A very short clip, but this is an excellent demonstration of the spider curl. Most gyms do not have this bit of equipment, so this exercise is more commonly done lying face down on an inclined bench with the legs straddling it – or you can kneel on the seat of the bench.
- Ideally your mid chest is at the top of the bench or pad, so the arms hang freely.
- And this is the point of the spider curl – the arms move through a full range of motion, giving quite a stretch when the arms are straight.
- What I like about this clip is he is moving the weight with control, so the biceps can be really engaged. This gives excellent results with less likelihood of injury.
Always a problem with doing bicep or tricep exercises is keeping the effort in the biceps or the triceps. Because our arms move at the shoulder as well as the elbow, the tendency is to move at the shoulders in some way as well as at the elbow. To really develop decent sized arms, the movement comes from the elbow only. Then we get bulgy biceps, horseshoe triceps and do not pick up injuries getting there.