Side Press & Bent Press: The Old-Time Art of Heavy Overhead Lifting [VIDEO]

The side press and the bent press belong to the same old-time strongman family. Both are one-arm overhead lifts, both use the whole body, and both demand much more than brute shoulder strength. But they are not the same lift.

Side Press vs. Bent Press

The simplest distinction is this:

In the side press, the weight starts at the side in the side-press rack, and you press it up while the body goes down
In the bent press, the weight starts farther back in the bent-press rack, and the weight stays at the same height while you move the body underneath it, until the final locking of the elbow and shoulder.

Side Press

The side press is still a press — but not an upright press. You begin with the weight racked at the side, brace hard, and press the bell overhead while simultaneously leaning and descending away from it. The bell travels up; the body travels down. The arm is actively pressing, but the torso is not passive. It yields to the side to create space, angle, and leverage. Compared to the military press, the side press allows the body to participate; compared to the bent press, the arm is still doing more obvious pressing work.

Bent Press

The bent press takes the same idea further. Here the weight is racked farther back, in the bent-press rack, where the upper arm connects strongly to the lat and the bell is positioned for the body to move underneath it. The lifter holds the weight at the same height, rotates and folds the torso, shifts the hips, and gets under the weight until the final locking of the elbow and shoulder. Then comes the stand-up. Alan Calvert wrote in Super Strength that “the bent-press is a combination of bodily strength and acquired skill,” and that is exactly the point: it is not merely a shoulder lift, but a whole-body leverage lift.

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Slow Press Continuum

A useful way to understand the family is: military press → side press → bent press. The more upright the body and the more direct the arm action, the closer you are to the military press. The more the weight moves from the side rack toward the back rack, and the more the torso bends, rotates, and descends under it while the weight stays at the same height, the closer you are to the bent press.

The side press: the arm presses and the body bends.
The bent press: the body moves under the bell until the final lockout.

The side press is the bridge. The bent press is the ultimate goal.

No wonder the old-timers loved the bent press. Siegmund Klein called it “The King of Lifts” and warned that weightlifters had made a great mistake by ignoring it. The lift allowed strongmen like Arthur Saxon to put enormous weights overhead with one hand — not by merely forcing the bell up, but by finding the strongest possible position underneath it.

That is why these lifts still matter. They teach what modern pressing often forgets: the body is one piece. The feet, hips, trunk, lats, grip, shoulder, and arm must all work together.

The side press teaches you to press while moving intelligently; the bent press teaches you to get under a weight that you could never simply press.

This is old-time strength: not just force, but leverage, structure, timing, and skill.

Image of the kettlebell side press: “This is a photograph of one of the many life-size, bronze sculptures of Lionel Strongfort, which now make his figure immortal in art. This was made from life by the famous sculptor Johannes Götz. Lionel Strongfort is the only athlete in the world who has ever been honored by having a bronze statue of his perfect full figure find permanent exhibition in the leading national Museums.” – Lionel Strongfort, Do It With Muscle!, 1924.

Learn the bent press, the “King of All Lifts”!

Kettlebell Instructor SFG II Certification –Zielona Góra, Poland—September 18-20, 2026
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If we have time—and I will make sure we do—we will also cover, as a bonus, three different variations of the modified side press.

Learn the following old-school, almost-forgotten kettlebell lifts – online!

Assisted Swing, Assisted Power Clean, Assisted Push Press, Standard Hand-to-Hand Swing, Calvert’s Hand-to-Hand Swing, Vaudeville / Strongman Get-Up, Get-Down / Get-Up, Palm Get-Up, Bottom-Up Get-Up, Swing to Power Clean, Split Clean, Dead Clean, Saxon Press, Strict Military Press, Klein’s Alternating Clean and Press, Bottom-Up Press, Lebedev’s Assisted Snatch, Power Snatch, Imperial Swing-Snatch, Dead Power Snatch, Bottom-Up Swing-Snatch, Modern Goerner’s Chain, Vintage Goerner’s Chain, Hack Squat, Hack Squat from the Bottom, Face-the-Wall Hack Squat, Kettlebell Windmill, Traditional Side Press, Side Press Rack, Anderson’s Half Side Press / Half Military Press, Windmill-Style Side Press, Squat Curl, Standing Curl, Bottom-Up Curl, Swiss Lift, Half Circular Swing, Full Circular Swing, Clockwise and Counterclockwise Circular Swing, Two-Arm Swing with Partial Release, Hand-to-Hand Swing, Palm Catch, Two-Hand Kettlebell Swing Flip, One-Hand Kettlebell Swing Flip, Hand-to-Hand Kettlebell Swing Flip, Palm Press…

Get ready for my upcoming online course, Kettlebell VIP: Vintage Iron Power for True All-Round Strength! Old-school lift variations. Forgotten methods. Timeless results. Favorite kettlebell lifts and “secrets of strength” from the Golden Era of legendary old-time strongmen.