Dumbbell Floor Press

How to do it

1. Sit on the floor with a dumbbell in each hand resting on your thighs.
2. Lie back, rolling the dumbbells up to your chest as you go.
3. Bend your knees with your feet flat, or leave the legs straight.
4. Press both dumbbells up until the arms are almost straight.
5. Lower under control until your upper arms touch the floor, and pause there.
6. Press again from that dead stop rather than bouncing off the floor.

Common mistakes

• Bouncing the elbows off the floor. The pause is the exercise — the floor removes the stretch at the bottom of a press and leaves the triceps and chest to start from a standstill.
• Letting the elbows flare wide. The floor gives the elbow nowhere to go once it lands, and a wide elbow meeting the floor under load is the one position worth setting up to avoid.
• Treating the shortened range as licence for much heavier dumbbells. The top half is where the triceps do most of the work, so the lockout is what limits it rather than the chest.
• Getting into position by lowering the dumbbells from overhead. Rolling back with them on the thighs is the setup, and on the floor there is no bench to help.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Triceps

Secondary

• Pecs
• Shoulders