As it says on the tin, this is a quick description of the viking press.
If you want to check out the viking press in the wild, in its natural habit of strongman competitions, you can see it here:
- as the first event in this Critical Bench meet report; and here
- in DIY form at Straight to the Bar
Otherwise, here is my version of the viking press.
The viking press: equipment
For the viking press, you don’t need a lot of equipment. Just a bar, a few weights plates, a dumbbell handle and a climbing sling. You can attach the sling to the dumbbell handle using a lark’s foot knot (see my post on the farmer’s walk bars for further details). The sling is then twisted onto the barbell as if applying a tourniquet.
This is the end view.
This is the side view. You can see that the bar is resting on two 12″ plyometric boxes (home made) and a couple of bricks for extra height. In the background you can see my climbing wall (home made), a fat bar (home made) and sledgehammers (sorry, not home made).
The viking press: a basic primer
This is the starting position of the viking press. Having seen last week’s photos of me doing the zercher squat, where I had about eleven chins, I am quite pleased that I don’t seem to be quite as fat here. I think perhaps I was taking the whole “chin tuck” thing a bit far…
This is the finishing position of the viking press.
There it is. I haven’t used it much. I used a one-arm version for a while but I didn’t like the effect. It felt a lot like the one-arm overhead dumbbell press, which is a nice strength exercise but does very little for muscle growth. I’ll be interested to see how this can be loaded up.
As always, if you’ve got another version of the same exercise or you try this one, please let me know.
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