Even when you change your shoulder position during bicep curls, you still lift the same total amount of weight — your total workout effort doesn’t go up or down.

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Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

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The Effects of Varying Glenohumeral Joint Angle on Acute Volume Load, Muscle Activation, Swelling, and Echo-Intensity on the Biceps Brachii in Resistance-Trained Individuals

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2019 Sep 4

Even when people changed the angle of their shoulder during bicep curls, they still lifted the same total amount of weight overall — so changing how they held their arm didn’t make their workout easier or harder in terms of total work done.

Contradicting (0)

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No contradicting evidence found

Source Study

The Effects of Varying Glenohumeral Joint Angle on Acute Volume Load, Muscle Activation, Swelling, and Echo-Intensity on the Biceps Brachii in Resistance-Trained Individuals

Score: 51

DOI: 10.3390/sports7090204

Similar Assertions

Just because changing your shoulder angle makes your biceps work harder during one workout doesn’t mean it will make your muscles bigger over time — this study didn’t test that.

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Whether you change your shoulder angle or not during bicep curls, your muscles recover at the same speed over the next three days.

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Switching up your shoulder position during bicep curls makes your muscles fire more, even if you're lifting the same total weight.

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Changing the angle of your shoulder while doing bicep curls makes your biceps work harder during the workout, even if you're lifting the same total weight.

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Doing bicep curls with your arm in front of your body or behind your body gives you the same muscle growth and strength gains if you're using the same amount of weight and doing the same number of reps.

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