How To Get Big Forearms

Step 1

The simplest thing one can do to hit their forearms harder in the gym is to change up the grip on the bar or machine in any exercise, especially exercises geared towards the back and biceps. Instead of wrapping the thumb around the bar to secure it in your hand like usual (i.e. when doing a Lat Pulldowns), grip the bar with your thumb on the same side as the rest of your fingers. This grip places more stress on the forearm muscles as they have to struggle harder to hold the weight.

Step 2

Instead of, or in addition to adjusting thumb placement on the standard dumbbell curl, the hand positioning also can be tweaked to hit the forearms more. Instead of centering your hand on the dumbbell bar, slide your hand all the way to either side closer to a weighted end. Performing dumbbell curls with a grip against the inner-sides of the dumbbells will stress the outer-forearm stabilizer muscles to work harder in order to balance the weight. Likewise, gripping the dumbbells towards the outside will work the wrist-flexor muscles on the inner-forearm harder.

Step 3

If changing how and where you grip the dumbbell while doing curls wasn't a radical enough change to spark forearm development, then turn them upside-down! Doing reverse bicep curls (works with dumbbells or barbells) places the weight against the interlocking fingers gripping it, instead of against the palm of the hand. The added stress of maintaining the curl-grip while working against gravity adds more of a stimulus to the forearms as well as working the bicep.