For those too young to remember, the vince gironda body drag curl was a favorite of the late, great Vince Gironda, better known as the Iron Guru.

In fact, he advocated almost no other type of curl. Unfortunately, despite his full endorsement, the body-drag curl never achieved widespread acceptance.

To execute this curl, your biceps will raise a straight bar along the front of your body. One of the central benefits of this exercise is that it completely isolates your biceps by alleviating the deltoid activation that is common with most biceps curls.

The body-drag curl is all biceps, and talk about a pump! The pump is so great you’ll want to take it home to meet Mom, but don’t. It’s better left in the gym.

So what makes this curl different from other biceps curls?

The difference is in the way it forces you to lift the bar. Despite its name, the body-drag curl isn’t really a curl – at least not in the traditional sense. Rather than moving in an arc, your biceps will raise the weight in a straight up-and-down movement.

Therefore, your biceps will act more like the high pulley of a cable crossover. You’ll have to use less weight than with a traditional barbell curl, but don’t worry; this exercise is just as effective. The lighter-weight requirement could be the reason it never garnered much favor among weight trainers, whose egos compel them to lift as much weight as possible, diminishing the effectiveness of most biceps exercises in the process.

This shouldn’t dissuade anyone from doing this exercise, though. Set your ego aside and try to remember that your biceps can’t read the number printed on the side of the plates. After a decent warmup, load up a barbell and give this biceps punisher a try.

Just don’t come crying to us when you can no longer lift your arms high enough to wipe the sweat from your brow.