Whether you’re chasing a sleeve-stretching pump or looking to even out your push-pull balance, one thing’s clear: bicep curls are a staple of any solid arm session.
Few movements match the feeling of curling a heavy weight with control. And while they might look simple, curls can do far more than deliver a quick pump – with the right intent, they can drive serious muscle growth.
So, how many curls should you actually be doing to build size? And what counts as a strong bicep curl one-rep max? If you want to make your arm day work harder for you, here’s how to dial in your reps and choose the right weights.
The Ideal Number of Bicep Curls for Building Muscle
When it comes to building muscle, two principles are key: mechanical tension – the force generated through resistance – and progressive overload, the art of gradually increasing that load over time. Nail these, and you’re laying down the foundation for real hypertrophy. Add adequate volume, recovery and nutrition into the mix, and you’re golden.
With that said, in order to choose a rep range suitable for your abilities which is also in line with your hypertrophy goals, you will need to choose a weight that is challenging enough. It’s important to work at least a few reps short of technical failure in order to create enough of that mechanical tension, as previously mentioned.
We know from research that hypertrophy can occur across a broad rep range, roughly between 6 and 30 reps, as long as sets are taken close enough to failure. For most lifters, the muscle growth sweet spot for bicep curls is:
- 8-15 reps per set while aiming for 3-5 sets per workout
Because the intensity of those reps will largely come down to the weight chosen, there is no need to allocate a certain amount of reps per beginner, intermediate and advanced, as even beginners may benefit from doing higher rep ranges with lower weights while they get used to the technique. However, if you’re having trouble picking a weight for bicep curls, you can use the following as a guide:
- Beginner: 6-10kg per dumbbell
- Intermediate: 10-14kg per dumbbell
- Advanced: 14-20kg upwards per dumbbell
Remember: the weights should feel challenging by the final few reps, but never at the expense of control. Try to avoid using momentum for the sake of a higher weight choice.
What Is a Good One-Rep Max Bicep Curl?
While working towards a true one-rep max on bicep curls isn’t necessary for building muscle, it can offer a useful reference point for overall arm strength. That said, context matters. Unlike compound lifts, curl strength is highly sensitive to form, with even small amounts of momentum dramatically inflating the numbers. Because of this, the following benchmarks should be viewed as general strength standards.
For men, a guide to barbell curl one-rep max strength:
- Beginner: 17kg
- Novice: 30kg
- Intermediate: 47kg
- Advanced: 68kg
- Elite: 91kg
For dumbbell curls (per arm):
- Beginner: 8-12kg
- Intermediate: 12-20kg
- Advanced: 20-25kg
- Elite: 25kg+
As with most curl standards, these figures may reflect a mix of strict and looser form, so they’re best used as a general reference rather than a hard benchmark. Ultimately, your bicep curl one-rep max matters far less than your ability to apply consistent tension across your working sets. For hypertrophy, control, proximity to failure and progressive overload will always beat chasing a single heavy rep.
How Many Bicep Curls You Should Do a Week
When it comes to how many days a week to train bicep curls, of course you could train biceps every day if you wanted, but as we know, muscle growth occurs out of the gym too. Plus, when you are pushing yourself with enough intensity, you will need your rest days to avoid injury and optimise your results. So including bicep curls anywhere from two to five times a week, with enough rest between workouts, is ideal.
How to Do Bicep Curls the Right Way
- Start with the dumbbells hanging in front of your hips, with your palms facing upwards.
- Keep the elbows glued to your waist and bring both dumbbells up to meet your shoulders. Keep your shoulders pinned back and don’t cheat by using your hips.
- Slowly lower the dumbbells under control, until they reach your starting position.
How to Increase Your Bicep Curl Rep Count
If you have the goal of increasing your bicep curl rep count, you should be aiming to push yourself to a good level of perceived exertion each training session. While you don’t have to work to technical failure, it can be a good test of your capabilities, as we are usually notorious for underestimating our true exertion. Once you have a good idea of what that feels like, you can use the RPE or RIR (rate of perceived exertion or reps in reserve) scales to see where you sit at the end of your sets.
Ideally, for muscle growth, the ‘sweet spot’ would be 0-5 reps from failure. However, as long as you don’t stop with more than 3-5 reps left in the tank, you’ll be solid.
Should You Increase Reps or Weight for Building Muscle?
If you’re confused whether you should head for heavier weights, or squeeze out a few more reps, you’re in luck, as it seems there isn’t a wrong answer. Researchers in a study published by PeerJ set out to find out what exactly happens when there is a focus on increasing reps instead of weight when incorporating progressive overload. It found that increasing reps and load both appear to be good strategies for enhancing hypertrophy. So, when our bicep curl weights and chosen rep ranges feel less challenging, we can choose to either increase reps or weight – and still reap the muscle-building rewards.
