RIRLift app icon RIRLift

Exercises

Barbell arm exercises: biceps, triceps and forearms with one bar

Published October 19, 2026

The best barbell arm exercises are the barbell curl and EZ-bar curl for the biceps, the close-grip bench press and EZ-bar skullcrusher for the triceps, and the reverse curl and wrist curl for the forearms. A bar lets you load both arms at once and add weight in small plates, so it is the heaviest way to train arms. One curl, one close-grip press and one extension, 3 or 4 hard sets each and 1 to 2 reps short of failure, make a complete barbell arm workout.

  1. Barbell Curl Biceps
  2. Close-Grip Bench Press Triceps, Chest
  3. EZ-Bar Curl Biceps
  4. EZ-Bar Skullcrusher Triceps
  5. Preacher Curl Biceps
  6. JM Press Triceps
  7. Reverse Curl Biceps, Forearms
  8. Barbell Drag Curl Biceps

Barbell bicep exercises

A straight bar locks your palms facing up, which is the position the biceps are strongest in; an EZ bar angles the grip slightly for sore wrists. Pick one heavy curl and, if you have a preacher bench, one that works the stretched bottom of the rep. The drag curl changes the path rather than the bar, keeping the elbows behind you.

Biceps, heavy two-arm curl

Barbell Curl

Biceps

The straight-bar curl lets you put more weight on the biceps than any other curl, and plates make it easy to add 2.5 to 5 pounds at a time. It is the curl to build a barbell arm workout around.

How to do it

  1. Stand tall with your feet hip width and hold the bar palms up, hands about shoulder width.
  2. Start with your arms straight and the bar touching your upper legs.
  3. Curl the bar toward your upper chest while your upper arms stay by your sides.
  4. Lower it over about two seconds until both elbows are straight.

Cues

  • Elbows stay at your sides
  • Ribs down, no lean
  • Straight arms between reps

Common mistakes

  • Heaving the bar up with a hip thrust: start each rep from a still, straight-armed position and lighten the bar if needed.
  • Letting the elbows travel forward at the top: stop the bar a bit lower so the biceps keep the load.

Swap for: EZ-Bar Curl, Cable Curl, Dumbbell Curl

Build a session with Barbell Curl

Biceps, angled grip

EZ-Bar Curl

Biceps

The bends in an EZ bar turn your wrists in slightly, which many lifters find more comfortable than a straight bar for the same weight. Use it in place of the barbell curl if your wrists or elbows complain.

How to do it

  1. Hold the EZ bar on its inner bends with your palms angled up.
  2. Stand tall with the bar at arm's length against your thighs.
  3. Bend your elbows and bring the bar up toward your collarbone.
  4. Lower under control to full extension.

Cues

  • Grip the inner angles
  • Upper arms locked in place
  • Slow descent

Common mistakes

  • Gripping the outer bends, which is wide and shoulder-heavy: use the narrower inner bends for curls.
  • Bouncing the bar off your thighs: pause for a beat at the bottom.

Swap for: Barbell Curl, Preacher Curl, Landmine Curl

Build a session with EZ-Bar Curl

Biceps, supported curl

Preacher Curl

Biceps

The preacher pad removes every way to cheat and makes the bottom of the rep, where the biceps are stretched, the hardest part. It pairs well after a heavy standing curl.

How to do it

  1. Sit at the preacher bench so your armpits press against the top of the pad.
  2. Hold an EZ bar palms up with the backs of your upper arms flat on the pad.
  3. Curl until your forearms are nearly vertical.
  4. Lower slowly until your elbows are almost straight, without a bounce.

Cues

  • Arms flat on the pad
  • Control the bottom
  • Stop before the top goes slack

Common mistakes

  • Letting the bar drop into the bottom: the elbow takes that hit, so slow down for the last few inches.
  • Rising off the seat to finish: stay seated and use less weight.

Swap for: Machine Preacher Curl, Spider Curl, Concentration Curl

Build a session with Preacher Curl

Biceps, elbows behind the body

Barbell Drag Curl

Biceps

Instead of curling the bar out in an arc, you drag it straight up along your torso while your elbows slide back. The shoulders stay out of it, and the biceps take a hard contraction at the top with a lighter bar.

How to do it

  1. Hold a barbell palms up at shoulder width, arms hanging long against your thighs.
  2. Pull your elbows back behind you as you bend them, keeping the bar touching your body.
  3. Slide the bar up your torso until it reaches your lower chest.
  4. Reverse the path, keeping contact with your body, back to straight arms.

