maratoolBarbell Neck Press
How to do the barbell neck press
- Lie on a flat bench with you feet planted firmly on the floor.
- Grasp the bar a little wider than shoulder width apart.
- Raise the barbell above your body and move it to the top of your chest, near your neck.
- This is your starting position.
- Lower the bar down so it just touches the top of your chest.
- Raise the bar till your arms are fully extended and your elbows are locked.
- Return to starting position.
- Repeat.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the biceps add force at the elbow.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
A bench fixes the torso angle and gives you something to drive against, which is what lets the load go up without your position wandering.
Every exercise using:BarbellBench
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Bench Press - With Bandsband
- Bodyweight Flyese-z curl bar
- Bosu Ball Push Upexercise ball
- Butterflymachine
- Cable Chest Presscable
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.