Wrist curls: what dedicated forearm work adds

Your forearms already take hundreds of sets a year. The question is what a dedicated set adds on top of that.

The wrist curl is the exercise you bolt onto the end of a session when your forearms lag. Before you program it, you need to know what your forearms already get from the rest of the session.

Usage data from the Overload reference library gives that ratio, and four studies give what grip strength predicts, what a short cycle produces, and at what dose.

Grip strength predicts more than forearm size

Leong et al. (2015) followed 139,691 participants across 17 countries for a median of 4 years, with a Jamar dynamometer reading taken at baseline. Over that period, 3,379 died.

After adjustment, every 5 kg drop in grip strength came with a 16% higher risk of all-cause mortality (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.13-1.20), a 17% higher risk of cardiovascular mortality, a 7% higher risk of myocardial infarction and a 9% higher risk of stroke. Grip strength predicted mortality better than systolic blood pressure.

Your forearms already work, as a secondary muscle

The Overload exercise library holds 897 movements. Twenty-five have the forearm as their primary muscle. Ninety-nine work it as a secondary muscle, from the barbell deadlift to the chin-up and every curl in between.

The usage gap between the two families runs 1 to 18. The 25 dedicated exercises hold 162 logged member uses. The 99 exercises that take the forearm as a secondary muscle hold 3,002.

Someone who rows, pulls and deadlifts therefore loads their finger and wrist flexors several times a week without ever programming a wrist curl. That is the correct starting point for deciding whether to add one.

What a six-week cycle moves

Chomiuk et al. (2025) followed 25 recreational athletes (14 women, mean age 20.4) for six weeks, two gym sessions and two climbing sessions a week, with no other training.

Right forearm circumference went from 24.6 ± 1.5 cm to 25.4 ± 1.7 cm (p < 0.001), the left from 24.6 to 25.1 cm. Bar hang time went from 55.3 s to 60.9 s, and right handgrip strength from 31.6 N to 34.3 N.

Climbing is part of the protocol, so none of these gains belongs to the wrist curl. What the trial establishes is simpler: six weeks is enough to measure a change in forearm circumference, provided the hands are loaded repeatedly.

The measurement that tracks the muscle

Abe et al. (2018) compared ultrasound-measured forearm thickness with MRI-measured cross-sectional area in ten adults, taken at 30% of the distance from the styloid process of the ulna to the head of the radius.

The correlations are strong (r = 0.937 to 0.946 for the ulna-side measurement). Grip strength also correlates with flexor cross-sectional area (r = 0.910) and extensor cross-sectional area (r = 0.923).

Two practical consequences. A tape measure around the forearm tracks real anatomy, which makes the Chomiuk et al. follow-up usable at home. And grip rises with both compartments, flexors and extensors, which is the case for loading the wrist in both directions instead of palms-up only.

At what dose

The network meta-analysis by Hua-Rui et al. (2025) pooled 13 randomized controlled trials and 711 participants on the resistance-training dose that improves grip strength.

Effective ranges run from 2 to 5 sessions a week, 30% to 75% of 1RM, over 4 to 24 weeks, 10 to 24 reps and 2 to 8 sets. The optimal dose lands at 3 sessions a week at 49% of 1RM, 6 sets of 16 reps.

Watch the population: those 711 participants average 68 years old and have sarcopenia. The ranges transfer badly as-is to a healthy 25-year-old lifter. What does transfer is the shape of the response, meaning moderate loads, high reps, and a frequency of 2 to 3 times a week.

The 25 forearm exercises in the Overload library

Of the 897 movements in the library, 25 have the forearm as their primary muscle. Members spread their sets across them very unevenly.

Exercise	Load type	Member uses
Cable Wrist Curl	Cable	82
Farmer's Walk	Carry	55
Palms-Up Barbell Wrist Curl Over A Bench	Barbell	7
Palms-Up Dumbbell Wrist Curl Over A Bench	Dumbbells	5
Palms-Down Wrist Curl Over A Bench	Barbell	4
Palms-Down Dumbbell Wrist Curl Over A Bench	Dumbbells	2
Dumbbell Lying Pronation	Dumbbell	2
Seated One-Arm Dumbbell Palms-Down Wrist Curl	Dumbbell	2
Wrist Roller	Roller	1

One note on method, since it changes how the table reads: this counter adds up how often the movement appears in logged sessions, not sets and not lifters. An exercise that sits high in the app's search starts with an advantage.

Two things stand out anyway. The cable wrist curl takes 82 of the 162 uses on its own, half the family, and the farmer's walk takes second place while flexing no wrist at all. The cable wins here for the same reason it wins on other isolation movements, its tension stays constant across the whole range, which the guide on cable training covers in detail.

Practical recommendations

• Check first whether your grip gives out before the target muscle on pulls. If it holds, your forearms already get their load from the 99 exercises that work them as a secondary muscle.
• Load the wrist in both directions. Extensors correlate with grip as strongly as flexors do in Abe et al.
• Plan 2 to 3 sessions a week, long sets, moderate loads. That is the response shape from Hua-Rui et al., not their exact numbers, which are calibrated on 68-year-old patients.
• Measure forearm circumference with a tape at a fixed landmark. Chomiuk et al. saw 0.8 cm of change in six weeks, which is detectable by hand.
• Add the farmer's walk if your goal is grip rather than size. It loads the fingers isometrically, which the wrist curl does not.

Conclusion

A dedicated forearm set lands on top of work that already exists and that weighs 18 times more in members' sessions. It earns its place when the grip fails first, when forearm size is the goal, or after an immobilization. In those three cases, load the wrist both ways, 2 to 3 times a week, and measure with a tape rather than in the mirror.

This article presents current scientific data. For a personalized program, consult a health professional.