Cues

  • Bar stays in contact
  • Elbows travel back
  • Squeeze at the top

Common mistakes

  • Letting the bar drift away from your body: that turns it into a regular curl.
  • Shrugging the bar up with your traps: keep the shoulders down and back.

Swap for: Dumbbell Drag Curl, Barbell Curl, Cable Curl

Build a session with Barbell Drag Curl

Barbell tricep exercises

The triceps make up more of your upper arm than the biceps, and a bar loads them harder than anything else in the gym. Close-grip presses move the most weight; skullcrushers and the JM press isolate the triceps while still taking a decent load. Use one press and one extension per session.

Triceps and chest, heavy press

Close-Grip Bench Press

Triceps, Chest

Narrowing your grip on the bench press shifts more of the work to the triceps, and it is still a big compound lift you can load heavy. It is the best single barbell exercise for the back of your arms.

How to do it

  1. Lie back on the bench under the rack and grip the bar a little narrower than shoulder width.
  2. Unrack it and hold it over your lower chest with straight arms.
  3. Lower the bar to your lower chest, elbows tucked at about 30 to 45 degrees from your sides.
  4. Press back up to straight arms, locking out fully.

Cues

  • Hands just inside shoulder width
  • Elbows tucked
  • Full lockout

Common mistakes

  • Gripping so narrow your hands nearly touch: it strains the wrists without adding triceps work.
  • Elbows flaring wide on the way down: tuck them to keep the triceps in charge.

Swap for: JM Press, Floor Press, Close-Grip Push-Up

Build a session with Close-Grip Bench Press

Triceps, lying extension

EZ-Bar Skullcrusher

Triceps

Lying on a bench and lowering an EZ bar toward your head isolates the triceps, and letting the bar travel slightly behind your head stretches the long head too. It is the classic barbell triceps isolation exercise.

How to do it

  1. Lie back on a bench, EZ bar held over your chest on the inner bends, arms straight.
  2. Tilt your upper arms slightly back toward your head and keep them there.
  3. Bend only at the elbows to lower the bar to just above your forehead or behind it.
  4. Straighten your elbows to raise it back to the start.

Cues

  • Upper arms tilted back
  • Only the elbows move
  • Lower slowly near your head

Common mistakes

  • Upper arms swinging forward and back with each rep: that turns it into a pullover; keep them still.
  • Going too heavy too soon: elbows tolerate this exercise best in the 8 to 15 rep range.

Swap for: Dumbbell Skullcrusher, JM Press, Landmine Lying Triceps Extension

Build a session with EZ-Bar Skullcrusher

Triceps, hybrid press and extension

JM Press

Triceps

The JM press sits between a close-grip bench and a skullcrusher: the bar lowers toward your chin with elbows forward, then you press it back. It lets your triceps handle heavier weight than a skullcrusher with less strain at the elbow for many lifters.

How to do it

  1. Lie back on the bench with a shoulder-width grip and the bar over your upper chest, arms straight.
  2. Let your elbows drift forward as you bend them, bringing the bar down and slightly back toward your chin.
  3. Stop a few inches above your throat when your forearms and upper arms are close together.
  4. Press back up the same path to straight arms.

Cues

  • Elbows forward, not out
  • Bar toward your chin
  • Press back the way it came

Common mistakes

  • Lowering straight to the chest like a bench press: the triceps do less; let the elbows travel forward.
  • Lowering too fast near the face: slow down in the bottom third.

Swap for: Close-Grip Bench Press, EZ-Bar Skullcrusher, Machine Triceps Extension

Build a session with JM Press

Triceps lockout, pressing from the floor

Floor Press

Chest, Triceps

Pressing from the floor stops the bar when your upper arms touch down, which cuts out the bottom of the bench press and leaves the triceps doing the lockout. It is a strong option without a bench, using a rack set low.

How to do it

  1. Lie on the floor under a bar set in a rack at low height, knees bent or legs straight.
  2. Take a grip a little outside your shoulders and unrack it over your chest.
  3. Lower it until the backs of your upper arms rest on the floor, pausing for a moment.
  4. Press it back up until your arms lock out.

Cues

  • Pause on the floor
  • Triceps drive the lockout
  • Shoulder blades pinned back

Common mistakes

  • Bouncing the elbows off the floor: a short pause keeps the press honest.
  • Setting up with no safety: use a rack or pins so you can roll out of a stuck rep.

Swap for: Close-Grip Bench Press, Dumbbell Floor Press, JM Press

Build a session with Floor Press

Triceps, one end of the bar

Landmine Lying Triceps Extension

Triceps

With one end of a barbell in a landmine or a corner, you lie down and extend the free end. The arc is fixed by the anchor, so the bar stays steady and the load feels lighter on the elbows than a free skullcrusher.

