The 20 Best Forearms Exercises of All Time

by Jennifer · Published June 22, 2018 · Updated June 22, 2018

Your forearms don’t get the respect they deserve.

Not only do thicker, fuller forearms give you a more aesthetically imposing look, but they increase your strength capacity in exercises like the deadlift. Your upper body will also look and function more symmetrically.

Failing to train forearms results in weak grip strength, and let’s cut to the chase, skinny-looking arms. Target yours with these 20 forearm exercises and sayonara to your skinny arms.

1. Behind-the-Back Cable Curl

Attach a D-handle to the low pulley of a cable machine, grasp the handle in your left hand, and step forward (away from the machine) until there is tension on the cable and your arm is drawn slightly behind your body. Stagger your feet so your right leg is in front. Curl the handle but do not allow your elbow to point forward.

2. EZ-Bar Preacher Curl

Sit at a preacher bench and adjust the height so that your armpits touch the top of the bench. Grasp an EZ-curl bar at shoulder width with arms extended (but allow a slight bend at the elbows). Curl the bar, keeping the backs of your arms against the bench. Take three seconds to lower the bar back down.

3. Reverse Curl

Grasp the bar overhand at whatever width is comfortable. Keeping your upper arms against your sides, curl the bar.

4. Wide-Grip Curl

Grasp the bar with hands wider than shoulder width—if you’re using an Olympic bar, your pinkies should be on the outside knurling. Perform curls.

5. Towel Cable Row

Hook a towel to a cable pulley and stand in front of it. Set up to do a row, holding an end of the towel in each hand. Squeeze your shoulder blades together and row the towel to your rib cage.

6. Towel Pullup

Hang a towel over a pullup bar and grasp an end in each hand. Hang from the towel and then pull yourself up until your chin is above your hands. If that’s too difficult, simply hang from the towel for as long as you can.

7. Towel Row-to-Chest

Loop a towel around the bar of a lat-pulldown machine and hold an end of the towel in each hand. Your arms should be extended and at eye level. Brace one foot on the seat of the machine and pull the bar to your chest as in a normal row.

8. Towel Kettlebell Curl

Run the towel through the handle of a kettlebell, or wrap two towels around a pair of dumbbells as shown, and fold it in half. Hold both ends in one hand (for kettlebell), or both ends in each hand (dumbbells) and curl, keeping your upper arm stationary.

9. Farmer’s Walk

Pick up the heaviest dumbbells you can handle and walk with your chest out, standing tall with arms at your sides. Go 40–50 yards—you can walk in a figure-eight pattern if you don’t have the space. At the end of the distance, stop and continue to hold the weights for as long as possible.

10. Hammer Cheat Curl

Grasp a dumbbell in each hand and cheat the weights, as if doing a clean, to the top position of a curl. Use momentum from your hips to get the weights up. Slowly lower the weights back down for five counts.

11. Wrist Curl

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and sit on a bench, box, or chair. Rest your forearms on your thighs and allow your wrists to bend back over your knees so the weights hang down. Curl the dumbbells up by just flexing your wrists.

12. Reverse Wrist Curl

Perform the opposite motion of the wrist curl. Palms face down and extend your wrists to raise the back of your hands closer to your forearms.

13. Grip Crush

Sit on a bench, box, or chair with a dumbbell in your left. Extend your arm toward the floor and brace the back of it against the inside of your left thigh. Allow your hand to open and the dumbbell to roll to your fingertips. Now close your hand and perform a wrist curl, squeezing the weight as hard as possible. Choose a weight you could perform 8–12 normal biceps curls with.

14. Towel Curl

Loop a thick towel around the bar so that it doesn’t let your hands close all the way when you grasp it. Hold the bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip, in front of your thighs. Without allowing your upper arms to move forward, curl the bar. Add weight each set so you must reduce your reps.

15. Reverse Curl 21

Curl the bar halfway up and hold for one second. Lower it backand repeat for six more reps. Then curl the bar to the mid point and, beginning there, curl it all the way up for seven reps, using the mid point as the “bottom” of each rep. Finally, perform seven full-range reps.

16. Zottman Curl

Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand with palms facing your sides. Keeping your upper arms in place, curl the weights, rotating your palms to face your biceps in the top position. Turn your palms to face down, and then lower the weights slowly, as in a reverse curl. That’s one rep.

17. Drag Curl

Perform as you would the conventional dumbbell curl, but stand tall and drive your elbows back as you curl so the head of each dumbbell touches the front of your body throughout the rep. (Keep your palms facing up the whole time.) It should look as though you’re dragging the weights up along your torso.

18. Chinup

Grasp the bar with hands shoulder width and turn your palms to face you. Pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar. Complete your reps and then come down off the bar.