The Bent Press

c. 1880 – 1930 · One-arm overhead lift

The bent press is a one-arm overhead lift performed by raising a heavy dumbbell or barbell to the shoulder, then lowering the torso laterally — bending sideways under the bell — until the holding arm is locked vertically over the head. The lifter then stands up. It was the headline lift of every major strongman from the 1880s to the 1920s and was contested at international amateur level until the IWF removed it from the Olympic programme in the early 1930s.

Description

The lifter takes a bell to one shoulder by any means — usually a continental clean or a one-arm side clean. From the shouldered position, with the elbow tucked into the side and the bell resting on the shoulder, the lifter begins to lean sideways away from the loaded arm. As the torso bends, the loaded arm tracks the vertical: the arm does not press the bell up so much as the body falls beneath it. At full lateral lean — often very nearly horizontal at the torso — the loaded arm is locked, the bell is overhead, and the lifter stands up to complete the lift.

The bent press is, structurally, a lift of skeletal stacking rather than pressing strength. A competent bent presser can put up substantially more weight than they can press conventionally — sometimes 50 to 100 lb more. The lift requires considerable shoulder mobility, abdominal and oblique strength, and a learned coordination of leverage that takes years to develop. It is also dangerous: a failed lift, with the bell coming down on a laterally-loaded torso, can injure the shoulder, lower back, or knee.

Origins

The lift's origins are continental — German and Austrian variety theatres in the 1870s and 1880s — but its codification and teaching are Professor Attila's. Attila taught the lift to Sandow in Brussels in 1887 and through Sandow it entered the British and American repertoire.

Whether Attila originated the lift or systematised an existing one is contested; the lift in some form predates him in the German circuit. What is firm is that the bent press as performed in English-speaking music halls from 1889 onwards is the lift Attila taught.

Rules in competition

Under continental and British amateur rules, the bent press was performed with a barbell or a dumbbell. The bar could be brought to the shoulder by any means, including the continental clean. Once at the shoulder, the lifter had to lock out the arm overhead, bring the feet together, and stand erect with the bell stationary above the head. Movement of the supporting arm to push the bell after lockout was a fault.

The lift was contested at International Weightlifting Federation championships through the 1920s, with separate categories for the right and left hand. It was removed from the Olympic programme after the 1924 Paris Games and from the IWF programme by the early 1930s.

Record progression

The principal documented figures, in roughly chronological order:

• Eugen Sandow, c. 1893 — approximately 269 lb (122 kg). Bodyweight around 195 lb.
• George Hackenschmidt, 1898 — approximately 269 lb (122 kg).
• Arthur Saxon, 1902–1905 — progressively to 371 lb (168 kg). Recorded at the Apollo-Saal, London, 1905. The standing figure for the lift.
• Thomas Inch, 1911 — approximately 304 lb (138 kg).
• George F. Jowett, 1920s — approximately 256 lb (116 kg) at 175 lb bodyweight.
• Sigmund Klein, 1920s — 229 lb (104 kg) at 154 lb bodyweight, an unusually high pound-for-pound figure.

Saxon's 371 lb has not been credibly equalled since 1905. The lift effectively went out of competitive practice with the IWF's removal of it; the technique is now performed only as occasional exhibition.

Disputed and unresolved

Some figures attached to the lift in older sources — a 385 lb or 400 lb Saxon bent press, a Sandow bent press in the 280s — are not in the contemporary record. The 371 lb Saxon figure is the firm benchmark.

Whether the lift should be classified as a press or a structural manoeuvre was a live question in the 1900s and 1910s. The IWF's eventual position, which led to the lift's retirement, was that it was not a press in the sense the federation wished to standardise.