What's BEST: Preacher curls VS Incline Curls

Every since the Golden Era, bodybuilders have been doing preacher curls to build a bigger biceps peak. However, the incline dumbbell curl is a much better exercise for building the biceps peak than the preacher curl. Continue reading below to see why.

Although the supporters of preacher curls will tell you that they have been one of the most widely used exercise for building the biceps peak, some would argue that this move is not the most efficient. According to them, you can do a much better job with the incline dumbbell curl.

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The biceps are composed of two heads — the long head, which makes up the outer head of the biceps and composes the majority of the biceps peak, and the short head, which makes up the inner biceps. When you perform the incline dumbbell curl, your arms move behind your body. This stretches the long head of the biceps, which runs over the shoulder joint. When you stretch a muscle before you contract it, that muscle is able to contract with more force (i.e., it is stronger), and so it takes on the majority of the load during an exercise. Since the long head of the biceps makes up the mass of the biceps peak, the incline curl is an effective exercise for building the biceps peak. When you perform the preacher curl, your arms move in front of your body. This causes slack on the long head of the biceps, which makes it the weaker biceps head during this exercise.

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Therefore, the short head of the biceps takes the majority of the load during the preacher curl. This makes the preacher curl a poor exercise for building the biceps peak, but a good exercise for building the inner biceps. The preacher curl takes your arms in front of your body. This releases the tension of the long head, and reduces its involvement during this exercise. As a result, most of the load during the preacher curls is transferred to the short head. Having this mind, we can conclude that preacher curls are not as efficient for building your biceps peak, making them much better exercise for your inner biceps.

The movement of the incline dumbbell curls takes your arms behind your body, stretching the long head. By stretching your muscle before contraction, you squeeze out more force from it on contraction, handling most of the strain during the exercise. The fact that it’s the long head that participates the most in biceps peak’s architecture makes the incline curl an effective move for building its size. Since the long head of the biceps makes up the majority of the biceps peak and the incline dumbbell curl better targets the long head, the incline dumbbell curl is the better exercise for maximizing the biceps peak.