H A R A T A N

Grab a relatively light barbell and use an overhand grip. Keep your elbows tucked in, but push them back behind you. Curl the barbell up keeping it in contact with your torso, so as to drag it up and over your torso. Slowly return to the start position and repeat.

You can build forearm muscles with reverse curls, and there are many variations of reverse curls. I’m a certified personal trainer and have noticed that most people don’t pay much attention to their forearms. A biceps routine involves curling up the weight with the palms facing upwards, whether the weight is a barbell or dumbbell, or the handles of a seated arm curl machine. This palms-up position targets the biceps muscle of the upper arm.

Flip your hands over and the muscle recruitment pattern will shift to the forearms, namely, the following muscles: pronator teres and brachioradialis; these are forearm muscles and you can easily see them in anybody who has buff forearms.

Perform reverse curls and you’ll see these muscles become more pronounced (assuming you don’t have too much fat in your forearms to block the view).

This type of lifting can be done with dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, biceps curl machines and cable machines; and standing or seated.

The barbell may be either a basic straight bar, or an “EZ” / cambered bar, in which sections of the bar are bent to ease strain on the wrists. Weight plates can be held in a palms-down position, and lifted upward. Don’t let the hands flop or droop, however. Keep the weight plate aligned with the forearm. With biceps machines, simply reverse your typical grip on the machine’s handle. This will be awkward for some of these machines, since these machines are not designed for reverse curls. Give it a try; some machines are friendly with this variation. It’s easy to do reverse lifts with cable machines, using a short straight bar. You can stand, sit on a stool or a stability ball (the later only if you intending to injure yourself – it’s total nonsense!).