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Spoto Press: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and How to Program It
By Nadia Popescu, Strength & Conditioning Writer · Updated 4 November 2026
The Spoto press is a barbell bench press where you lower the bar to roughly 1 to 2cm above your chest, freeze it there for a second or two without touching, then drive it back up. It's named after Eric Spoto, the American powerlifter best known for a 327.5kg (722lb) raw bench press set in 2013, and it does one job well: it makes you own the bottom of the lift. Because the bar never rests on you, there's no bounce, no sinking into your ribcage, and nowhere to hide a sloppy bar path. Expect to use noticeably less weight than on your normal bench press.
How to do a Spoto press
Set up exactly as you would for a heavy bench. The only part that changes is the bottom of each rep, so a messy setup will show up straight away.
- Get tight on the bench. Lie with your eyes under the bar, squeeze your shoulder blades together and down, and plant your feet flat. Keep a modest arch; you want your upper back pinned, not a gymnastic bridge.
- Grip and unrack. Take your usual bench grip (forearms roughly vertical at the bottom), unrack and hold the bar over your shoulders with locked elbows. Breathe into your belly and brace.
- Lower slowly. Take around 2 seconds to bring the bar down towards your lower chest, the same line you'd touch on a normal rep. Keep your elbows tucked at about 45 to 70 degrees from your body.
- Stop just short. When the bar is roughly a finger's width or two above your shirt, stop it dead. Hold for 1 to 2 seconds. The bar shouldn't drift towards your face or your belly while you hold.
- Press. Drive the bar up and slightly back towards your shoulders, pushing your feet into the floor. Lock out, take a breath at the top if you need it, and go again.
The cue that makes it click
Think "row the bar down, then hover". Pulling the bar towards you with your lats on the way down gives you the control to stop it in mid-air. If you just let it fall and try to brake at the last second, you'll either touch your chest or lurch to a halt in a slightly different spot each rep.
A training partner can help you find the right height early on: have them hold a flat hand just above your sternum and stop the bar before it reaches their fingers. After a few sessions you'll feel the spot without help.
Muscles worked
The muscles are the same ones a flat bench trains. What changes is how long they work in the hardest part of the range.
- Pectoralis major. Your chest does most of the work at the bottom of a bench press, so holding the bar just above it keeps your pecs loaded at a long, stretched length for longer than a normal rep does.
- Front deltoids. The front of your shoulders assist the press from start to finish and take a share of the load during the hover.
- Triceps. They take over as the bar rises and finish the lockout. A Spoto press won't build lockout strength on its own, which is why lifters often pair it with a close-grip bench press.
- Lats and upper back. These are the muscles that surprise people. Your lats control the descent and hold the bar steady in the pause, and your upper back keeps your shoulder blades pinned so the press has a solid base.
Benefits
It kills the bounce. A touch-and-go rep borrows energy from the stretch at the bottom and, for many lifters, a little rebound off the chest. One study of 113 adults found people lifted around 8% more on a touch-and-go bench 1RM than when starting each rep from a dead stop (García-Ramos and colleagues, Sports Health, 2021). The Spoto press strips that help away, so the strength you build off the bottom is your own.
It builds strength where most benches fail. For a lot of lifters the sticking point sits a few centimetres above the chest. Starting the press from that exact height, with no momentum, trains the range you most need.
It grooves a consistent bar path. You can't stop the bar in the same place every time unless you lower it along the same line every time. After a few weeks the bar starts landing where it should on your regular bench too.
It gives you more consistent, honest reps. Pauses make bench press performance far less variable from one rep and session to the next. A Spanish lab study found that measurement error in bench press velocity testing was about 38% higher on normal reps than on reps with a 2-second pause between lowering and pressing (Pallarés and colleagues, Journal of Sports Sciences, 2014). For your training, that means a set of Spoto presses is a clean read on how strong you are that day.
It's useful for competitive lifters. Powerlifting rules require a pause on the chest, and the Spoto press builds the patience and control that make a commanded pause feel easy.
Common mistakes
Touching the chest. If the bar kisses your shirt, it's a paused bench press, not a Spoto press. Take weight off. Usually the load is too heavy to control at the bottom.
Stopping too high. Halting the bar 10cm up turns it into a partial rep and misses the whole point. Aim for 1 to 2cm, close enough that you can feel your shirt is nearly there.
Losing tightness in the pause. Some lifters stop the bar and then relax their shoulders or let their arch flatten. Stay braced through the hold; your back position at the end of the pause should match the start of it.
The bar drifting during the hold. If the bar creeps towards your belly or face, your lats aren't holding it. Slow the descent and think about bending the bar towards your feet.
