The Side Press

c. 1900 onwards · One-arm overhead

The side press is a one-arm overhead press in which the lifter leans away from the weight while pressing it to arm's length. It uses some of the leverage of the bent press but keeps the arm working as a press, so less weight can be handled. It was a secondary lift of the old-time strongmen and survives as a training lift, especially with kettlebells and dumbbells.

Description

The lifter takes the bell to one shoulder and stands with the feet apart. As the arm pushes the weight upward, the trunk leans sideways away from it, shortening the distance the arm must press and letting the lifter keep the forearm under the bell. Unlike the bent press, where the body falls away beneath a weight that the arm largely holds in place, in the side press the arm presses throughout and the lean is more moderate.

As a result the side press sits between the strict one-arm military press and the bent press: a lifter can usually handle more than in a strict one-arm press but clearly less than in a bent press.

Rules in competition

The side press appeared in the programmes of some early amateur and professional contests among the one-hand lifts, alongside the military press and bent press, but it never had a single agreed standard and was not an Olympic event. How far the lifter might lean, and whether the knees might bend, depended on local rules and on the referee.

Records

No reliable record progression for the side press survives. Because the line between side press and bent press was judged differently from place to place, figures reported as "side presses" are hard to compare, and this page does not list them. For one-arm overhead records, see the bent press, where Arthur Saxon's 168 kg is the accepted benchmark.

Disputed and unresolved

Many lifts reported in the 1900s as side presses might now be called bent presses, and the reverse. Without photographs or film the distinction often rests on the wording of a report.