By Nadia Popescu, Strength & Conditioning Writer · Updated 19 September 2026
Take the backrest away from a seated press and your back starts to lean. Take your legs out of the equation as well and you're left with the Z press: sitting flat on the floor, legs out straight, pressing a weight overhead with nothing to help you except your own trunk. The strongman Zydrunas Savickas made it famous, and it's the most honest shoulder press you can do.
Most lifters are surprised by how little they can lift the first time. That's the point. The Z press finds out whether your core and upper back can actually support what your shoulders are pressing.
A pair of dumbbells or kettlebells is the easiest place to start. You'll need enough floor space to sit with your legs straight.
The one cue that matters
Keep your ribs down. The moment your chest flares up and you lean back to finish a rep, the press turns into an incline press and your lower back takes the strain. If you can't finish without leaning, the weight's too heavy.
The research on stability backs up why the lift feels so demanding. When Norwegian researchers compared seated and standing shoulder presses with barbells and dumbbells, the least stable version (standing with dumbbells) produced the highest deltoid activity but the lowest one-rep max (Saeterbakken and Fimland, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2013). They didn't test the Z press itself, but it applies the same principle: less support, lighter weight, more work for the muscles that keep the load steady.
It builds strict shoulder strength. With no leg drive to borrow from, every inch of the press comes from your shoulders and triceps. That's why it shows up as an accessory in so many strongman and weightlifting programmes: it strengthens the part of the overhead press where lifters stall.
It exposes and fixes a weak trunk. On a standing press you can hide a soft brace by leaning back and using your legs. On the floor you can't. A few weeks of Z pressing makes a good brace automatic, and that carries over to every standing lift.
It improves overhead position. To get the weight over your head while sitting upright, your shoulders and upper back have to move well. Stiff lifters find out quickly where the restriction is, and pressing through the range under control helps loosen it.
It needs very little kit. A pair of adjustable dumbbells or two kettlebells and a patch of floor is enough, so it fits a small home gym easily. The NHS recommends strength work for all the major muscle groups on at least two days a week, and the Z press covers the shoulders and arms for one of them.
Leaning back. The most common fault by a distance. If you lean, the chest does more work and your lower back arches under load. Drop the weight until you can press with your torso vertical.
Rounding over at the start. Tight hamstrings pull the pelvis backwards and your lower back rounds before you've even pressed. Sit on a mat or plate, or bend your knees, until you can sit tall.
Pressing forward instead of up. The weights should finish over the back of your head, not out in front of your face. Pressing forward makes the lockout far harder and loads the front of the shoulder.
Going too heavy too soon. Take whatever you use for a seated dumbbell press and knock off a good chunk. People who load it like their normal press either fail at the forehead or lean back to get the rep.
Losing the brace between reps. Resetting your breath at the top is fine. Letting your abs relax at the bottom, where you're about to press, isn't.
Treat the Z press as an accessory, not your main lift. After your main pressing, do 3 or 4 sets of 6 to 10 reps with about 90 seconds of rest, once or twice a week. If you don't do a standing press at all, it can take the main slot on an upper-body day, working in the 5 to 8 rep range.
Pair it with a pulling movement such as a chest-supported row or face pulls to balance the shoulders. When you can do every set with a vertical torso and the top rep still moves cleanly, add a couple of kilos.
A Z press is an overhead press done sitting on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and no back support. Taking away the leg drive and the backrest means your shoulders and triceps do all the pressing while your core and upper back hold you upright. It's named after the strongman Zydrunas Savickas, who popularised it.
Mainly the front and side deltoids and the triceps, with the upper chest and upper traps assisting. Your abs, obliques and spinal erectors work hard to keep your torso vertical, and your hip flexors and hamstrings get involved because you're sitting with straight legs.
Noticeably less, and the gap varies a lot from person to person depending on hamstring and hip mobility and how strong your trunk is. No study has measured it, so ignore anyone quoting a fixed percentage. Start well below your standing strict press and let the number find itself over a few sessions.
Start with dumbbells or kettlebells. They let each arm find its own path, which suits most shoulders, and if you lose balance you can simply lower them. The barbell version needs a rack or safety pins set low so you can get the bar in and out while seated on the floor.
That's common and usually comes down to tight hamstrings. Bend your knees slightly, sit on a folded mat or a 5kg plate to lift your hips, or cross your legs. Any of those lets you sit tall, which matters more than keeping the legs perfectly straight.
Three or four sets of 6 to 10 reps works well as an accessory after your main pressing, once or twice a week. Rest about 90 seconds. Keep every rep strict, and stop the set when you start leaning back to finish reps.
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