The brachioradialis is the thick, visible muscle running along the top of your forearm, and training it comes down to grip position, exercise selection, and controlling the lowering phase of each rep. It’s an elbow flexor, not a wrist mover, so you train it with curling movements rather than wrist curls. The key is manipulating how you hold the weight to shift work away from the biceps and onto this muscle.
What the Brachioradialis Actually Does
The brachioradialis runs from the outside of your upper arm bone (about two-thirds of the way up) down to the base of your wrist on the thumb side. It crosses only the elbow joint, which means its sole job is bending the elbow. It fires during elbow flexion regardless of whether your palm faces up, down, or sideways, but how much work it does relative to the biceps changes with your grip.
It also stabilizes the forearm during curling motions. This is why you feel it working during heavy rows and pull-ups even though those aren’t isolation exercises. Any time your elbow bends under load, the brachioradialis is contributing.
Which Grip Targets It Best
The conventional advice is that a neutral grip (palms facing each other, as in a hammer curl) or a pronated grip (palms facing down, as in a reverse curl) shifts more work to the brachioradialis. The reality is slightly more nuanced. A 2023 study in Sports measuring electrical muscle activity found that the brachioradialis actually showed about 5-6% greater activation with a supinated (palms-up) grip compared to both pronated and neutral grips. The difference had a large effect size, meaning it wasn’t trivial.
However, the practical takeaway isn’t “just do regular curls.” With a palms-up grip, the biceps dominates so heavily that the brachioradialis is a secondary player. With a pronated or neutral grip, the biceps is mechanically weakened, which forces the brachioradialis and the deeper brachialis muscle to pick up a larger share of the total load. So while absolute activation may be slightly higher with palms up, the relative contribution of the brachioradialis increases when you flip to a neutral or overhand grip. Reverse curls in particular have been shown to produce significantly greater brachialis activation compared to hammer and traditional curls, and the brachioradialis follows a similar pattern of increased demand.
Best Exercises for Brachioradialis Growth
Reverse Curls
The reverse curl is the most direct way to load the brachioradialis. You grip a barbell or EZ-bar with your palms facing down and curl it up. Because the biceps is in its weakest position with a pronated forearm, the brachioradialis and brachialis do the heavy lifting. Use a weight that’s noticeably lighter than your regular barbell curl. Most people can handle about 60-70% of their standard curl weight here. An EZ-bar is easier on the wrists than a straight bar for most people.
Hammer Curls
Hammer curls use a neutral grip with dumbbells, palms facing your torso throughout the movement. They hit the brachioradialis hard while also allowing you to use more weight than reverse curls, since the neutral position is a stronger line of pull than full pronation. You can do these alternating, both arms simultaneously, or one arm at a time. A cross-body variation (curling the dumbbell toward the opposite shoulder) slightly changes the angle but still targets the same muscles.
Zottman Curls
Zottman curls combine both grip positions in a single rep. You curl up with palms facing up (supinated), rotate your wrists to palms-down (pronated) at the top, then lower the weight slowly in that overhand position. The concentric phase uses the stronger supinated grip so you can handle a meaningful load. The eccentric (lowering) phase in pronation forces the brachioradialis and forearm muscles to control the descent against a weight that’s heavier than what they could curl on their own. Aim for a 3-4 second lowering phase on each rep. A solid starting prescription is 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps with about 60-90 seconds of rest between sets.
Cable Variations
Performing reverse curls or hammer curls on a cable machine adds constant tension throughout the entire range of motion. With dumbbells, tension drops off at the top and bottom of the curl because gravity only pulls straight down. A cable keeps resistance on the muscle even at peak contraction, which increases the total time under tension per set. This is a proven driver of muscle growth. If you have access to a cable stack, reverse cable curls with a straight bar or rope attachment are excellent additions.
Compound Movements That Build It
You don’t need to rely solely on isolation work. Pull-ups, chin-ups, rows, and deadlifts all recruit the brachioradialis because they involve heavy elbow flexion under load. Adding fat grip attachments (thick rubber sleeves that increase the handle diameter) to these movements significantly increases forearm muscle activation while actually decreasing upper arm activation. Research on deadlifts, bent-over rows, and pull-ups found that forearm EMG activity jumped meaningfully with thicker handles. If you want to turn your back workout into brachioradialis training at the same time, fat grips are one of the simplest tools available.
Sets, Reps, and Programming
For forearm hypertrophy, a moderate to moderately high rep range works well. Sets of 10-25 reps are a sensible starting point, particularly because the range of motion on forearm-focused exercises is short compared to most other lifts. That said, muscle growth occurs across a wide rep range as long as you take sets close to failure, so sets of 8-12 with heavier loads work too. The important thing is proximity to failure, not hitting a specific number.
A practical approach is to include 2-3 direct brachioradialis exercises per week, spread across your training days. For example:
- Day 1: Reverse barbell curls, 3 sets of 10-12 reps
- Day 2: Zottman curls, 3 sets of 8-12 reps with a slow eccentric
- Day 3: Hammer curls or reverse cable curls, 3 sets of 12-15 reps
That gives you roughly 9 direct sets per week, which is a reasonable starting volume. You can increase to 12-15 weekly sets over time if you’re recovering well and want more growth. Pair these with compound pulling movements (especially with fat grips) and you’ll accumulate plenty of additional brachioradialis work without adding extra exercises.
Avoiding Overuse and Elbow Pain
The brachioradialis is prone to overuse injuries, particularly in people who add a lot of forearm volume too quickly. The two hallmark symptoms are a sharp, shooting pain during activity and a dull ache at rest that radiates from the outside of the elbow down through the forearm toward the thumb and index finger. You might also feel tightness in the forearm or a tender spot on the muscle belly itself. This pattern is often misdiagnosed as tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), since both produce pain in the same area.
Brachioradialis pain develops from repetitive microtrauma, meaning it’s a volume and recovery problem, not a single-event injury. To reduce your risk, start with lighter loads on reverse curls and Zottman curls and build up gradually over several weeks. Stretching the brachioradialis before and after training helps. A simple stretch is extending your arm in front of you, straightening the elbow, and using your other hand to gently press your fingers and wrist downward (into flexion) while your forearm is pronated. Gentle range-of-motion work, bending the elbow and rotating the wrist through its full range, is useful as a warm-up before heavy forearm training.
If you notice lateral elbow pain creeping in, reduce your direct forearm training volume and apply ice for 20 minutes after sessions. Isometric holds (holding the brachioradialis in a contracted position for time with light resistance) can help maintain strength during recovery without aggravating the tissue.