Are free-weight barbell or dumbbell curls better than cable curls?
Not necessarily. The only problem with cable curls is weight-stack drag, which makes the negative, or lowering, stroke slightly easier; however, you get much better continuous tension with a cable curl than with barbell or dumbbell curls. That’s very important for max-growth stimulation. There’s also another big benefit. According to Olympic coach and massive-arms expert Charles Poliquin, Japanese researchers have found that the biceps muscle responds best to faster concentric contractions. You get more biceps-muscle fibers in the action if you do the positive stroke in about one second. If you curl the weight up slowly, you tend to recruit the brachialis. With that in mind, a cable curl becomes even more effective because you can drive the bar up in about one second without losing tension on your biceps. Not so with a barbell or dumbbells—you lose tension all over the stroke during a fast positive due to momentum. That makes the cable curl the better choice for rapid-fire sets. To eas
