Dumbbell · beginner · upper arms
Dumbbell kneeling hammer curl to hammer press
Also called Kneeling hammer curl and press, Half kneeling curl to press, Kneeling neutral grip curl to press, Half kneeling hammer curl to press.
A curl and an overhead press joined into one rep, performed half kneeling with a neutral grip that never turns. Your elbow flexors do the curl, the front of your shoulder leads the press with the middle head helping and the triceps finishing, and your legs only hold the position. This library lists the exercise twice, as kneeling hammer curl to hammer press and as kneeling hammer curl to hammer shoulder press. They are the same thing, and the two demonstrations differ only in camera distance and clip length.
How to do it
- Step oneKneel on both knees on a mat with a dumbbell in each hand using a neutral grip.
- Step twoCurl the dumbbells upward toward your shoulders in a hammer curl motion.
- Step threeFrom the top of the curl, press the dumbbells overhead until your arms are fully extended.
- Step fourLower the dumbbells back to shoulder height, then lower further to the starting position.
What usually goes wrong
Each starts with what you would notice.
Your hips settle back toward your heel as the dumbbells go overhead.
WhyKneeling gives you a short base and one obvious place to lose it. As the weight travels up, sitting back is the easiest way to get underneath it.
FixStack your hips over the knee that is down before the first rep and hold them there. If you are back on your heel by the end of the set, that is where the set finished.
The press begins before the curl has finished, so the two halves run into one.
WhyThe top of the curl is being used as a launch. The dumbbells arrive at your shoulders still traveling, and the press gets a start your shoulders did not give it.
FixStop at the shoulders. A short pause there, with the dumbbells completely still, makes the press start from your delts instead of from what is left of the curl.
The dumbbells end up sitting across your body at the top rather than along it.
WhyThe grip has rotated on the way up, so a press that began neutral finishes like a standard one. They are not the same exercise and the change tends to go unnoticed.
FixLook at a dumbbell at the top: its ends should still line up with your forearm, not sit crosswise to it. Holding that through the whole press is far easier at a weight you are not fighting.
The knee on the floor is the thing you notice most.
WhyIt is carrying your weight against a hard surface for the length of a set. Nothing about the exercise requires that to hurt.
FixKneel on a pad, or fold a towel under that knee. If the floor is the reason the set ended, the set did not test anything.
What it is for
The dumbbell kneeling hammer curl to hammer press is a compound arm exercise performed in a kneeling position, eliminating lower body momentum. It targets the biceps through the curl and the shoulders through the press, while the kneeling position engages the core for stability.
Questions people ask
- What is the difference between the kneeling hammer curl to hammer press and the kneeling hammer curl to hammer shoulder press?
- There is none. They are two listings of one exercise, from a catalog that named it twice. Both demonstrations show the same half-kneeling position, the same neutral grip and the same path, recorded at slightly different distances. Use whichever page you landed on.
- What muscles does it work?
- The curl half belongs to your elbow flexors: the biceps, plus the brachialis and the brachioradialis. The press half belongs to the front of your shoulder, with the middle head assisting and the triceps finishing it off. Your legs and trunk hold you where you are and drive neither half.
- Does kneeling work your core?
- It is claimed everywhere and it has not been measured. Nobody has compared a kneeling press against a standing or seated one for trunk activity, shoulder activity or weight lifted. What can be said without a study is what the position does: it narrows your base and removes any help from your legs, so the press has to come from your shoulders. Treat the rest as an assumption.
- Should you kneel on one knee or both?
- The demonstration is on one knee with the other foot planted in front, and the written steps say both. One knee down with a foot in front gives you a base that runs from front to back. Both knees down gives you one that runs side to side.
- Is a neutral grip overhead better for your shoulders?
- There is no evidence for it. Nobody has compared neutral and forward-facing grips in an overhead press for muscle activity, and nobody has tested either against shoulder pain. The grip is here because the curl half has already put your hands that way, which is a smaller and truer reason than the one usually given.
- Do the curl and the press have to be one rep?
- No. Nothing binds them together except the demonstration. Curling a set and pressing a set covers the same two exercises with a weight chosen for each, and nobody has tested whether joining them adds anything. The reason to join them is that it takes less time.