The Svend press is a light chest exercise with weight plates. You squeeze one or two plates between your palms at chest height, press them straight out and bring them back, squeezing the whole time. The squeeze is the point: the coaches cited here care more about how hard you press the plates together than about what they weigh.
It is generally attributed to Svend Karlsen, the Norwegian strongman who won World’s Strongest Man in 2001. BarBend says he is “credited as the inventor”; we found no account from Karlsen himself, so treat that as an attribution, not a record. Brolic lists it as Svend Press (Weight Plate).
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the pectorals as the primary muscle group, with the front deltoids and triceps as secondary. That follows from the joint actions. The pectorals draw the upper arms toward the midline, which is the effort of pressing your palms together. The triceps straighten the elbows, and the front deltoids hold the arms and the plates up at chest height.
No study we could find has measured the Svend press, either its muscle activity or what it builds.
Set it up
- Stand tall, feet hip- to shoulder-width apart, knees unlocked, chest up and shoulders back.
- Sandwich the plates between open palms, fingers pointing forward, against your chest at about shoulder height.
- Squeeze before you press. BarBend’s check is that you already feel your chest working in the starting position.
- Go light. BarBend and Garage Gym Reviews both suggest two 5 lb or 10 lb plates (the nearest metric plates are 2.5 kg and 5 kg), and BarBend advises against going heavier than two 10s.
Those figures are starting points for learning the movement. If you cannot keep the squeeze on for every rep, go lighter.
Perform the press
Press straight out. Extend your arms fully, keeping the plates level. BarBend and Mark Bell finish slightly higher than they start; Garage Gym Reviews keeps the arms parallel to the floor. Pick one path and keep it.
Keep squeezing, out and back. Bell’s cue is to squeeze the plates together as hard as you can, then press.
Move slowly. Both written guides ask for slow reps; Garage Gym Reviews adds a pause at arm’s length.
Keep your chest up. Bell says that when he slumps, he feels nothing.
BarBend suggests three to four sets of 10 to 15 reps. Bell places it toward the end of a session or alongside push-ups or cable crossovers.
How it differs from a squeeze press and a normal press
| Svend press | Dumbbell squeeze press | Dumbbell bench press | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | Usually standing | Lying on a bench | Lying on a bench |
| In the hands | One or two plates | Two dumbbells kept touching | Two dumbbells held apart |
| Inward squeeze | Throughout | Throughout | None |
Christian Thibaudeau defines the squeeze press as a dumbbell bench press with the dumbbells touching and squeezed inward on every rep. BarBend calls it the hex press and suggests it for heavier loads than the Svend press allows.
Position explains the light plates. Standing, the plates pull straight down while you press forward, so, as Mind Pump’s hosts point out, the shoulders hold the weight up and the chest works through the squeeze; they prefer a bench for that reason. That is a coach’s judgement. No trial compares the three; the table separates them, it does not rank them.
Logging
Brolic logs Svend Press (Weight Plate) as a two-arm exercise in reps with a load. Enter the total weight in your hands: two 5 lb plates are 10 lb, not 5. Note whether you used one plate or two, and whether you stood or lay down. The number cannot show how hard you squeezed, so count only the reps where the squeeze held. The free workout log has room for those notes, and the weekly set tally shows what your chest already gets before you add more.
Common questions
One plate or two? Bodybuilding.com, BarBend and Garage Gym Reviews use two light plates pressed flat together; Weight Training Guide describes one plate, with two lighter ones as the alternative. Log which.
Standing or lying down? Garage Gym Reviews calls standing the most common way and lists a version lying on a bench or the floor. Nothing establishes that either builds more muscle.
Does it build the inner chest? Nothing establishes that; no study has measured the exercise.
Can it replace the bench press? The sources here say no. BarBend’s guide says the bench press matters more for chest growth, and Mind Pump’s hosts call this “not a mass builder”. Treat it as a light accessory.
My shoulders hurt when I press out. Use lighter plates or shorten the reach. If it still hurts, stop; pain is not a cue to push through.
Sources and method
- Bodybuilding.com: Svend press exercise guide — the standing two-plate setup and straight-out path, from its description and captions.
- Mark Bell for Bodybuilding.com — his squeeze, chest-up and press-out-and-up cues; automatic captions.
- BarBend: Svend press, by Ben Pollack, Ph.D., and exercises named after people — the Karlsen attribution, plate weights, sets and reps, and the bench press comparison.
- Bodybuilding.com: interview with Svend Karlsen — Norway and his 2001 title; it does not mention the exercise.
- Garage Gym Reviews, by Ravi Davda, CPT — plate weights, the level path, the pause and the lying version.
- Weight Training Guide — the single-plate version.
- Mind Pump TV — the shoulders’ role when standing; automatic captions.
- Christian Thibaudeau, T Nation (2016) and BarBend: hex press — the dumbbell squeeze press.
- Brolic catalog version 2026-09-22.1 — name, logging mode and muscle groups.
Plate weights and rep ranges are coaching starting points, not optima established by a trial, and no comparative growth claim is made. A PubMed search for “Svend press” on October 5, 2026 returned no results.
