Dumbbell wrist curls

[dullard]

I may be paranoid, but I am wondering if I will hurt myself doing heavier dumbbell wrist curls.

I have been lifting twice a week for most of the past 11 months. Each time I lift, I have included wrist curls and reverse wrist curls among ten or so lifts, mostly for the upper body. I have one very strict goal: to match or exceed what I did the previous time in repetitions. If the number of repetitions gets too high in any given day, then the next time I lift weights, I move up to the next dumbbell weight for that exercise. With this process, roughly every month or so, I have increased weight.

I perform these curls by sitting on the floor, laying my arm along my leg with the wrist sticking off the end of my knee. Then I slowly curl up as far as I can then slowly return down as far as I can.

Last July I started around a dozen wrist curls of 35 pounds each hand. Now I am up to 9 wrist curls of 60 pounds each hand. Reverse wrist curls are similar but half that weight. When I went from 55 pounds to 60 pounds, I started to feel pain between my forearm bones. It feels like the pain is right between the radius and the ulna about 80% of the way towards the elbow. The pain is intense right after lifting but dull pain lasts several days afterwards.

My forearms are still puny in size (I'm 5'9" and 148 lbs with slightly dated photos here). I really don't want to break them. Should I continue increasing weight? Or should I just stick with 60 pounds and increase repetitions until I get larger forearms? Is there some sort of brace that can help without interfering with the wrist motion? Or am I just paranoid?

 

[glenn beck]

I do them with the 100s with no pain I guess just check your form make sure you aren't turning your wrist to the side either way, which
can happen when you go heavy trying to get that last one in

Also try with a barbell see if that feels better

 

[RagingBITCH]

I wouldn't worry about wrist curls/forearm excercises...your arms will grow from other lifts that work your arms. People worry too much about excercises that don't have a significant benefit instead of worrying about the bread and butter compound excercises.

 

[Deeko]

It is possible that your muscles are increasing faster than your tendons can keep up. Pain is never a good thing, scale back the weight a little bit, work your way up slower perhaps.

I agree with RagingBITCH to a point, I personally find wrist curls to be a waste, as they don't really improve your grip a noticeable amount. However, if you're like me and you have a proportionally weak grip that you're trying to improve, you'll see better results by working it directly - holding a heavy bar as long as possible, or hanging from a pullup bar as long as possible. Your forearm muscles are a lot smaller than your back muscles, so they can be worked more often to try to 'catch up' to your other exercises.

 

[dullard]

Thank you for the input.

The heavier weights, of course, tend to want to twist my wrists. Any hints on how to keep them straight? I found holding the dumbbell at the outside end of the grip helps a lot with the twisting but it doesn't eliminate it. I don't have access to a barbell yet, but I've been wanting to buy a bench with barbells for a few months.

As for the compound exercises, don't worry, I am doing some of those too. The wrist curls just have always happened to be my favorites. I use the wrist curl exerices to give my bigger muscles 5 minutes of rest between their exercises. While it may not have anything to do with grip, I couldn't care less about grip. I only want defined muscle ridges all along my arms and the wrist curls have been the biggest help on that.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

You don't need wrist curls, especially with lifting only twice a week. trust me. I've only been lifting for about 10 months 3 times a week and my forearms have basically doubled in size just from the other exercises.

This is what's called an "accessory" exercise. Tey aren't needed unless are like competing in a show or something.

The pain you feel is probably some form of tendinitis. A good rule of thumb is, is that if something hurts don't do it. The last thing you want to have a raging case of tendinitis that puts you out of the gym for a while. Genetics also has a play in how big your forearms will grow in proportion to the rest of you.

 

[presidentender]

Your wrists will not get bigger. Your forearms will, but any back exercise or biceps curls will do the same.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: dullard
Thank you for the input.

