Steps
- Lie sideways on a flat bench with one arm holding a dumbbell and the other hand on top of the bench folded so that you can rest your head on it.
- Bend the elbows of the arm holding the dumbbell so that it creates a 90-degree angle between the upper arm and the forearm.
- Now raise the upper arm so that the forearm is parallel to the floor and perpendicular to your torso (Tip: So the forearm will be directly in front of you). The upper arm will be stationary by your torso and should be parallel to the floor (aligned with your torso at all times). This will be your starting position.
- As you breathe out, externally rotate your forearm so that the dumbbell is lifted up in a semicircle motion as you maintain the 90 degree angle bend between the upper arms and the forearm. You will continue this external rotation until the forearm is perpendicular to the floor and the torso pointing towards the ceiling. At this point you will hold the contraction for a second.
- As you breathe in, slowly go back to the starting position.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions and then switch to the other arm.
Tracking it in OneRep
Add the dumbbell lying supination 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.