Rushing the pause. A half-second twitch isn't a hold. Count "one thousand, two thousand" in your head if you need to, and only press once the bar is completely still.
How to program the Spoto press
It's a variation, so treat it like one. You'll lift less than on your touch-and-go bench (some lifters lose 15 to 20%, others closer to 10%), and chasing big numbers on it misses the point. Control comes first; weight comes second.
| Goal | Sets x reps | Load (% of bench 1RM) | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning the movement | 3 x 5 | 50 to 60% | 2 minutes |
| Strength off the chest | 4 x 3 to 4 | 70 to 80% | 2 to 3 minutes |
| Muscle and control | 3 x 6 to 8 | 60 to 70% | 90 seconds to 2 minutes |
Two simple ways to fit it in:
- As your main bench on a second press day. If you bench twice a week, keep your normal bench on day one and swap the second session to Spoto presses for a 4 to 6 week block.
- As your first accessory. Do your main bench sets, then 3 sets of Spoto presses at around 60 to 65% before moving on to the rest of your chest exercises.
Add 2.5kg once you can hit every rep with a dead-still hover. If you're training alone at home, set the safety arms on your power rack just below your chest height; a failed Spoto press tends to sink straight onto your sternum, and you want the pins there to catch it.
Variations
Larsen press. Same bench, legs held straight out off the floor. The Larsen press takes away leg drive and tests your upper-body setup, so it pairs well with the Spoto press in the same training block, one each session.
Paused bench press. Let the bar settle on your chest for 1 to 2 seconds before pressing. It's the competition style and lets you handle a bit more weight than the Spoto press, because your chest takes some of the load during the pause.
Pin press. Set the rack safeties at the height you'd stop a Spoto press, lower the bar onto them, let it rest dead, then press. It removes the stretch completely and lets you target one exact sticking point, though you lose the control element.
Dumbbell Spoto press. Lower a pair of dumbbells to just above chest level, hold and press. It's a good option for home gyms without a rack, and you can dump the dumbbells to the side if a rep fails. A sturdy flat bench is all you need.
Floor press. Not a Spoto press, but related: pressing from the floor cuts the range short and gives you a built-in pause at the bottom. The floor press is handy if you don't have a bench at all.
Who should use it?
The Spoto press suits anyone who's been benching consistently for at least a few months and wants to fix a specific problem. It's most useful if you:
- bounce the bar off your chest or rely on momentum to get reps
- get stuck a few centimetres above your chest on heavy singles
- see the bar land in a different spot from rep to rep
- compete in powerlifting and want an easier commanded pause
Skip it, or keep it very light, if you're brand new to lifting or if holding a bar just above your chest aggravates a shoulder issue. In those cases a controlled standard bench, or a dumbbell press with a neutral grip, is the better starting point.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a Spoto press?
A Spoto press is a barbell bench press where you lower the bar to about 1 to 2cm above your chest, hold it there for a second or two without touching, then press it back up. It's named after Eric Spoto, the American powerlifter known for one of the heaviest raw bench presses ever recorded, who used it to build control and strength just off the chest.
How heavy should a Spoto press be?
Lighter than your normal bench. Most lifters work at around 60 to 80% of their touch-and-go bench press 1RM for sets of 3 to 6. If you're new to it, start nearer 60% and judge the weight by whether you can hold a dead-still hover on every rep, not by how much is on the bar.
What's the difference between a Spoto press and a paused bench press?
On a paused bench press the bar sinks onto your chest and rests there before you press. On a Spoto press the bar never touches; you stop it in mid-air just above your shirt. That means you can't use your chest as a shelf, so your upper back, lats and pressing muscles have to hold the bar in position the whole time.
Spoto press vs Larsen press: which is better?
They fix different weaknesses. The Larsen press takes your legs out of the lift and tests your upper-back setup and stability. The Spoto press keeps your feet down and tests control at the bottom and strength just off the chest. If your bar wanders or you bounce reps, pick the Spoto press. If you lose tightness on the bench, pick the Larsen press.
Can you do a Spoto press with dumbbells?
Yes. Lower the dumbbells until they're just above chest level, hold for a count of one or two, then press. It's harder to judge the exact stopping point without a bar, so aim for a consistent depth (roughly where the handles line up with your chest) and use about 60 to 70% of your normal dumbbell press weight.
Is the Spoto press good for beginners?
It's useful once you can bench with steady technique, typically after a few months of regular training. Complete beginners get more from the standard bench press done with a controlled lowering. Add the Spoto press when you've got a consistent setup and want to clean up your bar path or stop bouncing the bar.
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