Zottman curls? I had not heard of these.
May 19, 2025
These days, I see more and more people details of what they've done each week.
I happened upon this post by John SJ Anderson, aka genehack. In this recent weeknote, he mentioned Zottman curls. I had not heard of these before. I was curious and looked them up.
If found this YouTube video by Scott Herman Fitness.
I decided to give them a try. Today was my 3rd workout in the gym since my knee replacement 10 weeks ago.
I typically do curls with 20 pound dumbbells, varying the kind of curl. Sometimes doing hammer curls and sometimes regular curls.
I figured I'd have to go lighter for the Zottman curls and I was right. Unfortunately, our gym does not have 2.5 pound increments for their dumbbells. So I went with 15s.
I found the Zottman curls to be challenging, particularly the eccentric part of the curl, when doing it slow and controlled. It blazed my forearms, as predicted.
I think I'll be working these into my workouts from time to time.
Thanks for the idea, John!
