the power that Larry Scott had developed with this exercise.
Another bodybuilding legend, Mike Mentzer (Mr. America, Mr. Universe 1978) was a fan of Preacher Curls and his biceps were peaked and massive, and with exceptional lower biceps development as Larry and Arnold also had. Mike loved to use isolation movements in his workouts and he also believed in using only one to two exercises per body part at the most. Mike's choice of the Preacher Curl and it's variations (the old Nautilus curl machine) as his main biceps exercise says something about the movement as Mentzer was the most scientific trainer to ever grasp a barbell.
Why does the Preacher Curl work so well? It isn't "rocket science" we are talking about - simply put, it is the isolation possible. There is no other biceps movement you can do that will hold your upper arms as stationary as a Preacher Curl Bench will and that allows you to put more intensity into training just the biceps and nothing else. Even doing dumbbell concentration curls is not as strict. - I have seen countless bodybuilders over the years brace their upper arm against their leg as if they are really going to do a strict concentration curl and then they start twisting their upper body to swing the dumbbell up. - These guys might as well have been doing standing cheat barbell curls for all the isolation they got! When faced with stress, the human body will always try to find the easiest way out - it is natural to want to cheat on an exercise. As a result of this natural tendency to want to bring in assistance muscles, locking a stationary padded bench under your upper arms while you are seated (so you can't use your legs to help either) can be very helpful.
I have always gotten a kick out the "truisms" that you hear guys throw around in the gym. These guys read a few muscle nags and pick up on their jargon and all at once they consider themselves bodybuilding experts. One of those myths promoted by certain magazines is that there are "mass" exercises and "shaping" exercises. All your muscles know how to do is to contract and relax and your muscles don't know the difference between a "shaping" exercise and a "mass" exercise. These local "gymologists" will try to tell you that the best mass building exercise for your biceps is the standing barbell curl - they say that because they read it in a magazine. I know some lifters in my gym that have only done standing barbell curls a few times in their life and they didn't like them and proceeded to concentrate on Preacher Curls for the next few years and they now have biceps as big as melons. Working up to a heavy weight in almost any exercise will build mass. Do you really believe that if you work up to the point that you can curl 150 pounds ten times in strict style on a Preacher Bench that you will still have little skinny biceps because you never did any traditional standing barbell curls to build mass??? The idea is ridiculous of course but some people believe exactly that. Work up to a super strict set of ten repetitions with just 100 pounds on a Preacher Bench and you will have biceps that will turn anybody's head including that local gym rat that quotes the muscle magazines all the time.
In addition to a barbell or dumbbells, Preacher Bench Curls can also be performed with a cable - and I believe that this is the finest biceps exercise on the planet. Place a Preacher Bench in front of a low pulley on a Lat Machine. Hook up a short EZ-bar or straight bar attachment to the cable and perform these curls as in the pictures below. This variation of the Preacher Curl provides plenty of resistance at the top of the movement but without the strain on the elbow joints that many curl machines can give you. The cable will also give your arms a little more freedom of movement than a conventional rigid arm curl machine does and will require you to pull evenly with both arms as a barbell or dumbbells would. There is one machine on the market that allows you to do Cable Arm Curls in this manner without having to setup a separate Preacher bench and that is the ingeniously designed BodyCraft Back and Arm Machine.
A narrow grip on the EZ-bar or straight bar will work best with the cable curl. One set done to absolute failure with this exercise should convince anyone that they have found the Holy Grail of biceps exercises.
For variety you can also perform these cable curls one arm at a time on the Preacher using a stirrup handle attached to the cable. Doing one arm at a time in this fashion will allow you to use your free arm to help your working arm do a couple of forced reps at the end of the set and then finally negatives - working your biceps to complete failure. Use this one-arm curl variation sparingly in your workouts - no more than once every few workouts - as doing forced reps and negatives too frequently will cause over-training very quickly and your progress will come to a grinding halt.
