Drag Curl: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Variations

A drag curl is a biceps curl where you keep the bar touching your body and drag it straight up your torso, letting your elbows travel backwards instead of staying pinned at your sides. That backwards elbow path takes your front delts out of the lift and keeps your upper arm behind your body, which puts the long head of the biceps in a lengthened position. You will use less weight than a normal curl, and most lifters feel a harder squeeze at the top.

It was popularised by old-school bodybuilders and still turns up in arm programmes because it does something a strict curl does not. Here is how to set it up, what the evidence does and does not say, and how to programme it.

How to do a drag curl

You can use a straight barbell, an EZ bar, a pair of dumbbells or a cable. The steps below are for a barbell or EZ bar; the variations section covers the rest.

1. Grip the bar. Stand tall holding the bar with an underhand grip at about shoulder width, arms straight, bar resting against the front of your thighs. On an EZ bar, use the inner or outer angled section, whichever feels better on your wrists.
2. Set your shoulders. Pull your shoulders down and slightly back, brace your abs and squeeze your glutes. You want a still torso, because any lean backwards turns this into a swing.
3. Start the drag. Bend your elbows and pull them straight back behind you at the same moment. The bar should slide up your thighs and onto your stomach instead of moving forwards away from you.
4. Keep contact. Carry on curling until the bar reaches your lower chest or just below. The bar keeps light contact with your clothing the whole way. Your elbows will finish well behind your torso.
5. Squeeze and lower. Pause for a second at the top and squeeze your biceps hard. Then lower the bar along the same path, letting your elbows come forwards as it slides back down to your thighs. Take two to three seconds on the way down.

Muscles worked

The drag curl is still an elbow flexion exercise first. What changes is where your upper arm sits while you do it.

• Biceps brachii. The main mover. The biceps has two heads, and the long head starts from a point above the shoulder joint (the supraglenoid tubercle of the shoulder blade), so it crosses both the shoulder and the elbow (StatPearls: biceps muscle anatomy). When your elbows move behind your body, the shoulder extends and the long head is held at a longer length than it would be with your arms in front of you.
• Brachialis. Sits underneath the biceps and flexes the elbow whatever your grip. It works hard in every curl variation, this one included.
• Brachioradialis. The big forearm muscle near the elbow. It contributes more with a neutral or overhand grip, so it does less here than in a hammer curl.
• Rear delts and upper back. These muscles pull your elbows backwards and hold them there. They are not the target, but you will feel them, especially on the first few sessions.
• Front delts (less than usual). In a standard curl your front delts often lift the elbows forwards near the top. The drag curl takes most of that away, which is one reason the weight drops.

What the evidence actually says

There is no published study that measures drag curls directly, so be wary of anyone quoting exact percentages for long head activation. What we do have is related research. An EMG study of incline, preacher and standing dumbbell curls found shoulder position changed how biceps long head activity was spread across the range of motion, with the incline and standing versions keeping activity high throughout and the preacher curl only peaking over a short range (Oliveira et al., 2009).

So the reasoning behind the drag curl holds up on anatomy: arm behind the body means a longer long head. Whether that produces more growth than other curls has not been tested. We cover the wider picture in our guide to long head bicep exercises, where the drag curl sits alongside incline curls and behind-the-body cable work.

Benefits

• Less front delt cheating. Because the elbows go backwards, your shoulders cannot help by lifting the arm forwards. More of the work stays on the elbow flexors.
• A hard peak contraction. Many lifters feel a stronger squeeze at the top than in a standard curl. That is a subjective feel, not a measured result, but it makes the drag curl a useful finisher.
• Long head in a lengthened position. For anyone building a programme around the long head, this gives you a standing, barbell-based option to go with incline dumbbell curls.
• Uses kit you already own. A barbell, EZ bar or dumbbells is all you need. It suits a small home gym where you may not have a cable machine or an incline bench.
• Variety without new skills. It is close enough to a normal curl that you can learn it in one session, but different enough to give you a fresh stimulus when your arm training has gone stale.

Common mistakes

Letting the bar leave your body. This is the big one. Once the bar moves forwards, you are back to a standard curl with odd elbow positions. If you cannot keep contact, the weight is too heavy.

Leaning back to start the rep. Throwing your hips forwards and your shoulders back gets the bar moving but takes tension off your biceps and loads your lower back. Squeeze your glutes and keep your ribs down.

Shrugging. Pulling the elbows back can turn into lifting the shoulders up to your ears. Keep your shoulders down so your traps stay out of it.

Going too heavy. Lifters often load the same weight they use for EZ bar curls and then wonder why the drag looks like a reverse row. Drop the weight and let the elbow path do the work.

Rushing the lowering phase. Dropping the bar back to your thighs throws away half the set. Two to three seconds down, along the same path, keeps the biceps working.

Cutting the range short at the bottom. Finish each rep with your arms straight and the bar back on your thighs. Half reps from the stomach upwards feel busy but move very little.

Variations

EZ bar drag curl

The most wrist-friendly version. The angled grip turns your hands slightly inwards, which a lot of people find easier on the wrists and elbows when the arms are pulled back. It is the variation we mention in our EZ bar curl guide, and the technique is the same as above. If you are buying a bar, our guide to the best EZ bars in the UK compares the options.

Check the GYM MASTER Olympic EZ bar on Amazon

Barbell drag curl

The original. A straight bar locks your palms fully facing up, which keeps the biceps in its strongest supinated position. It can be harder on the wrists, so if you feel any discomfort, switch to an EZ bar.

Dumbbell drag curl

Hold a dumbbell in each hand, palms forwards, at your sides. Curl while sliding the dumbbells up the sides of your body, elbows travelling back. Dumbbells let each arm work on its own, which helps if one side is stronger, and they let your wrists find their own angle. You can also do them one arm at a time.

Cable drag curl

Attach a straight or EZ bar to a low pulley and stand close to the stack. Cables keep tension on the biceps at the very bottom of the rep, where a free weight gets light. Stand close enough that the cable runs almost vertically, otherwise it will pull the bar away from your body. If you like cable curls that put the arm behind you, the bayesian curl takes the same idea further.

Smith machine drag curl

The bar runs on fixed rails, so it cannot drift forwards, which makes keeping contact easy. The downside is that the fixed path does not suit everyone's build, and you lose the stabilising work. Use it if you struggle to keep a free bar on your body, then move back to a barbell or EZ bar once the pattern is grooved.

Sets and reps

The ACSM position stand on resistance training recommends moderate loads for roughly 8 to 12 reps across multiple sets as the core of training for muscle growth (ACSM, 2009). For drag curls, that translates to:

• Muscle growth: 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps, one or two times a week. Rest 60 to 90 seconds.
• Finisher: 1 to 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps after your main curl, taking the last set close to failure.
• Learning the move: 2 sets of 10 slow reps with an empty bar or light dumbbells, focusing only on keeping contact.

Place drag curls after a heavier curl variation rather than before it. They work well paired with an exercise that has your arms in front of you, such as a preacher or spider curl, so you cover both ends of the biceps in one session. Add weight only once you hit the top of the rep range on every set without the bar leaving your body.

A simple arm day might look like this:

1. EZ bar curl, 3 sets of 8 to 10
2. Drag curl, 2 sets of 10 to 12
3. Hammer curl, 2 sets of 10 to 12

Recommended reads

1. Long head bicep exercises: what works and why
2. EZ bar curl: how to do it and grip options
3. Bayesian curl: how to do it and why it works
4. The best EZ bars in the UK
5. Home gym equipment guides