Bent-Arm Barbell Pullover
Also works: Chest · Lats · Shoulders · Triceps
Lying on a flat bench, you take a barbell in an arc from over your chest to behind your head and back, keeping the elbows bent throughout. The bent elbow shortens the lever compared with a straight-arm pullover, which lets you handle real weight while the lats and the long head of the triceps fight shoulder flexion at end range.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Lie flat on the bench with your whole spine, head and both feet supported. Do not set up across the bench.
- Take a shoulder-width overhand grip and have a partner hand you the bar, or press it up from your chest before you start.
- Hold the bar over your lower chest with elbows bent to about 90 degrees and locked at that angle.
- Pull your ribs down and brace your abs so the lower back stays flat on the bench when the bar goes overhead.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale as the bar travels behind your head, exhale as you pull it back over your chest. Three seconds out, one back, no pause in the stretched position.
Before you load it
- The bar passes over your face on every rep. Work inside a rack with the pins set, or have a spotter standing at your head, and never take this to failure alone.
- Skip it if you have a history of shoulder impingement or anterior instability — the loaded end-range overhead position is exactly the one those shoulders dislike.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with an empty 20 kg bar or a light EZ bar and do a set purely to find your comfortable end range. Most people work in the 20-40 kg band for sets of ten. Add 2.5 kg only when every rep in a set reaches the same overhead position without the ribs flaring — range comes first, load second.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Brace and pull the ribs towards the hips before the first rep. If the arch still appears, shorten the range or bend the knees and put your feet flat on the bench.
Set the end range at the first point of firm stretch and stop there for the whole set. Extra centimetres behind your head add shoulder strain and no lat tension.
Fix the elbow angle at rep one and hold it. If the elbows keep opening, the weight is too heavy — drop 20% and treat it as a technical lift.
Press the bar off your chest into the start position, or use an EZ bar you can pick up from the floor while seated on the bench, then lie back with it.
Why bother
The lats attach to the upper arm, so anything that pulls the arm from overhead down towards the ribs trains them. The pullover is the only common movement that does this while you are lying on your back, which means the resistance is heaviest at the point where the arm is furthest overhead and the lats are longest.
Bending the elbows to roughly 90-100 degrees shortens the distance from your shoulder to the bar by a third or more. That drops the torque at the shoulder for any given weight, so you can load this considerably heavier than a straight-arm dumbbell pullover — but it also means the chest and triceps take more of the share. It is a lat exercise with a lot of company, not a lat isolation.
Where it fits
As accessory work after pulldowns or rows, or at the end of a chest day where it doubles as a stretch-biased finisher. Sets of 8-12, once a week. The old claim that it expands the rib cage is a myth from 1950s Squat-and-Milk routines; your ribs stopped growing when your growth plates closed.
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Asked and answered
Is this a chest exercise or a back exercise?
Both, with the split decided by your elbows and your range. Bent arms and a shorter arc bias the chest and triceps; a longer arc with the elbows held wide and the stretch felt under the armpits biases the lats. If you want it to be a lat movement, keep the elbow angle fixed and think about pulling the upper arms towards your ribs rather than pressing the bar.
Does the pullover expand your rib cage?
No. This claim comes from mid-century bodybuilding routines that paired breathing squats with light pullovers. Rib cartilage and bone stop growing when your growth plates close; what changes is intercostal and serratus development plus posture. Train it because it loads the lats at long muscle length, not to grow a bigger torso.
Barbell, EZ bar or dumbbell?
The EZ bar is usually the best of the three: the angled grip is kinder to the wrists and elbows through the arc, and it is easy to pick up from the floor. Use a dumbbell if you want the deepest stretch and are happy with lighter loads. Use the straight barbell if that is what you have — it is the least wrist-friendly of the three.
Is the pullover worth doing if I already do pulldowns and rows?
For most people it is the third or fourth best way to train the lats, and it costs you a shoulder position some lifters cannot afford. The one thing it does that pulldowns and rows do not is load the lat at full length, arm overhead and muscle stretched, and training a muscle in that lengthened position is worth some of your weekly volume. Two sets at the end of a session is the honest dose. Building a back day around it is not.