EZ-Bar Skullcrusher
Also works: Forearms
Lying on a bench, you take a close grip on the angled sleeves of an EZ bar and bend the elbows until the bar sits just above your forehead, then extend. The cambered bar lets the wrists sit half-turned instead of dead flat, which is why most lifters can train elbow extension heavy here when a straight bar makes the joint complain.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Grip the inner angles of the EZ bar so your hands sit about shoulder-width, palms half-turned inwards.
- Lie back on a flat bench with the bar at your chest, then press it up to straight arms over your shoulders.
- Tilt the upper arms back roughly 15 degrees toward your head — the bar path should end behind your skull, not on it.
- Set your feet flat on the floor and keep your shoulder blades pulled back into the bench.
- Have a rack or a training partner within reach. This is not a lift you want to bail without a plan.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale on the way down, pause briefly at the stretch, exhale as you extend. Three seconds down, one second up, no rest at the top.
Before you load it
- Take the bar past your forehead rather than straight to it. If an arm gives out, you want the bar to travel behind your head, not into your face.
- Sharp pain on the inside of the elbow means stop the set. Switch to a rope pushdown for a few weeks and rebuild the load from lighter than you think you need.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with the bare EZ bar (usually 7-10 kg) plus a small plate per side. Add 2.5 kg total once you can complete 12 reps with a controlled pause at the bottom and elbows that never move. If your elbows ache the following day, you have progressed too fast regardless of what the reps said.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Fix your upper arms at a 15-degree tilt and think of the elbows as hinges bolted in place. If they migrate, the weight is too heavy or the abs are not braced.
Keep the elbows about shoulder-width apart all the way down. Flaring recruits the chest and dumps the load onto the elbow joint from the side.
Pause for a count at the deepest point and start the press from a dead stop. Bouncing is what turns a good triceps exercise into elbow tendinopathy.
Use roughly a quarter of your close-grip bench for sets of 10 and build slowly. Elbow tendons adapt far slower than the triceps, and they are what fail here.
Why bother
The triceps get very little stretch in pressing movements — the elbow travels maybe 90 degrees under a load shared with the chest and shoulders. A skullcrusher isolates that joint completely and takes it through full flexion, so all three heads work through their whole range with a bar you can actually load.
The EZ bar's angle is not cosmetic. Holding a straight bar with a close grip forces the forearms into full pronation and the wrists into extension, which loads the medial elbow. The camber turns the hands roughly 20-30 degrees inwards and takes that torque out of the joint.
Where it fits
After bench pressing on a push day, 3-4 sets of 8-12. Two things not to do: skullcrushers immediately before heavy benching, and skullcrushers twice in the same week alongside close-grip pressing. The elbow tendons take the brunt of this movement and they recover slower than the muscle.
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
Asked and answered
To the forehead or behind the head?
Just past the forehead is the standard, and it keeps a clean escape route if a rep dies. Going all the way behind the head adds shoulder flexion and more long-head stretch, which is a legitimate variation — but it is a different exercise with a different load, not a deeper version of this one.
Why do my elbows hurt on skullcrushers?
Usually three things at once: too much weight, bouncing out of the bottom, and elbows flaring. Fix the technique, cut the load by a third, and pause every rep at the stretch. If the pain is on the inner elbow with a straight bar, the EZ bar's camber alone often solves it.
EZ bar or dumbbells?
EZ bar if you want to load it heavier and progress in small steps; dumbbells if your elbows still object, since each arm can find its own path. Most people run the EZ bar as the main version and keep dumbbells for weeks when the joints are grumpy.
Should I lock out at the top?
No. Stop about 10 degrees short and reverse. Locking out with the arms vertical parks the bar over a straight joint and gives the triceps a break in the middle of the set — the tilted upper-arm position exists precisely to prevent that.