How to Do Negative Biceps Curls

Video Transcript

"Hello I am Kyle Brayer and your next in-home bicep workout will be negatives. Negatives are performed through the range of motion on a bicep curl, they are performed as an assisted repetition, so that means that you will have a partner pick the weight up for you, or you can use a machine to pull the weight for you, and then you are going to lower the weight down under control. This is going to work just the negative portion of the exercise, so you are taking the positive portion completely out. It is going to work the muscle quite differently. So Kerri is going to turn to the side here, she is going to keep her feet shoulder-width apart just like she did before, her back is in the in-line neutral position, chest nice and high, chin up, she is going to be looking forward. She will rotate her palms away from her body, with the back of her hands on her thighs, she will keep those elbows back, and I actually pull the weight up for her. So as I pull the weight up, she keeps good form, then once she gets to this position, she locks her elbows in by her sides, and she will let the weight down as slowly as possible. And then when she gets to the bottom, the partner will kind of guide the weight down, I will pull the weight back up for her, and she will let it down nice and slow. And one more time. And since we are only doing the negative portion, the hard portion is when you always want to exhale, so she will actually be exhaling on the way down on this, the opposite of a bicep curl. Now a negative works the muscle quite differently and it is used to allow you to overload the muscle. She can use more weight than normal. If you were using five pounds to do your bicep curls, you might be able to use ten pounds to do your negatives, because the assisted weight will be pulled up for you, and then you will be quite stronger on the way down. And that is a negative curl."