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Most people know the gym is the place to be to build muscle all over your body. But what are some gym machines specifically for stronger forearm muscles?
Compared to other body parts, there are relatively few gym machines for training forearm muscles. One reason for this it that other free weights like dumbbells, kettlebells, a barbell, and even resistance bands are already such a great option.
There are even a variety of separate forearm exercise equipment options specifically for training this part of your body.
Even so, if you are at a gym and for some reason you don’t want to use free weights, you can also use the gym machines below to train your forearm muscles. Make sure you warm up sufficiently and don’t overdo it to avoid any injuries.
1. Wrist curl machine
There is actually one type of gym machine specifically made for training your forearm muscles called the wrist curl machine. This is basically a pad to put your forearms on and a handle attached to a cable attached to adjustable weights.
To do the exercise you first simply select your desired weight and put your forearms on the pad. After that, grab the handle underhanded or overhanded depending on what part of your forearms you want to train. Lastly, lower and raise the handle in a controlled motion.
A benefit of gym machines for most body parts is that you have a fixed range of motion and that it is hard to use other body parts during the exercise.
In the case of the wrist curl machine you only have the isolation part, not the fixed range of motion. So in the likely case your local gym does not have a wrist curl machine you can also simply grab a pair of dumbbells, sit down, and put your forearms on your upper legs to do regular wrist curls.
2. Cable machine
The cable machine is a type of gym machine where a steel frame holds weights and pulleys. Thanks to the cable going through these pulleys and attached to these weights you can do many types of strength training exercises for a wide variety of muscles.
This includes forearm exercises like palm-up wrist curls, plam-down wrist curls, reverse curls, wrist lifts, etc.
To isolate your forearms as much as possible you can sit down and put your forearms on your legs when doing certain exercises.
3. Pull-up bar
A piece of equipment many people forget when talking about forearm training is the pull-up bar. You could argue about the pull-up bar being a gym machine but since the list of forearm gym machines is already so short, this option can definitely be a helpful addition.
Most of the popular pull-up bar exercises train your forearms to some extent. But for these muscles to fatigue first, you may have to stick to a simple pull-up bar hang.
One downside is that a pull-up bar hang is a type of isometric exercise. In simpler words, this means that you engage your muscles in a more static way, without moving a lot. On the other hand, you have isotonic exercises where you engage your muscles in a dynamic way, by moving.
Isotonic exercises are generally more useful for building muscle. That means that the other forearm gym machines used in an isotonic way are likely better pieces of equipment for improving your forearm strength a lot.
4. Smith machine
The smith machine looks similar to a squat rack but there are a few differences which make the smith machine more of a machine.
First of all, the barbell is attached to a rail system. This makes it so it can only move up or down alongside these rails and not forward or backward. Secondly, it has a system where you can rack the barbell at any height.
You can do a few of the barbell forearm exercises like wrist curls and reverse curls with the smith machine. However, a free-moving barbell offers even more possiblities for strengthening this part of your arm.
