Floor Press
Trains the Triceps.
- Equipment
- A barbell
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set a barbell in a rack low enough to reach while lying on the floor, or have it handed to you.
- Lie on your back on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat, or legs straight if that is more comfortable.
- Take an overhand grip a little wider than your shoulders and unrack the bar over your chest.
- Lower the bar until your upper arms touch the floor.
- Pause there for a moment — the floor stops the range, and the pause is what the exercise is for.
- Press back up to straight arms without bouncing the elbows off the floor.
Common mistakes
- Bouncing the elbows off the floor to start the press. That is the pause being skipped, and the pause is the whole point: the floor removes the stretch at the bottom of a bench press and leaves the press to start from a dead position.
- Setting up under a bar you cannot reach. Lying down and then finding the bar is out of reach with straight arms is a problem with no good solution once you are on the floor.
- Treating the shortened range as an excuse for a much heavier bar. It is shorter, and the top half is where the triceps do most of the work, so the load is limited by the lockout rather than the chest.
- Flaring the elbows wide as the weight gets heavy. The floor gives the elbow nowhere to go once it lands, and a wide elbow meeting the floor under load is the one position here worth setting up to avoid.