Don't get me wrong - the old-fashioned standing barbell or dumbbell curl will build your biceps some in most cases - but they are NOT the only way to go and maybe not the best. I have seen some lifters do the old standbys for years such as the standing barbell curl and make minimal progress in visible results and then they switched to Preacher Curls and their biceps literally took off in size. Sometimes the old exercises are overrated because when they gained their popularity and reputation was in the first half of the twentieth century when there was no other bodybuilding equipment available but the old-fashioned barbell. I remember as recently as the 1980's that most serious bodybuilders were still putting down weight machines - saying the only way to go was with free weights. However in the last twenty years machines have come to the forefront in many professional bodybuilder routines with the development of Cybex, Hammer Strength, etc. Old habits die hard in everything it seems and bodybuilding is no exception. Preacher Curls allow many variations that I have mentioned - dumbbells, barbell, EZ-curl bar, and if you aren't happy with the development of your biceps thus far then you can do a lot worse than to try concentrating on this underrated curl as I have outlined here.
The Best Way to Train Biceps - 2005
I first started lifting weights in 1972 (yeah, I have been in the iron game awhile) and I saw the above picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a muscle magazine during the summer of 1973. No one knew who Arnold was yet outside of a few hardcore bodybuilding fans but I sure did. As a 17 year old kid, I was so awed and inspired by this picture that I had to cut it out of the magazine, hang it on my basement wall, and immediately start doing Preacher Curls (confident of course that I would one day become Mr. Olympia too!). Back in those days, bodybuilding equipment made for a home gym hardly existed and I had to improvise by doing my curls over the back of an incline bench with a single dumbbell at a time. While that version of the exercise was crude and very uncomfortable, I immediately realized that this was the strictest and most productive version of a curl that I could ever do. To this day, I train my biceps exclusively on a Preacher Curl Bench in my own gym. Because my front delts became so strong from bench pressing, I have trouble isolating my biceps with almost any other type of curl. Doing standing dumbbell or barbell curls, or even incline dumbbell curls, my front delts want to take over and swing the weight forward, robbing my biceps of any productive exercise. Only this bench eliminates this problem for me and allows me to lift meaningful weights at the same time. As a result I feel the exercise directly in my biceps and not in my front delts.
Larry Scott, the very first Mr. Olympia,(1965 - 66), is credited with having invented the Preacher Bench, hence it is often referred to as the Scott Curl Bench. Larry Scott had incredible biceps, even by today's standards - they were as big as softballs and ran full length from his shoulder well down into his elbow. If one could mold a perfect biceps any way they wanted to - huge, thick, and perfectly shaped - they would mold an exact replica of Larry Scott's biceps. Larry credited his amazing biceps development to the use of the Preacher Curl Bench and he trained his biceps exclusively on this apparatus. Larry did three different types of curls on the Preacher bench - barbell curls, dumbbell curls, and reverse barbell curls - and one can hardly argue with the results that he obtained. Larry, at his peak, would use a PAIR of 80 lbs. dumbbells on the Preacher Bench for a strict set of several repetitions! If you have never done this exercise before, try taking half that weight, an 80 lb. barbell, and doing a strict set of ten on the Preacher Bench and you will appreciate the power that Larry Scott had developed with this exercise.
Another bodybuilding legend, Mike Mentzer (Mr. America, Mr. Universe 1978) was a fan of Preacher Curls and his biceps were peaked and massive, and with exceptional lower biceps development as Larry and Arnold also had. Mike loved to use isolation movements in his workouts and he also believed in using only one to two exercises per body part at the most. Mike's choice of the Preacher Curl and it's variations (the old Nautilus curl machine) as his main biceps exercise says something about the movement as Mentzer was the most scientific trainer to ever grasp a barbell.
