Shorter or Fuller Arm Curls? What Works Better?
Partial Range, Full Gains? The Effect of 8 Weeks of Partial Range of Motion Training at Long Muscle Lengths on Elbow Flexor Hypertrophy and Strength in Trained Individuals
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Partial ROM training improved strength at 100° elbow flexion more than full ROM — even though participants never trained through that exact angle.
Common belief: you get stronger where you train. But here, training only the bottom half made people stronger in the middle — suggesting neural or structural adaptations beyond simple movement specificity.
Practical Takeaways
If you want to emphasize the lower bicep, add 2–3 sets of partial preacher curls (0°–70°) at the end of your arm day — but keep full ROM as your main stimulus.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Partial ROM training improved strength at 100° elbow flexion more than full ROM — even though participants never trained through that exact angle.
Common belief: you get stronger where you train. But here, training only the bottom half made people stronger in the middle — suggesting neural or structural adaptations beyond simple movement specificity.
Practical Takeaways
If you want to emphasize the lower bicep, add 2–3 sets of partial preacher curls (0°–70°) at the end of your arm day — but keep full ROM as your main stimulus.
Publication
Journal
European Journal of Sport Science
Year
2025
Authors
Tim Havers, Niklas Wagner, Steffen Held, Stephan Geisler, T. Wiewelhove
Related Content
Claims (6)
Whether you do full or half curls, your arms still get stronger and a bit bigger—so you don’t need to do one over the other to see results.
The hypertrophic response to training at longer muscle lengths may differ between untrained and trained individuals, but current evidence is insufficient to determine this due to limited data in trained populations.
Whether you do full or half curls, the upper part of your bicep grows about the same amount—so where you curl doesn’t matter much for that part of the muscle.
Doing bicep curls only halfway up (keeping the arm stretched) might make the lower part of your bicep grow a tiny bit more than doing full curls, but the difference is very small.
Doing full bicep curls might help you lift a little more weight in a max lift than doing half curls, but the difference is tiny and not very certain.