Dumbbell · intermediate · upper legs
Dumbbell deadlift to hammer curl
Also called Deadlift to hammer curl, Dumbbell deadlift to hammer curl, Neutral grip deadlift to curl, Hinge to hammer curl.
This is a full hip hinge and a curl inside one repetition, with a dumbbell in each hand. You bend at the hips and knees until both dumbbells reach the floor beside your feet, stand all the way up, then bring them to chin height with your palms facing each other and your elbows tucked in at your ribs. Getting the weight off the floor is hip and knee extension: glutes and hamstrings straighten the hips, quads straighten the knees, and your lower back holds your spine at the angle you set it rather than lifting anything. The curl at the top belongs to the elbow flexors on their own, and because they are the weaker half, the dumbbell they can manage is the dumbbell the hinge has to make do with.
How to do it
- Step oneStand with a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing each other.
- Step twoPush your hips back and bend your knees, lowering the dumbbells down the front of your legs until they reach the floor beside your feet.
- Step threeStraighten your hips and knees to stand back up with your arms hanging.
- Step fourStanding tall, bend your elbows and curl both dumbbells to chin height with your palms still facing each other, then lower them back to your thighs.
What usually goes wrong
Each starts with what you would notice.
The dumbbells land on the floor and the next rep starts with a bounce off it.
WhyAt the bottom the floor is holding the weight instead of you, so the hips are unloaded for a moment and the rebound is what gets the next rep moving. It hides well, because the set gets quicker rather than obviously easier.
FixLet the dumbbells touch and stay touching for a beat, or stop them just short of the floor, then start the next rep from a standstill. Expect the set to end a rep or two earlier than it used to.
Your back rounds over in the last few inches before the dumbbells reach the floor.
WhyYour hips have gone back as far as they go and the floor is still lower than the dumbbells, so the last of the distance gets bought by bending the spine instead. Nearly straight legs bring that point on early, because a stiff-legged hinge finishes well above floor height for most people.
FixUse the knees. This version bends them on the way down, which is what lets the hips keep traveling back while the dumbbells keep dropping. If the floor is still out of reach with a flat back, put the dumbbells down on a low box and treat that height as the bottom of the rep.
The dumbbells clip your knees or shins on the way down.
WhyThey are tracking straight down the front of your legs at the same time as your knees are traveling forward into that space, and one of them has to give.
FixPush the hips back so the knees stay behind the weights, and let the dumbbells pass outside your legs rather than down the middle of them. Turning your toes out a little widens the channel they drop through.
Your hands are what give out, before your legs or your arms have finished.
WhyNothing in this rep puts the dumbbells down. You hold both of them through the descent, the stand and the curl, so the grip is loaded from the first rep to the last with no break anywhere in the set.
FixPut the dumbbells down at the top of a rep the moment the grip is what is failing, rather than working through it. If it is the grip every time, run the hinge and the curl as two separate exercises so the hands get a break between them.
What it is for
The deadlift to hammer curl joins a hip hinge and a curl into one repetition with a dumbbell in each hand, targeting the glutes. The hips and knees raise the load from the floor, and the curl that follows is limited to what your arms can lift rather than what your hips can.
Questions people ask
- What muscles does this work?
- Two groups, one after the other. Glutes and hamstrings straighten the hips and the quads straighten the knees to bring the dumbbells up off the floor, while your lower back keeps the shape of your spine rather than changing it. The curl afterward is done by the muscles that bend the elbow, which the hammer curl entry sets out in full. Nothing in this exercise trains both halves at once.
- Is this the same as a deadlift with a curl on the end?
- That is exactly what it is, and the sequence matters: the hinge finishes and you are standing before the curl starts. If the two blur together you end up swinging the dumbbells up with your hips, which takes the work off the arms and puts a jolt through your lower back at the moment it is least ready for one.
- Is this an upright row?
- No. An upright row is defined by the elbows leading the weight up the front of your body and finishing above your hands. Here the elbows stay tucked at your ribs and the hands finish well above them, which is what makes it a curl. If the upright row is what you were looking for, the dumbbell upright row entry is written for it.
- Should the dumbbells touch the floor on every rep?
- They do in the clip, and they can, as long as the floor is a stopping point rather than a resting one. Touch it, hold your position, and lift from there. If reaching it costs you the flat back, the floor is not your range yet and finishing higher is the honest version of the rep.
- Why does the hinge half feel so easy?
- Because the curl picked the weight. Almost anyone can lift a much heavier pair of dumbbells off the floor than they can curl to chin height, so the arms set the load and the legs take whatever that turns out to be. That is the price of joining two exercises, not a sign that something has gone wrong.
- Is this the same as the deadlift to biceps curl?
- Nearly. The deadlift to biceps curl entry covers the same two halves in the same order, written around a stiffer-legged hinge and a palms-up curl. In this clip the knees bend far enough to take the dumbbells to the floor and the palms stay facing each other the whole way. The faults on both pages apply to either version.