▸ Arms

Lying Triceps Press

TricepsE-Z Curl Bar

intermediate · isolation · strength

The classic barbell skull crusher: lie flat, take an EZ bar overhand, and lower it to your forehead by bending only at the elbow. It loads the triceps harder than any cable variant, and the angled EZ grip is what keeps most people's wrists and elbows tolerating that load.

▸ How to

Own the movement

Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.

Before the first rep

Load the EZ bar on the floor behind the bench head, lie back, and roll it up over your head rather than curling it from your chest.
Take the inner angled grips, hands about 25-30 cm apart, palms rotated slightly inward.
Press the bar to arms length, then tip your upper arms back about 15 degrees so the bar sits over your forehead, not your chest.
Plant both feet and press your shoulder blades into the bench — no arch, no drive from the legs.
Fix your elbows at the width they land naturally and treat that width as part of the setup.

Every rep

Bend at the elbow only. If your upper arm moves toward your chest, that rep became a pullover.

Lower until the bar lightly touches your hairline or just behind it — never bang it into your forehead.

Control the descent over three seconds; the eccentric is where the triceps grows.

Reverse without bouncing off your skull. The bar should change direction because you decided it would.

Extend to just short of lockout and go straight into the next rep.

Breathing & tempo — Inhale on the way down, exhale as you extend. Three seconds down, no bounce at the bottom, one second up, no hard lockout at the top.

Before you load it

The bar travels over your face. Use collars, and if a rep stalls, lower it behind your head to the floor rather than fighting it back up over your forehead.
Roll the bar up from the floor or take a handoff. Curling a loaded EZ bar from your chest to the start position is how most people tweak a wrist before the set begins.

▸ Programming

Sets, reps & load

Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.

Strength

3-4 sets of 6-8

Hypertrophy

3-4 sets of 8-12

Endurance

2-3 sets of 15-20

Start with the empty EZ bar, usually 7-10 kg, and add small plates. Eight clean reps with 30 kg total is a respectable intermediate marker for a lifter benching bodyweight. Progress by adding a rep until you hit the top of the range across all sets, then add 2.5 kg and drop back to the bottom.

▸ Fix your form

What goes wrong

The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.

The elbows drift forward and the bar path turns into a close-grip press.

Strip 5 kg off and cue the upper arms to stay stacked. If you cannot hold the angle for eight reps, you were never doing extensions at that weight anyway.

Holding the upper arms dead vertical, so the triceps rests at the top of every rep.

Tip the arms back 15 degrees at setup and check the bar sits over your hairline, not your sternum, when your elbows are locked. You should feel the triceps still working at the top of the rep.

Cutting the bottom range so the bar stops 15 cm above the head.

Pick a weight where the bar reaches the hairline on every rep. Count only the reps that touch; leave the rest out of your log.

Flaring the elbows outward under load to grind out an extra rep.

Squeeze the bar hard and keep the upper arms parallel. When they start splaying, that is the last rep of the set, not the halfway point.

▸ The case for it

Why bother

A bar in two hands lets you handle more weight than dumbbells or a cable stack, and the triceps responds to load like any other muscle. Held with your upper arms roughly vertical, the elbow is the only joint moving, so nothing else in the chain can take a share of the work.

The EZ bar is not a comfort accessory. Its angled sleeves put your forearms in a half-pronated position, which unloads the wrist and lets the elbow track a few degrees wider. Lifters who get a sharp pinch on a straight bar usually find that pinch gone the moment they switch, at the same weight.

Where it fits

Second or third movement on a push day, after the bench press, 3-4 sets. Once a week is enough if you are also close-grip pressing; twice if extensions are your only direct triceps work. Do not stack it in the same session as heavy dips — the elbow takes the same beating twice and recovers from neither.

▸ Swap it out

If this one isn't it

No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.

▸ Questions

Asked and answered

Will skull crushers make my bench press stronger?

Only the lockout, and only if that is where you fail. Extensions build the triceps without touching the pattern, so the transfer is real but narrow — expect help in the top third and nothing off the chest. If you want carryover to the whole lift, close-grip bench and board presses do more; run extensions for the size and the elbow health, not as a bench programme.

Forehead, hairline, or behind the head?

Hairline is the standard. Stopping at the forehead is fine and slightly shorter; going behind the head turns it into an overhead extension with a longer stretch on the long head but far less stability. Pick one and be consistent, because the three are not the same exercise at the same weight.

Is this better than a triceps pushdown?

It loads the long head better, because your upper arm is tipped back rather than hanging at your side. A pushdown is easier on the elbow and easier to take to failure safely. Most people should do both: extensions for the heavy work, pushdowns for the volume.

My elbows click on every rep. Should I stop?

Painless clicking is usually just tendon moving over bone and is not a reason to quit. Pain, swelling, or a click that gets sharper set to set is. Cut the load by a third, slow the eccentric, and if it persists switch to a cable or a band where the load curve is gentler at the stretched position.