Exercise library

How to do the Cable Wrist Curl

A beginner isolation exercise using cable, working the forearms.

Primary musclesForearms
Secondary musclesNone recorded
EquipmentCable
LevelBeginner
TypeIsolation
ForcePull

Steps

  1. Start out by placing a flat bench in front of a low pulley cable that has a straight bar attachment.
  2. Use your arms to grab the cable bar with a narrow to shoulder width supinated grip (palms up) and bring them up so that your forearms are resting against the top of your thighs. Your wrists should be hanging just beyond your knees.
  3. Start out by curling your wrist upwards and exhaling. Keep the contraction for a second.
  4. Slowly lower your wrists back down to the starting position while inhaling.
  5. Your forearms should be stationary as your wrist is the only movement needed to perform this exercise.
  6. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the cable wrist curl to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.