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by Tom Black
I've decided to start with Zottman curls in my quest
to document and clarify some of the great lifts and exercises from the history
of weightlifting. In addition to my own description of this great
exercise, I've
reproduced a contemporary account of the movement from Alan Calverts "Super
Strength," circa 1924.
| From Super Strength, by Alan Calvert (1924): | ||
|
"The very best forearm exercise is the one invented by George Zottman. He used to do it with a pair of 50-lb. Dumbbells, and you can start it with a pair of 20-pounders. Stand erect, with the arms hanging at the sides. Then bend your right arm and bring the bell up in front of your chest, with the palm of the hand up and the wrist bent strongly inward. Bring the hand still further up until it is in front of the right shoulder, and then rotate your forearm until the palm is front, and then lower the bell slowly (with knuckles up) until the arm is again hanging at the side. The right hand describes a complete circle. When your right hand is in front of your shoulder, start your left hand coming up. Both hands work at the same time, but as the right hand is coming down the left hand is coming up, and vice versa. The elbows should be kept close to the sides throughout the whole exercise." Now that you've seen Calvert's description, let's analyze the lift, breaking it down into sections. Basically, the Zottman curl is simply a dumbbell curl followed by a reverse curl. When people think of curls, they usually think of a biceps exercise, but the Zottman curl is really a forearm exercise. In fact, the amount of weight used is limited much more so by the strength of the forearms, not the biceps. The beauty (genius really) of the exercise is that a person doing the exercise basically can do more weight on the reverse portion of the movement compared to if they were do the entire exercise with the palm down.
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| Kettlebell curls | ||
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