Why does the Preacher Curl work so well? It isn't "rocket science" we are talking about - simply put, it is the isolation possible. There is no other biceps movement you can do that will hold your upper arms as stationary as a Preacher Curl Bench will and that allows you to put more intensity into training just the biceps and nothing else. Even doing dumbbell concentration curls is not as strict. - I have seen countless bodybuilders over the years brace their upper arm against their leg as if they are really going to do a strict concentration curl and then they start twisting their upper body to swing the dumbbell up. - These guys might as well have been doing standing cheat barbell curls for all the isolation they got! When faced with stress, the human body will always try to find the easiest way out - it is natural to want to cheat on an exercise. As a result of this natural tendency to want to bring in assistance muscles, locking a stationary padded bench under your upper arms while you are seated (so you can't use your legs to help either) can be very helpful.
I have always gotten a kick out the "truisms" that you hear guys throw around in the gym. These guys read a few muscle nags and pick up on their jargon and all at once they consider themselves bodybuilding experts. One of those myths promoted by certain magazines is that there are "mass" exercises and "shaping" exercises. All your muscles know how to do is to contract and relax and your muscles don't know the difference between a "shaping" exercise and a "mass" exercise. These local "gymologists" will try to tell you that the best mass building exercise for your biceps is the standing barbell curl - they say that because they read it in a magazine. I know some lifters in my gym that have only done standing barbell curls a few times in their life and they didn't like them and proceeded to concentrate on Preacher Curls for the next few years and they now have biceps as big as melons. Working up to a heavy weight in almost any exercise will build mass. Do you really believe that if you work up to the point that you can curl 150 pounds ten times in strict style on a Preacher Bench that you will still have little skinny biceps because you never did any traditional standing barbell curls to build mass??? The idea is ridiculous of course but some people believe exactly that. Work up to a super strict set of ten repetitions with just 100 pounds on a Preacher Bench and you will have biceps that will turn anybody's head including that local gym rat that quotes the muscle magazines all the time.
In addition to a barbell or dumbbells, Preacher Bench Curls can also be performed with a cable - and I believe that this is the finest biceps exercise on the planet. Place a Preacher Bench in front of a low pulley on a Lat Machine. Hook up a short EZ-bar or straight bar attachment to the cable and perform these curls as in the pictures below. This variation of the Preacher Curl provides plenty of resistance at the top of the movement but without the strain on the elbow joints that many curl machines can give you. The cable will also give your arms a little more freedom of movement than a conventional rigid arm curl machine does and will require you to pull evenly with both arms as a barbell or dumbbells would. There is one machine on the market that allows you to do Cable Arm Curls in this manner without having to setup a separate Preacher bench and that is the ingeniously designed BodyCraft Back and Arm Machine.
A narrow grip on the EZ-bar or straight bar will work best with the cable curl. One set done to absolute failure with this exercise should convince anyone that they have found the Holy Grail of biceps exercises.
For variety you can also perform these cable curls one arm at a time on the Preacher using a stirrup handle attached to the cable. Doing one arm at a time in this fashion will allow you to use your free arm to help your working arm do a couple of forced reps at the end of the set and then finally negatives - working your biceps to complete failure. Use this one-arm curl variation sparingly in your workouts - no more than once every few workouts - as doing forced reps and negatives too frequently will cause over-training very quickly and your progress will come to a grinding halt.
Don't get me wrong - the old-fashioned standing barbell or dumbbell curl will build your biceps some in most cases - but they are NOT the only way to go and maybe not the best. I have seen some lifters do the old standbys for years such as the standing barbell curl and make minimal progress in visible results and then they switched to Preacher Curls and their biceps literally took off in size. Sometimes the old exercises are overrated because when they gained their popularity and reputation was in the first half of the twentieth century when there was no other bodybuilding equipment available but the old-fashioned barbell. I remember as recently as the 1980's that most serious bodybuilders were still putting down weight machines - saying the only way to go was with free weights. However in the last twenty years machines have come to the forefront in many professional bodybuilder routines with the development of Cybex, Hammer Strength, etc. Old habits die hard in everything it seems and bodybuilding is no exception. Preacher Curls allow many variations that I have mentioned - dumbbells, barbell, EZ-curl bar, and if you aren't happy with the development of your biceps thus far then you can do a lot worse than to try concentrating on this underrated curl as I have outlined here.
