You’ve probably already heard that the benefits of upper body strength training go way beyond aesthetics. It’s key for maintaining muscle mass, keeping bones strong, supporting good posture, and enabling you to perform everyday tasks (such as lugging heavy groceries from the car) with ease.

But an effective upper body strength training routine doesn’t just focus on the shoulders, chest, and biceps. It’s important to do moves that target the forearms and require a firm grip too. Having strong forearms and a strong grip are important for everyday tasks, like opening jars, and for playing sports like tennis, pickleball, baseball, and golf.  

Not sure where to start? Keep reading to learn more about why forearm strength matters, and score expert recommendations for forearm exercises you can add to your routine.  

What Are the Forearm Muscles?

The forearms consist of 20 muscles—more than most people realize, explains Raquelle Felder, a doctor of physical therapy and owner of San Diego Mobile Rehab. “The different muscles are organized into two compartments: the anterior and posterior,” she says. 

The anterior compartment is located on the palm side of the forearm and contains muscles that flex the hand and wrist—that is, they bend your wrist so your palm moves closer to your forearm, or your fingers move toward your palm (for example, making a fist), Felder explains. The anterior compartment also plays a role in rotating the forearm so that the palm faces down, known as pronation.

The posterior compartment is located on the other side of your forearm (think: the same side as the top of your hand). It houses the muscles that extend the wrist, meaning they move the top of the hand and fingers backward toward the forearm. This compartment also aids in supination, or rotating the forearm so the palm faces up. “Think of cupping your hands together in a bowl for soup,” Felder says—that’s supination.

Forearm muscles are crucial for many daily tasks. Gripping and carrying items, typing, writing, and using utensils all require the use of forearm muscles, Felder says.

What Are the Benefits of Doing Forearm Strength Exercises?

Peloton instructor Marcel Maurer emphasizes that forearm strength is important for everyone. “Regardless of sport, trained arms help us in everyday life, for example when carrying shopping bags or lifting objects,” he says.

If you do play sports or like to work out regularly, incorporating forearm exercises into your routine can help improve your performance and protect you from injury, Marcel says. “Trained arms help us perform sporting movements even more powerfully and explosively, and also relieve pressure on joints, making them less susceptible to injury,” he says.

One important benefit of doing forearm strength exercises regularly is that they help improve grip strength. “If you regularly grip and lift dumbbells, you will strengthen the forearms, which you need for grip strength,” Marcel explains. 

Tanner Neuberger, a physical therapist and clinic manager at Athletico Physical Therapy, adds to this, saying that stronger forearms and stronger grip strength go (literally) hand-in-hand; when one gets stronger, so does the other. That’s because forearm muscles—namely the flexors—are the main muscles responsible for gripping things, along with the small muscles in your hands.

The Importance of Grip Strength

Both Marcel and Neuberger explain that if you have weak grip strength, you won’t be able to do many arm exercises properly. It’s impossible to do a pull-up if you can’t hold on to the bar, for one.

“If you have weak grip strength, you will eventually no longer be able to grip dumbbells. Movements such as the bicep curl can no longer be performed at some point, not because the biceps are tired, but because the grip strength and forearms are no longer strong enough,” Marcel says.

Besides helping you out in the gym, you likely use your gripping skills more than you realize throughout the day. Picking up your kids, opening a heavy door, shoveling, and even using eating utensils all require sufficient grip strength.

There’s even some research suggesting that grip strength can serve as an powerful biomarker for overall health. For example, a 2024 research review published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition found that weak grip strength is correlated with overall mortality risk and several diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, chronic kidney and liver disease, some cancers, sarcopenia, and bone fractures. This doesn’t mean that building jacked forearms will automatically increase your lifespan or healthspan. Rather, it’s that grip strength often reflects a person's overall muscle mass and physical condition. Staying active in ways that build or maintain overall strength (including your forearms and grip) can play a role in the larger picture of your overall health.

12 Forearm Workout Moves for Stronger Arms and Grip Strength

If you’re wondering how to make your forearms bigger or increase both your forearm strength and grip strength, below are the exercises to integrate into your strength training routine.

1. Biceps Curl

This is one of Marcel’s go-to forearm exercises. In addition to strengthening the forearms and the biceps, biceps curls also help support elbow stability. If you’re new to biceps curls, over time, try working up from one to three sets.

2. Triceps Kickback

Another forearm exercise Marcel recommends is the triceps kickback, which not only strengthens forearms and triceps but also targets the core thanks to the forward hinge position. 

