Svend Press
Trains the Pecs.
- Equipment
- A weight plate
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Hold a weight plate flat between your palms at chest height, fingers pointing forward.
- Press your hands together hard — the squeeze is what loads the chest.
- Stand tall with your stomach braced.
- Press the plate straight out in front of you until the arms are almost straight.
- Keep squeezing the whole way out and the whole way back.
- Return the plate to your chest under control.
Common mistakes
- Stopping the squeeze once the arms move. The inward pressure is the exercise — without it this is a light plate being pushed around, and the chest does almost nothing.
- Using a plate too heavy to hold between the palms. Two smaller plates squeezed together often works better than one large one, and a plate that slips is the set ending.
- Expecting it to replace a press. The load is limited by what your palms can grip, which is a fraction of what the chest can move, and it sits alongside pressing rather than instead of it.
- Letting the shoulders round forward. Chest up and shoulders back is what keeps the squeeze in the chest rather than the front of the shoulder.