The Spoto press is a bench press that stops just short of the chest. You lower the bar until it is an inch or two above your shirt, hold it there without touching, then press. Nothing rests on the chest and nothing rebounds from it.
It is named after Eric Spoto, who bench pressed 722 lb (327.5 kg) without a bench shirt in May 2013, then the heaviest such lift on record. Mark Bell says he coined the name at his Super Training Gym after watching Spoto, who in Bell’s words “trained this way all the time”. Spoto’s own summary: “I do the pause right before hitting the chest.” Brolic lists it as Spoto Press (Barbell).
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the pectorals as the primary muscle group, with the front deltoids and triceps as secondary. The joint actions are the bench press’s own, over a slightly shorter range.
Barbell Logic places the hover at the sticking point for many lifters, where the pecs hand the work to the triceps. In a laboratory study of twelve experienced lifters, the help a bench press takes from its lowering phase faded as the pause lengthened, half of it within 0.85 seconds. That study tested pauses in general, not this lift.
Set up as for a bench press
- Keep your normal setup, with a spotter when you can. Barbell Logic and elitefts both start from the bench press setup you already use.
- Choose the stopping height. One to two inches (about 2.5 to 5 cm) above the chest is the usual instruction. Juggernaut’s Chad Wesley Smith stops lower, at half an inch to one inch.
- Go lighter than your bench press. Tony Gentilcore works between 60 and 80% of a one-rep max, using 60 to 75% for sets of 8 to 12; Barbell Logic programs mostly 2 to 8 reps.
These are starting points for learning the movement. If the bar touches your shirt or will not hold still, take weight off.
Lower, hold and press
Lower under control. Barbell Logic asks for a slow, controlled descent, and Bell for a tight one.
Stop above the chest and hold the bar motionless. Barbell Logic holds for one full second; elitefts holds for one to two. Bell describes simply reversing the bar before it touches the shirt; this guide follows the held version.
Press back to lockout from that hold.
Three errors change it:
- Sinking to a touch. A rep that reaches the chest is a paused bench press.
- Stopping high. Bell and Gentilcore both separate it from half reps.
- Losing tightness. Gentilcore describes the chest caving and shoulders rolling forward on the way down; meet the bar with the chest instead.
How it differs from a paused bench, pin press and board press
| Exercise | Where the bar stops |
|---|---|
| Paused bench press | Resting on the chest |
| Spoto press | Held just above the chest |
| Pin press | Resting on rack pins set at a chosen height |
| Board press | Resting on a board laid on the chest |
Spoto’s argument for the hover: a bar sitting on the chest is partly supported by it; a bar held above is all yours. A Reactive Training Systems coaching call takes the other side: a paused bench with a light touch and no sinking is “pretty much the same” lift. No trial compares them; the table sorts, it does not rank.
Logging
Brolic logs Spoto Press (Barbell) as a two-arm exercise in reps with a load. Enter the total on the bar, bar included (the barbell calculator adds it up), and count only reps that stopped clear of the chest. Keep it apart from your bench press history: Smith’s best Spoto press is about 87 to 88% of his competition bench, while Marisa Inda is as strong or stronger in it. The free workout log has room for the pause length, and the weekly set tally shows how these sets add to your chest work.
Common questions
Is a Spoto press a bench press record? No. Bell notes that in competition the bar must touch the chest and pause there.
Fast or slow on the way down? Most tutorials cited here lower under control; Smith teaches a quick descent stopped hard. Keep one style per history.
Can it replace the bench press? Bell says Spoto benched this way all the time, but that is one lifter. Nothing establishes that it builds more muscle or strength than benching to the chest; we found no trial.
My shoulders hurt near the bottom. Stop the bar a little higher or take weight off. If it still hurts, stop the set; pain is not a cue to press through.
Sources and method
- Mark Bell: Spoto press — the name, Spoto’s style, the half press and the competition rule; automatic captions.
- Mark Bell, Bodybuilding.com (2015) — Spoto’s quoted description of the pause; archived copy.
- How to Bench Press, with Eric Spoto — Spoto explains the lift from 11:45; automatic captions.
- OpenPowerlifting and Yahoo Sports (2013) — the 722 lb lift and its date.
- Josh Bryant, elitefts (2016) — height and pause; the record since broken.
- Barbell Logic (2021) — cues, sticking point, rep range; its short video is the second demonstration above.
- elitefts: Nic Bronkall — setup, height, hold.
- Tony Gentilcore (2021) — loads, half reps, tightness.
- Juggernaut Training Systems (2025) — descent, stop height, strength comparison.
- Reactive Training Systems (2018) — paused bench comparison.
- BarBend — pin and board press definitions.
- Wilson, Elliott and Wood (1991) — pause study; abstract only.
- Brolic catalog version 2026-09-22.1 — name, logging mode and muscle groups.
Heights, pause lengths and loads are coaching starting points, not optima established by a trial. A PubMed search for “Spoto press” on October 5, 2026 returned one paper, which used a bench press stopped about 3 inches above the chest as a priming exercise before explosive push-ups, not as training.
