Anti-Gravity Press
Also works: Middle Back · Traps · Triceps
Lying face down on an incline bench, you reverse-curl a barbell to your chest and then press it forward until the arms are straight and parallel to the floor. The name is misleading: because the bar travels horizontally while gravity pulls straight down, the work is holding your arms up against the bench, not pressing — which makes it a rear-delt and upper-back endurance drill with a press bolted on.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set an incline bench to roughly 30-45 degrees and place a light barbell on the floor at the head end.
- Lie face down with your chest on the pad and your chin just clear of the top edge so you can breathe.
- Let your feet find the floor or the bench frame — you want a base, not a balancing act.
- Reach down and take a pronated grip a little wider than shoulder width, then reverse-curl the bar up to chest height. Have someone hand it to you if the reach off the floor is awkward.
- Set your shoulder blades down and back before the first press; do not let them slide forward as you extend.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale as you press the bar out, inhale as you draw it back. Keep the tempo slow — two seconds out, a one-second hold at extension, two seconds back — because the hold is where the work lives.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with an empty 20 kg bar and expect it to be enough; many people are better served by a 10 kg technique bar. Progress in 2.5 kg steps only once you can hold the arms level for every rep of 15. If you find yourself wanting 40 kg, you are dropping the arms and turning this into a sloppy row.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Set a visual reference — a line on the wall or the end of the bench frame — and end the set the first rep the bar dips beneath it. Height, not reps, is the quality marker here.
Use an empty bar, or a fixed 10-15 kg bar, and add weight only in 2.5 kg jumps. The lever arm at full extension is long enough that small numbers feel large.
Push your chest down into the pad and think of lengthening the back of your neck away from the bar. The traps take over when the bar outweighs what the rear delts can hold level, so drop 2.5 kg the moment your shoulders creep toward your ears.
Keep your chin tucked and your gaze on the pad. Tilt the bench up a little more if you cannot breathe comfortably with a neutral neck.
Why bother
Lie prone and the load direction flips. With your chest supported on the incline and your arms out in front at shoulder height, gravity is trying to drop your arms toward the floor. Everything that keeps them level — rear deltoid, mid-trapezius, rhomboids, the long head of the triceps holding the elbow position — is under continuous isometric tension for the entire set.
Be clear about the press itself. Extending the elbows moves the bar forward, across gravity rather than against it, so the triceps do far less than the movement's name suggests. What actually rises as you extend is the lever arm on your shoulders: the bar gets further from the joint, and the rear delts and traps have to hold more torque. Long arms, light bar, and it still bites.
Where it fits
Accessory work at the end of a pull or shoulder day, 2-3 sets of 10-15 with an empty or near-empty bar. It suits people whose rear delts and mid-back get skipped, and it is one of the few upper-back drills that costs your lower back nothing because your chest is on the bench. Do not try to make it a strength lift.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Does this actually build shoulders?
It builds rear deltoid and mid-back endurance, which most lifters are short on. It will not build a bigger overhead press or thicker front delts — the load direction is wrong for that. Treat it as postural accessory work and keep a real overhead press in the program.
Why does it feel so hard with almost no weight?
At full extension the bar sits an arm's length from your shoulder joint, so a 20 kg bar produces the same torque a much heavier weight would if it were close to your body. Long levers, small loads. That is the whole design.
Can I do this with dumbbells instead?
Yes, and for most people it is more comfortable. Two light dumbbells let each shoulder find its own path and remove the awkward pick-up from the floor. The bar version's only advantage is that both arms are forced to travel together, which exposes a weak side.
What incline should the bench be at?
Between 30 and 45 degrees. Flatter puts your face into the pad and makes breathing miserable; steeper starts turning the movement into a vertical press and loses the horizontal hold that is the point of it.