The heavier weights, of course, tend to want to twist my wrists. Any hints on how to keep them straight? I found holding the dumbbell at the outside end of the grip helps a lot with the twisting but it doesn't eliminate it. I don't have access to a barbell yet, but I've been wanting to buy a bench with barbells for a few months.

As for the compound exercises, don't worry, I am doing some of those too. The wrist curls just have always happened to be my favorites. I use the wrist curl exerices to give my bigger muscles 5 minutes of rest between their exercises. While it may not have anything to do with grip, I couldn't care less about grip. I only want defined muscle ridges all along my arms and the wrist curls have been the biggest help on that.

dullard - if you insist on doing wrist curls, get a barbell. Even a cheapo 15lb straight curl bar will suffice. (Better than trying to do wrist curls with an olympic - a little bit too long to try to balance, especially with weights)

Back when I still did wrist curls, I'd use a barbell. Sat on the edge of a bench, forearms laying on the bench. Never got the hang of doing curls with dumbbells, always felt very unnatural, and the same stress on the wrists that you're feeling.

 

[TallBill]

Erm, don't bother with wrist curls. And your tendons/ligaments cant keep up. It has been a problem for me in the past. Back off, then ease back in.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: TallBill
Erm, don't bother with wrist curls. And your tendons/ligaments cant keep up. It has been a problem for me in the past. Back off, then ease back in.

I would even say just go buy something that works your grip. That will get your forearms big, strong, and useful - not just all big and pointless with a crappy grip.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

i think the best forearm exercise is the deadlift. or choking the chicken.

 

[gramboh]

I also like static holds (or whatever you call taking an oly bar with weight out of thigh high pins and just holding it with double overhand grip as long as possible) and rack pulls as well as hanging from a pull-up bar. Walking around with heavy dumbbells until you have to drop them is also good.

 

[presidentender]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged

Originally posted by: TallBill
Erm, don't bother with wrist curls. And your tendons/ligaments cant keep up. It has been a problem for me in the past. Back off, then ease back in.

I would even say just go buy something that works your grip. That will get your forearms big, strong, and useful - not just all big and pointless with a crappy grip.

I have to say that while I agree with your advice (that is, avoid the dumbbell curls, especially if they hurt), "big and pointless" just doesn't happen. If the muscle fibers are there, and they're big, and they're strong, then they're big and they're there and they're strong, and that's the whole point of lifting.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: presidentender
I have to say that while I agree with your advice (that is, avoid the dumbbell curls, especially if they hurt), "big and pointless" just doesn't happen. If the muscle fibers are there, and they're big, and they're strong, then they're big and they're there and they're strong, and that's the whole point of lifting.

Big and pointless usually refers to over-isolating specific muscles to the point where the stabilizer and surrounding muscles can't function together and properly utilize this overworked muscle.

Technically, that muscle is still strong at 1 exact specific motion, but in normal motions where that muscle would have to rely on the other muscles that aren't as strong, it fails to perform.

As for the OP. I'm not going to tell you whether wrist curls are worth doing or not, I happen to do them simply as an end lift when everything else is tired. However, 2 things.

1. Of course you can hurt yourself lifting too much weight, that applies to every single exercise you do.

2. I think you can find a lot better ways to do wrist curls than the way you are doing them. For instance, I do them on the edge of my bed. So if I'm doing my left arm, I'd lean to the left such that my weight was bearing down on my left elbow, this prevents any movement or additional help from my upper arm. Then, with my forearm hanging off the bed, I perform the curls. This gives you good range of motion without any sliding around. Then I just shift my weight over to the other side for my other arm. I do dumbbell curls and then... I suppose reverse dumbbell curls, not sure if they have a name. Palm to the floor basically, much more difficult to do and seems to work the grip a lot more since you are constantly fighting the desire to drop the weight. One works out inner muscle one outer so both are useful.

Even if I were to find out wrist curls were completely useless, I'd still do them as a good indicator of whether or not I properly worked out my forearms that day, since I'd be able to tell by muscle soreness during the exercise.