How to do it

  1. Set one end of a barbell in a landmine and lie on your back with your head toward the loaded end.
  2. Hold the end of the bar with both hands above your face, arms straight.
  3. Bend your elbows to lower it back toward your forehead.
  4. Straighten your elbows to press it back up.

Cues

  • Upper arms still
  • Hands together on the sleeve
  • Squeeze at lockout

Common mistakes

  • Letting the elbows flare out to the sides: keep them pointing up.
  • Lying too far from the bar, so the arc pulls your arms forward: shift until the bar starts over your face.

Swap for: EZ-Bar Skullcrusher, Landmine Press, Overhead Cable Triceps Extension

Build a session with Landmine Lying Triceps Extension

Barbell forearm exercises

Your grip already works on every curl, but the forearm extensors on top and the flexors underneath grow faster with their own sets. Both of these use light weight and high reps, and both fit at the end of an arm session in a few minutes.

Brachioradialis and forearms, overhand curl

Reverse Curl

Biceps, Forearms

Curling with palms down shifts the work from the biceps to the brachialis and the brachioradialis on the thumb side of the forearm. It builds the top of the forearm that a regular curl barely touches.

How to do it

  1. Hold the bar palms down at about shoulder width, arms straight.
  2. Keep your wrists flat and your elbows by your sides.
  3. Curl the bar up until your forearms are close to vertical.
  4. Lower it slowly to straight arms.

Cues

  • Wrists flat, knuckles up
  • Elbows tight
  • Lighter than your curl

Common mistakes

  • Letting the wrists bend back as the bar rises: drop the weight until they stay level.
  • Using as much weight as a normal curl: start at about half of it.

Swap for: EZ-Bar Curl, Zottman Curl, Hammer Curl

Build a session with Reverse Curl

Forearm flexors, seated

Wrist Curl

Forearms

With your forearms resting on your thighs or a bench and palms up, you curl only the wrists. It trains the flexors on the underside of the forearm, which give your grip and forearm thickness.

How to do it

  1. Sit at the end of a bench, palms up on the bar, and rest your forearms on your thighs, wrists just past the knees.
  2. Let the bar roll down toward your fingertips.
  3. Curl your fingers and then your wrists up as high as you can.
  4. Lower back down slowly and repeat.

Cues

  • Forearms stay on your thighs
  • Let it roll to your fingers
  • High reps, slow tempo

Common mistakes

  • Lifting the forearms off your legs to move the bar: keep them flat and use less weight.
  • Short, fast reps: go through the whole range and keep the tempo slow.

Swap for: Kettlebell Wrist Curl, Reverse Wrist Curl, Farmer's Walk

Build a session with Wrist Curl

Put them together: example sessions

Each session below picks from the exercises above for one situation, with the sets, reps, rest and RIR filled in. Open one in the session builder to change a pick, price it from a recent set, and add it to RIRLift.

Session 1

One straight barbell and a rack, no extras

Open in the session builder
  • Workouts2× a week
  • Working sets22 a week
  • Per workout~30 min
  • EquipmentBarbells, Flat Bench

You train in a garage or home gym with a barbell, plates and a rack, but no EZ bar or preacher bench.

A straight bar still covers every part of the arm: the barbell curl and drag curl for biceps, the close-grip bench press and floor press for triceps, and the reverse curl for forearms. The presses lead each session at 2 reps in reserve because they are the heaviest and most taxing; the curls follow at 1, since they are safe to push close to failure. Each session is 11 working sets.

Arms A
ExerciseSets × repsRIRRest
Close-Grip Bench Press2 warm-up sets firstHands just inside shoulder width. 4 × 6–10 2 2:30 min
Barbell CurlStrict. Start from straight arms. 4 × 8–12 1 90 s
Reverse CurlPalms down. Wrists flat. 3 × 10–15 1 1 min

Open Arms A in the session builder

Arms B
ExerciseSets × repsRIRRest
Floor Press1 warm-up set firstPause with elbows on the floor. 4 × 6–10 2 2:30 min
Barbell Drag CurlBar touching your torso. 4 × 8–12 1 75 s
Barbell CurlLighter. Two-second lowering. 3 × 10–15 1 75 s

Open Arms B in the session builder

How to run it
Do Arms A and Arms B once each per week with at least two days between. If you also bench press that week, keep the close-grip press on a different day from your main bench.
How to progress
Double progression: when every set hits the top of its range at the target reps in reserve, add 2.5 to 5 pounds. Small fractional plates help on the curls, where a 5-pound jump is a big step.
Open in the session builder

Session 2

EZ bar, flat bench and preacher bench

Open in the session builder
  • Workouts1× a week
  • Working sets17 a week
  • Per workout~30 min
  • EquipmentBarbells, Flat Bench, EZ Bar, Preacher Bench +1

You train at a gym with an EZ bar, a flat bench and a preacher station, and want an arm day built around them.

