Have you ever wondered why they made screws “righty-tighty, left-loosey”?
Screwing something in is much harder than screwing something out, so it needs more force. Bigger muscles generate more force. Most people are right handed. So they chose that direction of the threads to allow your bicep to do most of the work? (especially in the days before power tools and self drilling screws with a star bit…)
What? The Bicep?
Yes the Bicep.
But I’m pretty sure I don’t need to do a bicep curl to use a screwdriver.
Everyone knows your bicep flexes your elbow, but your bicep isn’t even your strongest elbow flexor. The brachialis actually carries most of that load, and brachioradialis helps support that motion.
In fact, most of these “wrist and hand” muscles will help flex the elbow (if they cross the elbow that is):
Okay, so a bicep curl maybe isn’t all that is cracked up to be…
Not true. The bicep curl is still immensely important. But your bicep is most important in creating SUPINATION. Your bicep is your biggest and strongest supinator – just a fancy term for turning your palm up, like you are holding a bowl of soup. SUUUPinator… SOUP… get it?
How do I know if I need to work on my bicep?
Often, after a biceps surgery (where they reconnect the long head of the bicep to a lower portion results in a bicep that shuts off and becomes difficult to activate. The brain learns how to use all the other muscles to flex the elbow, and it can also learn to supinate the hand through the wrist (not where we want supination to come from), rather than the elbow.
Sometimes you don’t even need a surgery to learn how to supinate more from the wrist than the elbow, and wrist and hand problems occur.
Climbers mostly function with their arms above their head in pronation (hands facing forward) – not the ideal position for biceps activation. Underclings can become a problem if you lack supination – and training the bicep to create supination at the elbow can save your wrist a lot of problems.
Or, look down at your arms. Do you see a skinny upper arm with tight and sinewy forearm muscles that are the same size as the upper arm? Your forearm has likely developed a propensity to supinate the wrist, and aid in elbow flexion.
Training supination becomes the best way to retrain the bicep and awaken it:
We like to start with a stick – because it goes to show you don’t need any fancy equipment to get the bicep doing what it needs to do. And most people have a broom or swiffer laying around somewhere near them.
- Start with the long side of the stick on your pinky side of your hand, starting with your hand vertical.
- Then rotate your palm up – try to get horizontal to the ground with the stick.
- KEEP YOUR WRIST STILL
- We can’t emphasize this enough. Keep your wrist still. We don’t want to engrain that compensation you have learned in dealing with a weak bicep.
As long as your wrist is stationary and stable with that motion, it will not hurt. We often use this for patients with wrist pain as well because it is a great wrist stability exercise, and supination at the elbow can be limited. We want to progress the range and make sure the wrist is not compensating for any elbow motion deficiencies. If your wrist does hurt, you are moving too far.
Once you have the supination dialed in…
Advance to the True Bicep Curl:
- Maintain the supination at the elbow.
- Slowly straighten your elbow
- Slowly bend your elbow
- DON’T LET THE WRIST MOVE
This is a great advancement of a wrist stabilization exercise as well, as those wrist stabilizers will have to learn how to be used to stabilize the wrist through a wider range of motion.
Now go forth and supinate your bicep’s dreams away!
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to text us at 303-444-8707.