3. Cable Wrist Curl 

In general, Neuberger says wrist curls are a great way to increase grip strength and build isolated strength in your forearms. If you want your forearms to get bigger, he says cable wrist curls are an especially great move to do regularly. For this exercise, you’ll need access to a cable machine.

4. Wrist Extension

Jasmine Marcus, a physical therapist at Cayuga Medical Center, explains that this wrist extension move helps strengthen the extensor muscles. If you play tennis, she says this is an especially beneficial exercise to do because it can help prevent tennis elbow. To increase the challenge, you can also hold a very light dumbbell (1-2 pounds) in your hand.  

5. Wrist Flexion

This wrist exercise and stretch also comes recommended by Marcus because it helps strengthen the flexor muscles in the forearm’s anterior compartment. She says it’s a great move for golfers because it can help protect against golfer’s elbow. To make it harder, you can hold a very light dumbbell (1-2 pounds) in your hand.

6. Suitcase Carry

Another forearm exercise Neuberger recommends is the suitcase carry (aka a unilateral farmer’s carry). It strengthens your grip as well as your shoulders, abs, glutes, and legs, so it’s a great way to increase overall strength—not just in your forearms.

7. Lateral Raise

Lateral raises, as recommended by Marcel, help increase grip strength while targeting the upper arms and shoulders.

8. Barbell High Pull

If you want to increase your power, high pulls are a great way to do so while also improving your grip strength. It’s a move Marcel recommends doing regularly for bigger, stronger forearms. You can do high pulls with a variety of equipment, including kettlebells, dumbbells, or barbells (as described here).

9. Zottman Curl

Marcel likes the Zottman curl, a variation of the biceps curl, as a way to build forearm and grip strength (in addition to stronger biceps).

10. Reverse Barbell Curl 

“This exercise focuses on strengthening a major forearm muscle called brachioradialis,” Felder says. Every time you bring a glass to your mouth, for example, you’re using the brachioradialis muscle. “Additionally, this exercise improves forearm extensors, which strengthens all of the posterior compartment muscles,” Felder adds. 

11. Towel Wringing 

You can use your gym towel for more than just sopping up your sweat; it can also be used to work your forearms. “This exercise is great for strengthening both wrist flexors and extensors in a functional way while also improving grip strength, endurance, and coordination,” Felder says.

12. Stress Ball Squeezes

If you have a stress ball on hand, you have a tool you can use to increase your grip strength while you’re sitting at your desk or on the couch. Marcus says that doing this regularly will allow you to lift heavier weights as well as make functional tasks, such as opening jars, easier.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Doing Forearm Workouts

When doing the above forearm exercises, make sure you aren’t overextending your wrists, a common mistake many people make, Marcel says. While some forearm exercises do require extending the wrist, it’s important to avoid excessively bending it forward or backward beyond its natural range of motion. If you feel any pain, that’s a sign that you’re overextending or overflexing your wrists.

Additionally, Neuberger advises making sure you aren’t using dumbbells that are too heavy. Otherwise, you could injure your wrists or forearms. “Your dumbbells don’t need to be particularly heavy to do these movements for them to be effective,” he says. If you find yourself using your entire arm for exercise moves where you should only be using your forearms, Neuberger says this is a sign your weights are too heavy.

How and When to Add Forearm Exercises to Your Workout Routine

In terms of when and how often to do these forearm exercises, Neuberger says they can be integrated into your upper body strength routine a few times a week. Just make sure you’re allowing the muscles to rest and recover by staggering your upper body strength training days instead of doing them back-to-back.

Even if you’re regularly strength training using dumbbells, a pull-up bar, or other tools that require grip strength, Felder says that it can still be beneficial to do forearm-specific exercises regularly. “Yes, [these muscles] are used in various strength training exercises, but integrating the suggested exercises focuses more on the forearm muscles specifically that we use and rely on with daily tasks,” she says. She adds that while compound movements, such as pull-ups and dumbbell exercises, do engage the forearm muscles for strengthening, they may not sufficiently target the grip endurance and wrist stability needed in sports, labor jobs, and daily life tasks. 

If you want to do forearm exercises the same day as a cardio workout, like a run or cycling session, Marcel recommends doing them before cardio, which is more effective for building muscle strength. 

Remember, when you strengthen your forearms, you’re improving your grip strength at the same time, an important marker for longevity. Stronger bodies live longer than frail ones. So get lifting!