The EZ bar's angled grip lets you train curls and skullcrushers hard with less wrist strain, and the preacher bench adds stretched-position biceps work. The JM press opens the session as the heavy triceps lift, then the session alternates biceps and triceps in two supersets to keep it under 45 minutes. Isolation sets end at 1 rep in reserve; the JM press stops at 2.

Arm Day
ExerciseSets × repsRIRRest
JM Press1 warm-up set firstElbows forward. Bar toward the chin. 3 × 8–12 2 2 min
A1 EZ-Bar CurlSuperset with skullcrushers. 3 × 8–12 1 75 s
A2 EZ-Bar SkullcrusherUpper arms tilted back. 3 × 8–12 1 75 s
B1 Preacher CurlSuperset with lying extensions. 3 × 10–15 1 1 min
B2 Landmine Lying Triceps ExtensionElbows pointing up. 3 × 10–15 1 1 min
Wrist CurlForearms on your thighs. 2 × 15–25 0 45 s
How to run it
Run this as a dedicated arm day once a week in a body-part or upper/lower split. Pair the supersets as written: one set of each exercise, then rest.
How to progress
Add reps first. When all sets reach the top of the range at the target reps in reserve, add the smallest plate. If your elbows feel the skullcrushers, move them to 12 to 15 reps rather than going heavier.
Open in the session builder

Session 3

Strength block, arms after the main lift

Open in the session builder
  • Workouts2× a week
  • Working sets12 a week
  • Per workout~15 min
  • EquipmentBarbells, Flat Bench, EZ Bar

You are running a strength program with heavy squats, bench and deadlifts, and want a little direct arm work without hurting recovery.

Heavy pressing already loads your triceps hard, so this plan uses only 2 or 3 short exercises and leaves 2 reps in reserve on everything. The JM press uses a lighter bar than your bench but trains the triceps directly, and the curls are kept to moderate reps so your elbows stay fresh for pulling. Five to eight sets total per day.

Arms 1
ExerciseSets × repsRIRRest
JM PressLighter than your bench. 3 × 8–10 2 2 min
EZ-Bar CurlStrict. 2 × 8–10 2 90 s

Open Arms 1 in the session builder

Arms 2
ExerciseSets × repsRIRRest
Barbell CurlHeaviest curl of the week. 3 × 6–10 2 90 s
EZ-Bar SkullcrusherModerate weight, smooth reps. 2 × 10–12 2 90 s
Reverse CurlGrip work for deadlifts. 2 × 10–15 2 1 min

Open Arms 2 in the session builder

How to run it
Add Arms 1 after your heavy bench day and Arms 2 after your deadlift or row day. Skip it on a deload week.
How to progress
Keep the rep target fixed and add weight only when all sets reach the top of the range at 2 reps in reserve. When the main lifts stall, cut each exercise by one set before anything else.
Open in the session builder

Make it fit you

Questions

What is the best barbell exercise for arms?

For the triceps, the close-grip bench press, because it moves the most weight. For the biceps, the barbell curl. Between them they cover most of the upper arm; add a skullcrusher and a reverse curl to round it out.

What workout gives you bigger arms?

One that trains biceps and triceps two times a week with 10 to 15 hard sets each, mixing a heavy compound press, a heavy curl and an extension, and adds weight over time. The barbell plans above are built that way.

Can you build arms with only a barbell?

Yes. A barbell covers curls, reverse curls, wrist curls, close-grip presses and skullcrushers, which is every arm movement that matters. The only real gap is overhead triceps work, which a landmine or a single plate can fill.

EZ bar or straight bar for curls?

Both build the biceps equally. A straight bar puts your palms fully up, which is a little harder on the wrists for some people; the EZ bar angles them slightly. Use whichever lets you curl pain-free with good form.

How do you train the short head of the biceps?

Curls with your arms in front of your body, like the preacher curl, are commonly used to bias the short head, and a slightly wider grip on a straight bar is another common choice. In practice, any curl trains both heads; picking one preacher-style and one standing curl covers them.

How heavy should barbell curls be?

Heavy enough that each set ends 1 to 2 reps short of failure in your target range, usually 8 to 12 reps. If you have to swing your hips to finish, the bar is too heavy.

How often should I do barbell arm exercises?

Two sessions a week works well. Each session needs only 3 to 5 exercises, and your other pressing and pulling days add indirect arm work on top.