Were we built for wrist curls?

A fellow blogger who I find consistently makes me think, Rusty Moore over at the Fitness Black Book, recently posed the following question.

I just spent about 20 minutes on your site! I really want to give Clubbells a try to build forearm strength. I have always felt that wrist curls didn't do the trick. I do like one arm "suitcase lift" with a barbell for grip strength, but I would love to find an alternative to the wrist curls for direct forearm work. I'll probably just go over to your blog and comment. I've been searching for an effective forearm movement that felt healthy on the wrists…wrist curls feel a little damaging to me. Does that make sense?

The issue I would have with wrist curls, along with several other “conventional” exercises is its lack of “applicability” (I’d use the word functionality, but it has become such a cliché).  And if an exercise isn’t really applicable in the real world, chances are the human body isn’t really adapted to doing it naturally.  When would a caveman have fixed his forearm and moved a weight with his wrist only?  Probably never.  Instead, he would have things pulling against or through his grip at different angles as he manipulated them.

So the suitcase deadlift, or any type of deadlift for that matter, is applicable to tasks our forebears likely had to adapt to.  It’s a weight pulling directly against our grip.  Clubbells attack the grip from another perspective in that they address a weight pulling through that grip, as in dragging a carcass by the leg, for example.  Both movements reflect patterns that the muscles, connective tissue and joints were meant to do.  The tissues are functioning “normally” in this case.  If you force them to work “abnormally,” as in a wrist curl, I think you are right in feeling that the movement could potentially be damaging.  At the very least, it is not improving the applicability of your strength.

In order to get at the same target as a wrist curl in a more applicable manner, I really like kettlebells.  The press family of movements, culminating in the jerk, and the snatch really stimulate the development of the forearm.  I find they really echo any task which involves holding a weight overhead with your palms up, like carrying a big rock on your shoulder.  Again, this is a naturally occurring task to which our structure adapted.  I especially like the snatch because you are getting a combination of the “pulling against the grip” component during the swing phase, and the “supporting a weight” component during the overhead phase.

I always try to keep an open mind about different exercise approaches.  Being dogmatic closes you off to so many possibilities that you may never have thought of.  But I just can’t see how wrist curls would ever fit into my own personal approach to training.  I’m really interested in the idea that they can intuitively feel damaging.  I think looking at any exercise in terms of applicability to natural physical tasks may be a good way of assessing whether it could be potentially injurious or not.  If we weren’t made to do it, maybe we shouldn’t.

Comments

[Rusty - Fitness Black Book]

Adam,

Looks like I'm dropping wrist curls for good. I knew you would have a solid answer for me. I won't waste my time on such an unnatural movement. Good call on kettlebells.

I looked at your Archives and just realized that we both started blogging the same month. You have a ton of content already...I think I have some catching up to do.

Sweet blog buddy!

[monica]

One of my biggest problem with wrist curls is that their so boring! I'd rather workout my forarms with compound movements. I need to get me some kettlebells!