There are as many opinions regarding cheating movements as there are people in the gym doing them. Just kidding. Most of us wouldn't dream of using these techniques to move more iron than we really can.

But there is another school of thought. And they do have a point the least in one case. That would be using a cheating technique, especially in biceps exercises, to enable you to perform the negative half of the movement using more weight than you can actually lift. So let's take a look at the upside and downside of using cheating techniques.

On the upside is the afore mentioned advantage of being able to do heavy negatives. There may also be some small positive effect to your ego, but I hope not. Really, you know that if you are cheating to get the weight up, that is really more than you can actually lift. The downside of using a cheating movement when doing biceps curls really kind of fall into two categories. The first of which would be the question of whether or not the heavy negatives are really a benefit.

Are bicep curl negatives a good idea?

A lot of us like to use negatives, particularly heavy negatives in the belief that these extreme techniques will force new muscle growth via micro-trauma to muscle fibers and sheathes. I remain unconvinced. In any event, these sorts of things are almost impossible to test in the real world. Even if you manage somehow to hold all other variables constant -- diet, rest, frequency of training, load use, wraps, sets, and on and on, how can you be sure that the weeks spent doing heavy negatives really got you more growth than you would've seen doing normal reps?

The other consideration is whether headed heavy negatives do more harm than good. For one thing the bodybuilding community is coming around to the point of view that more frequent workouts, à la Arnold and Frank Zane, seem to produce fewer injuries and better growth over time.

If you do your bicep workout and use a cheat technique to perform heavy negatives what you are going to find is that the next day you're going to have trouble moving your arms. The delayed onset muscle soreness or DMOS created by this technique can be extreme as in extremely painful. As you might imagine, this is going to necessitate a much lengthier recovery than you would have needed otherwise.

In the first part of this discussion I talked about the "advantages" of incorporating cheat curls in your bicep workout. I also discussed the first of two downsides to performing this movement. That would be severe micro trauma along with associated DMOS and restricted frequency of workouts. Next I'm going to tell you exactly how to do a cheat curl, and I'm going to tell you the biggest reason why you shouldn't.

Proper performance of a biceps cheat curl

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Take a barbell loaded with your preferred amount of weight, which in this case will probably be built probably be more than you should be using but which in fact should be about your six rep maximum. Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder width using a supinated grip. Stand with your feet slightly more than shoulder width apart. There should be a slight bend in your knees and a slight crook in your elbows.

Take a deep breath and with the barbell resting against the front of your thighs lean slightly forward. Rock back thrusting your upper thighs and hips forward about 6 inches and use this momentum to help start the beginning of your barbell curl. Bring the barbell to the end of the concentric swing resting it against your clavicles. Lower the barbell at a speed in accordance with whatever insanely risky heavy negative regimen you're following. Rinse and repeat. Often when performing this movement trainees will have a training partner in front of them to assist by preventing the negative portion of the rep from occurring to quickly and by helping the trainee actually complete the positive portion of the rep.

From the description above it should be immediately obvious to any of you with more than six months in the gym that those performing this movement are asking for a nagging long-term muscle strain or other injury to the lower back or biceps. The elbow joint is particularly susceptible to trauma during this movement. Here are a couple of things you can do to make that injury less likely:

First of all at the beginning of the movement make sure that your buttocks, hamstrings, quadriceps, lower back and abdominal are all tensed. This is a risky move and having any muscle groups loose or slack and subject over extension or twisting is an extremely bad idea.

Second, you need to listen to your arms. Especially during the eccentric portion of the movement, while lowering the barbell I want you to pay careful attention to the way your shoulders and your arms feel, especially the inside of the elbow joint. If you're at the point in your bodybuilding life where you're going to consider using a technique like this, you're also a point where you understand the difference in the way muscle feels when it's being worked hard and the way muscle or connective tissue feels when it's been traumatized. At the very first instant that you feel that little pain of tissue letting go or that tiny pinpoint of heat in a tendon stop the movement.

Again, as you can probably tell from my tone throughout the article, I am not a big fan of forced negatives, extended eccentric movements or overloading muscle groups in an attempt to force them to grow. But if you will follow the recommendations above I think that you will have less chance of getting injured during key curls. Will you get hurt, and will you regret doing them? I think so. I would encourage you not to, and to instead incorporate regular standing barbell curls or gladiator curls into your bicep workout.

As always remember, I'm just a guy with an Internet connection. Before trying this or any other extreme movement get checked out by your doctor and bounce the idea off the trainer in your local gym. Use at your own risk!

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